Dry Wetlands: Nutrient Dynamics in Ephemeral Constructed Stormwater Wetlands

Environmental Management - Constructed stormwater wetlands (CSWs) are used to address contaminants in urban stormwater such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), but their performance is variable....     

The presence and partitioning behavior of flame retardants in waste, leachate, and air particles from Norwegian waste-handling facilities

Flame retardants in commercial products eventually make their way into the waste stream.Herein the presence of flame retardants in Norwegian landfills, incineration facilities and recycling sorting/defragmenting facilities is investigated. These facilities handled waste electrical and electronic equipment(WEEE), vehicles, digestate, glass, combustibles, bottom ash and fly ash. The flame retardants considered included polybrominated diphenyl ethers(∑BDE-10) as well as dechlorane plus, polybrominated biphenyls, hexabromobenzene,pentabromotoluene and pentabromoethylbenzene(collectively referred to as ∑FR-7). Plastic,WEEE and vehicles contained the largest amount of flame retardants(∑BDE-10: 45,000–210,000 μg/kg; ∑FR-7: 300–13,000 μg/kg). It was hypothesized leachate and air concentrations from facilities that sort/defragment WEEE and vehicles would be the highest. This was supported for total air phase concentrations(∑BDE-10: 9000–195,000 pg/m~3 WEEE/vehicle facilities, 80–900 pg/m~3 in incineration/sorting and landfill sites), but not for water leachate concentrations(e.g., ∑BDE-10: 15–3500 ng/L in WEEE/Vehicle facilities and 1–250 ng/L in landfill sites). Landfill leachate exhibited similar concentrations as WEEE/vehicle sorting and defragmenting facility leachate. To better account for concentrations in leachates at the different facilities, waste-water partitioning coefficients, Kwastewere measured(for the first time to our knowledge for flame retardants). WEEE and plastic waste had elevated Kwastecompared to other wastes, likely because flame retardants are directly added to these materials. The results of this study have implications for the development of strategies to reduce exposure and environmental emissions of flame retardants in waste and recycled products through improved waste management practices.     

Accident models and organisational factors in air transport: The need for multi-method models

Event analysis is needed to learn and improve safety. In air transport, ‘occurrences’ are routinely reported by pilots and air traffic controllers, and in-flight data analysis systems automatically monitor aircraft system behaviour and capture parameter threshold exceedances. The safety analyst of a large airline has to analyse dozens of occurrences each day. To understand why events happened the analyst has to go beyond the given information and make causal inferences. The analyst is able to do this for causal factors closely related in time and space to the event itself by applying individual knowledge and expertise. But typically the result of the analysis is ad hoc reaction to each individual event. Systematic analysis is needed to find areas of improvement for factors that are further removed from the event (latent factors). New tools are needed to help the analyst in this respect. There is a need for models that represent possible causal event sequence scenarios that include technical, human, and organisational factors. Building such models is a huge task, and requires the combination of detailed knowledge of all aspects of the system, processing huge amounts of data, a substantial mathematical background and the ability to capture this all in a user friendly software tool to be used by the safety analysts. Experience in Causal Modelling of Air Transportation System (CATS) in the Netherlands and similar projects in FAA and Eurocontrol in aviation shows that this is indeed a formidable task, but it has to be done to further improve safety.     

From hanger-on to trendsetter: Decision making on a major safety initiative in a steel company maintenance department

This paper describes a case study of decision making in a steelworks maintenance department, which led to the introduction of a major initiative to improve safety performance. The origin of the decision process lay, however, not with safety, but with an earlier decision to consider outsourcing the maintenance department. When it was decided that this was not feasible a new General Manager was appointed to turn around the performance of the now demoralised department. In his search for solutions and the external developments taking place in parallel he found an initiative which seemed to link his main concerns with a parallel concern for safety improvement. The philosophy behind it and the vision and strategy which was developed to carry it led to a much more participative approach, driven by clearly defined key performance indicators. Safety was chosen as the lead objective. This paper describes the development of the decision process and briefly explains its results.     

The Moral Considerability of Invasive Transgenic Animals

The term moral considerability refers to the question of whether a being or set of beings is worthy of moral consideration. Moral considerability is most readily afforded to those beings that demonstrate the clearest relationship to rational humans, though many have also argued for and against the moral considerability of species, ecosystems, and “lesser” animals. Among these arguments there are at least two positions: “environmentalist” positions that tend to emphasize the systemic relations between species, and “liberationist” positions that tend to emphasize the attributes or welfare of a particular individual organism. Already, this classic conflict provides for some challenging theoretical clashes between environmentalists and animal liberationists. The question of moral considerability is complicated, however, by recent developments in genetic engineering. Some animals, like pigs and fish, have been genetically modified by humans to grow organs that can then be transplanted into humans. If environmental arguments for the moral consideration of species are correct, then we are released from our obligations to morally consider those animals that we have genetically modified, since they are by their nature always an “invader species.” If, instead, the welfare of the animal is of penultimate importance, then there is a case for strengthening the moral considerability of GM animals over “naturally-occurring” animals, since they bear a closer relationship to humans. This would appear to be an intractable problem, a “bad marriage,” as Mark Sagoff once proposed. This paper argues that the case of invasive transgenic animals exposes weaknesses in this classic conflict, and particularly, in the framing of this conflict. To remedy this framing problem, this paper argues for a reconceptualization of the term “moral considerability,” instead urging a strong distinction between moral considerability, moral relevance, and moral significance.     

Training courses for specialists in working conditions: Some survey results

Initial results are presented of a survey in 14 countries into the training of six professional groups in the area of working conditions. The groups are occupational physicians, occupational hygienists, safety advisors/engineers, ergonomists, occupational health nurses and health and safety/labour/ (social) insurance inspectors.The paper concentrates on the diversity of the professional groups involved in working conditions, the level, length and certification of their training, and, for a limited number of the countries surveyed, the overlap in training content between groups.Conclusions are drawn in respect of the potential for sharing of training content and materials.     

The role of lakeshore homeowner associations in environmental management

The purpose of this study was to determine what role lakeshore homeowner associations might play in environmental management. Lakeshore homeowner associations are formally organized groups of individuals owning property on or in the vicinity of a lake. Lakeshore homeowner associations in the Adirondack Park region of New York State were investigated by both a questionnaire mailed to all presidents and an informal field survey of some permanent lakeshore residents. The study showed that many of these organizations have become highly involved in an array of environmental management activities during their relatively long history. These activities include monitoring septic tank seepage, regulating the use of motorboats, restricting shoreline development, and assisting state and local planning agencies in detecting zoning violations. Some lakeshore homeowner associations are not highly involved in activities designed to maintain or improve quality of the lake environment. These associations are concerned instead primarily with organizing social events and performing other miscellaneous activities, such as access road maintenance. These associations, however, report lower overall water quality in their lakes than those associations with a high degree of involvement in environmental management. The study uncovered two important factors that tend to undermine the ability of lakeshore homeowner associations to undertake environmental management activities. One is the extent of cooperation that can be expected from nonmember residents of the lakeshore, such as seasonal vacationers. The second is an environmental problem that does not originate locally and therefore cannot be controlled by a local organization. Acid precipitation, rated by association presidents as their foremost water quality concern, is one such problem in the Adirondack Park Region.