Environmental Solutions: Environmental Problems and the All-inclusive global, scientific, political, legal, economic, medical, and engineering bases to solve them

pollution.

Biographies

Franklin J. Agardy, Ph.D. is President of Forensic Management Associates, a company focused on environmental litigation support and expert witness services. Dr. Agardy received a B.S. in civil engineering from the City College of New York in 1955, an M.S. in sanitary engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1958, and a Ph.D. degree in sanitary engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1963. He taught civil and sanitary engineering at San Jose State University and left the faculty as a tenured full professor in 1971. He spent 19 years with URS Corporation, retiring in 1988 as President of the corporation. After retirement he took the position of President/CEO/Chairman of In-Process Technology, Inc. in Sunnyvale, California, and at the same time formed Forensic Management Associates. Dr. Agardy is a Director of Komex Corporation, a Director of EGG Corporation, and holds an advisory seat on the Board of The Environmental Company. Dr. Agardy is a former member of the Dean’s Advisory Council, School of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, and currently is a guest lecturer at the university. Dr. Agardy has published over 50 articles and reports, has authored or co-authored, and co-edited four textbooks, and is a life member of a number of professional societies. During his career he has consulted to numerous federal, state, and local agencies on subjects ranging from environmental matters, nuclear weapons countermeasures, and international business development.

Fritz Balkau, Ph.D. is Head of the United Nations Environmental Programme’s Production and Consumption Branch in the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics.

Dr. Balkau graduated as a research chemist from Monash University in Australia in 1973. After some years teaching at Victoria University, he worked for the Environment Protection Authority in various functions concerned with environmental planning, waste and pollution management, chemicals, and environmental policy. He spent one year with the Chemicals Division of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development before joining UNEP’s Industry and Environment Office in Paris in 1987.

The Production and Consumption Branch of UNEP promotes and facilitates the worldwide implementation of cleaner and safer production approaches and more systematic industrial pollution management in key industry sectors, including resource industries such as mining, oil and gas. It also leads activities in UNEP to promote more sustainable patterns of consumption in civil society and industry. The unit has an active program of information exchange, environmental education, and training support on environmental control systems and tools to help governments and industry to adopt more systematic approaches to environmental management (see http://www.uneptie.org/pc/home.htm).

Frano Barbir, Ph.D. is currently a Professor-in-Residence at the Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center at the University of Connecticut. Prior to joining UConn in 2003, Dr. Barbir served as Director of Fuel Cell Technology and Chief Scientist at Proton Energy Systems in Wallingford, CT, and Vice President of Technology and Chief Scientist at Energy Partners, West Palm Beach. In these positions, he assembled and led research teams covering all areas of Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell technology including electrochemistry, materials, heat transfer and fluid mechanics. He led teams that developed novel fuel cell stacks (from 1 to 5 kW) with emphasis on low cost manufacturing, and applied them in a variety of working fuel cell systems, including five fuel cell powered vehicles. He is co-inventor on several fuel cell-related patents, and has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications, mostly on fuel cells and hydrogen energy, that appear in scientific journals, books, encyclopedias, and conference proceedings. He is currently an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, serving as Editor-in-Charge of that publication’s special issues on fuel cells. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of New Materials for Electrochemical Systems, EGE (Croatian Journal of Energy, Environment and Economics), and the Fuel Cell Virtual Journal.

Salah M. El Haggar, Ph.D., P.E. is the Professor of Energy and Environment at the American University in Cairo, Mechanical Engineering Department, Cairo, Egypt. Dr. El Haggar received a B.Sc. (1972) and an M.Sc. (1976) from Ain Shams University, Cairo, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Washington State University in 1983.

Dr. El Haggar has more than 30 years experience in energy and environmental consulting and university teaching. He has been a visiting professor at Washington State University and at University of Idaho. Dr. El Haggar has more than 18 academic honors, grants, and awards. He received the Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher Award at The American University in Cairo in 1995, as well as a number of outstanding AUC trustees awards. In addition, Dr. El Haggar has 105 scientific publications in environmental and energy fields, 29 invited presentations, 42 technical reports, and 10 books.

Dr. El-Haggar’s environmental consulting experience includes more than 40 environmental/industrial audits for major industrial identities, 20 compliance action plans, and nine environmental impact assessments. In addition, he has extensive consulting experience in environmental engineering, environmental auditing, environmental impact assessment, environmental management systems, cleaner production, industrial ecology, energy management, hazardous and non-hazardous waste management, recycling, pollution prevention and waste minimization, zero pollution, biogas/solar/wind technology, community/desert development, solid and industrial waste, and environmental assessment for the local government and private industries. Dr. El-Haggar is a member/board member of 14 national and international societies in the area of mechanical engineering, environmental engineering, and community development.

Suren Erkman, Ph.D. has an academic background in philosophy and biology, and holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Technology of Troyes (France). In 1994, after working for a number of years as a science and business journalist for various media, he created an organization headquartered in Geneva (Switzerland), the Institute for Communication and Analysis of Science and Technology (ICAST). ICAST’s mission is to provide independent information in a readily accessible form on scientific, technological and environmental issues, to companies, governments, international organizations, academic institutions and NGOs. In 1995, he launched an international network, Industrial Ecology Praxis, devoted to the dissemination and implementation of ideas relating to industrial ecology. He also teaches industrial ecology in various universities in Switzerland and abroad. Suren Erkman is a member of the Managing Board of the Journal of Industrial Ecology (MIT Press) and an elected member of the Council of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE).

Henry Falk, M.D., M.P.H. currently heads two organizations at the center of the Department of Health and Human Services’ work in environmental health. He serves as Director for both the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). In 2003, these two entities consolidated to form NCEH/ATSDR.

Dr. Falk arrived at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1972. He is also a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. This service culminated with his being named rear admiral and an appointment as assistant U.S. Surgeon General.

At NCEH, Dr. Falk heads the Center’s national effort to prevent or control environment-related diseases, illness, and deaths. He served NCEH for 14 years as Director of the Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects. At ATSDR, which was created by the 1980 Superfund legislation, Dr. Falk leads the federal agency whose mission is to protect public health from hazardous releases of toxic substances.

Dr. Falk earned his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1968. He received a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1976, and he is board-certified in pediatrics and in public health and general preventive medicine. Throughout his career at the CDC, Dr. Falk has lent knowledge and leadership to myriad public health projects around the United States and the world. His work includes contributions to the federal responses to Three-Mile Island, Mount St. Helens, Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew, and the September 11th attacks.

Dr. Falk has also authored or coauthored more than 100 publications in a variety of subjects, including vinyl chloride-induced liver cancer, prevention of lead poisoning, and the health effects of environmental hazards.

During his career, Dr. Falk and his distinguished work have been recognized many times. His honors include the Vernon Houk Award for Leadership in Preventing Childhood Lead Poisoning and the Homer C. Calver Award from the American Public Health Association. He has also received the CDC’s William C. Watson Jr. Medal of Excellence, as well as the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Public Health Service.

David R. Hokanson, Ph.D. is the Operations Manager of the Sustainable Futures Institute at Michigan Technological University. Dr. Hokanson is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Michigan Technological University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He worked for several years as a Research Engineer affiliated with the National Center for Clean Industrial and Treatment Technologies (CenCITT) at Michigan Technological University, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Center of Excellence and a partnership between Michigan Technological University (lead institution), the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Through CenCITT and the Sustainable Futures Institute, Dr. Hokanson has experience working on several federally funded projects in the area of pollution prevention, water treatment, and sustainability, including educational and outreach applications at many levels. Dr. Hokanson was also instrumental in the development of the textbook Water Treatment: Principles and Design, 2nd ed. (2005).

Edwin M. Kilbourne, MD is Chief Medical Officer Division of Environmental Hazards & Health Effects, National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. In this capacity he deals with emerging issues in medical toxicology, including prevention and management of biological/chemical terrorism. He also promotes CDC’s involvement with poison control centers in the service of public health.

Ernest Lowe is the Director of Indigo Development. He has played a central role in creating the concept of eco-industrial parks (EIP) as a model for local sustainable development. Current work also includes whole systems approaches to sustainable farming and building design. He is advisor to the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, State Environmental Protection Bureau, on EIPs and the Circular Economy.

In 2001–2002 Mr. Lowe served as industrial ecologist working on a year-long Asian Development Bank project promoting cleaner production in industrial estates in Sri Lanka. He was strategic planner for the Industrial Estates Authority of Thailand in 1999 in a project seeking to turn the authority’s 28 estates into eco-industrial estates.

Mr. Lowe guided the Dalian Development Zone in an eco-planning process for a 430-km² economic and technological development zone in Northeast China and the planning of an eco-industrial park there. This process explicitly linked the eco-industrial park with fulfillment of the zone’s obligation to model the Circular Economy mandated by Liaoning Province.

Mr. Lowe has served as a strategic planning consultant for eco-industrial park developments in Northern California, Puerto Rico, Texas, Maryland, West Virginia, Johannesburg, South Africa, Thailand, the Philippines, China, and Vietnam. He has led seminars and workshops on eco-industrial development in five Asian countries.

Mr. Lowe is author of the Eco-Industrial Handbook for Asian Developing Countries (2001), prepared for the Environment Department, Asian Development Bank (revised and updated from an earlier publication produced for the U.S. EPA.) This is available in a Chinese edition as Industrial Ecology and Eco-Industrial Parks (Beijing: Chemical Industries Press; see http://www.Indigodev.com/ADBHBdownloads.html). He is also co-author of Discovering Industrial Ecology: An Executive Briefing and Sourcebook (1997), prepared for the U.S. EPA Futures Group under a cooperative agreement with Pacific National Northwest Laboratory.

James R. Mihelcic, Ph.D. is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan Technological University and co-directs the Sustainable Futures Institute. He also directs the Master’s International program in civil and environmental engineering that allows students to combine graduate school with engineering service in the U.S. Peace Corps. Additional information on both efforts can be obtained at www.cee.mtu.edu/peacecorps and www.sfi.mtu.ed.

Dr. Mihelcic has worked with several precollege teachers to develop a middle school curriculum related to energy and pollution prevention. He is currently an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors ¡AEESP) and is a past recipient of the AEESP-Wiley Interscience Award for Outstanding Contributions to Environmental Engineering & Science Education. He is also the lead author of the textbook Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering (1999), which has been translated into Spanish as Fundamentos de Ingenieria Ambiental (2001). Dr. Mihelcic has studied environmental policy as an AAAS-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Fellow and is currently writing a book titled Sustainable Development Engineering: Engineering Appropriate Solutions for the Developing World.

Nelson L. Nemerow, Ph.D. is a retired professor of environmental engineering after over 50 years of teaching at various universities across the country. He is currently a consulting environmental engineer. He has published over 210 technical papers and 23 textbooks, primarily on the subjects of industrial waste treatment and stream pollution. His first textbook was published in 1963 on industrial waste treatment and his last book in 2004 on environmental engineering with Joseph Salvato and Franklin Agardy. He is also an editor of this book and a contributing author to Chapter 11. His major current field of special interest is the utilization of environmentally balanced industrial complexes to attain zero pollution from industrial plants.

Dr. Nemerow has taught in several universities providing his knowledge to many graduate students who are now actively engaged in a variety of important areas of the environment. As a consultant to industry and advisor to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Vienna and the World Health Organization, Dr. Nemerow has worked in many developing countries solving complex environmental problems. His research findings, largely on various industrial wastes, have been used to solve many significant waste problems.

Dr. Nemerow has been married to the same woman, a dedicated teacher of children and a talented artist, since he returned from WWII service with the Merchant Marines in 1948. He and his wife have 3 children and 4 grandchildren and reside in Encinitas, California. Dr. Nemerow and his children have given their working lives to the scientific betterment of humanity.

Daniel B. Oerther, Ph.D. earned a B.A. in biological sciences and a B.S. in environmental engineering at Northwestern University in 1995, an M.S. in environmental engineering, and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering, both from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Since the autumn of 2000, Professor Oerther has been teaching and researching environmental biotechnology at the University of Cincinnati. In the classroom, Dr. Oerther employs problem-based-learning and encourages students to work in design teams. He offers undergraduate courses on Applications of Computers in Civil and Environmental Engineering as well as Introduction to Environmental Engineering. At the graduate level, Dr. Oerther offers courses in the Chemistry and Microbiology of Environmental Systems as well as Molecular Biology Methods for Environmental Engineers. His research program, funded by various sources, including the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, focuses on the identification and control of pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water and biofilm systems, as well as the encouragement of biocatalytic microorganisms in sewage treatment and bioremediation systems. As a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Ohio, Professor Oerther performs consulting for local industry in Ohio as well as national clients including the City of New York. Among his awards and honors, Dr. Oerther is the recipient of the Engelbrecht Fellowship (1997) from the University of Illinois, the Distinguished Thesis Award (1998) and the Outstanding Educator Award (2004) from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, the Young Engineer of the Year for the State of Ohio (2003) from the National Society of Professional Engineers, and an early CAREER Award (2003) from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Oerther’s service to the environmental engineering community includes chairing the Research Symposium Committee for the Water Environment Federation Technical Exposition and Conference, serving as an associate editor for Water Environment Research, serving as treasurer of the Cincinnati chapter of Sigma Xi, and serving as President of the Cincinnati chapter of the National Society of Professional Engineers.

Bob Perciasepe is Chief Operating Officer for the National Audubon Society and responsible for overall operational management of the organization and public policy initiatives both at the national level and in coordination with Audubon state and chapter offices. He has 30 years of extensive experience in environmental and natural resources management, legislative and governmental affairs, and creative problem solving.

Mr. Perciasepe received a B.S. in natural resources from Cornell University and an M.S in planning from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

Mr. Perciasepe has been confirmed twice by the U.S. Senate, both times as an Assistant Administrator for the EPA (October 1993 and October 1998). First serving as Assistant Administrator for Water, and then Air and Radiation, he managed all aspects of air pollution control and water pollution control, and drinking water protection programs for the United States and coordinated with 50 state programs.

From 1990 to 1993, Mr. Perciasepe was Maryland’s Secretary of Environment and directed all aspects of pollution control and environmental protection in Maryland. He served as the first Chairman of the Northeast Ozone Transport Commission and on the Board of the Chesapeake Bay Trust. He also worked for Baltimore City as the Assistant Director of Planning.

Ramesh Ramaswamy is the convener of the Resource Optimization Initiative (ROI), an international effort to promote Industrial Ecology as a platform in the economic and environmental planning processes of developing countries. He consults internationally, as well as in India, and specializes in the application of industrial ecology in developing countries.

Mr. Ramaswamy has a basic degree in science and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He also has a diploma (Advanced Training in Management) from RVB, Holland (now called the Maastricht School of Management). After 16 years of experience in senior management positions in organized business, in 1989 he started his own consulting company, Technology Exchange Network (TEN), in Bangalore, India. He has been associated with industrial ecology since the early 1990s and has directed many field studies in India.

S. A. Sherif, Ph.D. is Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and is the Assistant Director of the Industrial Assessment Center and the Founding Director of the Wayne K. and Lyla L. Masur HVAC Laboratory at the University of Florida. He served on the faculties of the University of Florida (1991-present), University of Miami (1987–1991), and Northern Illinois University (1984–1987).

Dr. Sherif holds a Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University (1985), a B.Sc. degree (Honors, 1975) and an M.Sc. degree (1978) from Alexandria University, all in Mechanical Engineering. He is a Fellow of ASME, a Fellow of ASHRAE, an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and a member of Commission B1 on Thermodynamics and Transfer Processes of the International Institute of Refrigeration. He has edited or co-edited 25 bound volumes, and published 14 book chapters, 100 referenced journal papers, and 200 conference papers and technical reports. He is the recipient of the E.K. Campbell Award of Merit from ASHRAE in 1997 for outstanding service and achievement in teaching and a TIP Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Florida in 1998. In 2000, he was selected by the University of Florida’s College of Arts and Sciences as an Anderson/CLAS Scholar Faculty Honoree for Excellence in Teaching. In December 2002, Dr. Sherif was selected to be the sole recipient of the 2001 Kuwait Prize in Applied Sciences. He is also the 2003 recipient of the ASHRAE Distinguished Service Award.

Patrick Sullivan, Ph.D. is a Partner with Forensic Management Associates, a company focused on environmental litigation support and expert witness services. Dr. Sullivan received his B.S. in geochemistry from the University of California at Riverside in 1974 and a Ph.D. degree in soil chemistry from the University of California at Riverside in 1978. He was a senior environmental analyst at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. He later taught Environmental and Soil Sciences at Ball State University and left the faculty as a tenured associate professor in 1985. He was Manager of Environmental Chemistry at Western Research Institute at the University of Wyoming for three years. Since 1988, he has been an environmental forensics expert. Dr. Sullivan has been involved with environmental research, teaching, and environmental consulting for approximately 30 years. During this period, he has managed or directed an extensive number of research and laboratory studies, field investigations and legal cases dealing with (1) the environmental chemistry of soil, water, solid and hazardous wastes, (2) waste and wastewater treatment, (3) soil and groundwater geochemical modeling, and (4) the development of analytical test methods and QA/QC. Dr. Sullivan has published 35 articles and reports and has authored two textbooks. He also holds a patent on the application of laser Raman Spectroscopy for in situ continuous monitoring of organic compounds in groundwater.

Ram Tewari, Ph.D. is the Director of Solid Waste Operations Department (SWOD) for Broward County, Florida. He is a graduate of the University of Miami and has a Ph.D. in environmental engineering.

T. Nejat Veziroglu, Ph.D. graduated from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, with degrees in mechanical engineering (A.C.G.I., B.Sc.), advanced studies in engineering (D.I.C.), and heat transfer (Ph.D.). In 1962, after serving several governmental agencies and working in the private sector, he joined the faculty of University of Miami Engineering. In 1965, he became the Director of Graduate Studies for Mechanical Engineering, and two years later initiated the first Ph.D. Program in the School of Engineering and Architecture. He served as Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (1971–1975) and was the Associate Dean for Research of the School of Engineering and Architecture (1975–1979). He has published some 300 scientific papers and reports, edited more than 170 volumes of books and proceedings, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the monthly scientific journals International Journal of Hydrogen Energy and International Journal of Energy-Environment-Economics. He has been an invited lecturer and/or consultant on energy research and education to the former Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, India, Pakistan, Japan, Canada, Germany, England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. He organized the first major conference on hydrogen energy: The Hydrogen Economy Miami Energy (THEME) Conference, Miami Beach, Florida, in March 1974. This conference considered hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels, as a clean, renewable fuel, and aroused wide interest throughout the world. Subsequently, several conferences and symposia have been organized by Dr. Veziroglu on energy- and environment-related subjects. Dr. Veziroglu is a member of 18 scientific organizations, has been elected to the grade of Fellow in the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is the Founding President of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy. In recognition of his many research contributions, Dr. Veziroglu has been the recipient of several international awards. He was presented the Turkish Presidential Science Award in 1974, made an Honorary Professor at Xian Jiaotong University of China in 1981, awarded the I.V. Kurchatov Medal by the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy of U.S.S.R. in 1982, and the Energy for Mankind Award by the Global Energy Society in 1986, and was a Noble Prize nominee in Economics for the year 2000.

John B. Wilcox, Ph.D. is Senior Scientist with Conestoga-Rovers & Associates. He has a doctorate in chemistry and over 20 years experience in the environmental field focusing on providing environmental permitting, compliance and engineering services for a wide range of manufacturing, service, and waste disposal industries. Dr. Wilcox is also a recognized expert in the field of thermal treatment technology, with special expertise in medical waste management and disposal. He has prepared thermal treatment-based remedial designs and managed air quality issues for numerous RCRA facilities and CERCLA sites. In addition to environmental consulting, Dr. Wilcox’s direct industry experience includes applied research and development of thermal treatment systems and semiconductor fabrication equipment. He has authored numerous papers and patents in his fields.

Part I

Politics and Policies of Pollution

Outline

Chapter 1: The Political Environment

Chapter 2: Forensic (Legal) Perspectives

Chapter 3: Educational Solutions

CHAPTER 1

The Political Environment

Bob Perciasepe

Publisher Summary

This chapter discusses the role played by politics in deriving solutions for environmental issues. Virtually all environmental solutions are implemented in a political context. The way the solution advances its goals and expectations and how the community or society in general perceive the solution can result in either tough sledding or smooth sailing for the solution providers. Understanding this reality and embracing the fact that politics is a tool that governs how a democratic society works out its conflicting interests can improve the ability of practitioners to successfully solve environmental problems. Politics can either act as a significant barrier to new approaches and significant paradigm shifts, or can act as the lubricant for innovation. Understanding the geographic forum, the legal format, the various interest groups, and where and why they stand on different places along a set of policy continuums, will enable a person working on environmental solutions to engage in the existing political process or to begin a new one. Working with all the interests, developing common sets of understanding, and working to develop acceptance are necessary for long-term acceptance of the solution. Finding the leadership of the different interests, engaging them early, addressing the issues in a framework in which they will be responsive to, deals with the issues that bring them to the table as an interested party, and these are all necessary for the success of environmental solution.

Introduction

Virtually all environmental solutions are implemented in a political context. While that statement can send chills down the back of many environmental experts and practitioners, the reality is that most decisions must further a set of goals or expectations derived from a political process. How the solution advances those goals and expectations and how the community or society in general perceive it, can result in some tough sledding or smooth sailing.

Understanding this reality and embracing the fact that politics are the tools that govern how a democratic society works out its conflicting interests, can improve the ability of practitioners to successfully solve environmental problems. Politics, to a large degree, created the modern environmental legal and regulatory framework within which most solutions reside. Politics can also be a significant barrier to new approaches and significant paradigm shifts as the broader community and their elected and appointed representatives work to sort out the conflicting values. Likewise the politics of necessity can be the lubricant for innovation.

Recognizing that there is often a political aspect to the solutions we seek to have implemented can actually be an empowering observation, because it means that solution advocates can be part of the discussion.

By now you recognize that the term political here is not referring to the partisan politics of elections but the practical politics of society dealing with multiple objectives. Should economic considerations be more important than clean-up goals? Should our objective be to protect the general population or some sensitive sub-population like children? Should a stream restoration end before it has been returned to some pristine condition? These are examples of policy or political considerations that are value driven. If society can instruct the process, in a unified way, of where it wants to end up on any of those continuums, the technical work can be done to devise the solution. If on the other hand, a solution is put forward that is ahead of that normalizing process, it can be rejected before it has the chance to be explained and debated. Allocating public resources, mitigating involuntary risks, and preserving other societal demands are all subject to political debate as to what is acceptable.

These policy continuums are present in most environmental debates and solution designs. They overlay the technical and scientific aspects of our work. Where the community at large frames the solution and, how the solution fits into that frame is very important. In most policy debates, there are preconceived perspectives from different audiences in advance of any detailed or specific discussion. As a simplistic example, it would be easy to see an environmental group being skeptical of a solution being offered by an industry representative. Likewise, one could visualize an industry environmental practitioner expecting a proposal from a local environmental organization to be unworkable before listening to the concerns. While the real world experiences never follow this kind of simple calculus, these perceptions are real and understanding they exist can be very helpful in developing fact-based discussions about solutions.

We will discuss the nature of these policy continuums with some examples to better understand how they can influence environmental solutions.

The debates over policy can also happen in many different forums. There is no official place where you can go to have your political discussion about the environment. Some issues will be debated and discussed at forums as diverse as the United Nations (UN) to a local town council. Some are discussed in official meetings with agency experts and decision makers, while others may take place on the floors of the Congress in Washington, D.C.

Issues related to global warming or climate change are good examples of where debates can occur at the international level under the sponsorship of organizations like the UN or at the local town or city level. Trying to develop a global framework and greenhouse gas target will likely be debated at the appropriate international forums. Statements in favor of one approach or the other could come from local resolutions sent to the larger international forums as well as local contributions toward solutions (a town energy ordinance or a state-level renewable fuel portfolio are examples of more local policies). Here you have a large-scale environmental problem that can have solutions or actions at the international and local levels.

The debates over these different aspects of an environmental issue take place in many different forums. It is important to understand what forum you are in and what format the decisions are being made or codified. The basic formats include: government budgets, where funding can be allocated for a solution; laws passed at local, state, and national levels; regulations or guidelines that provide the road maps for implementing laws, and agreements between parties from interstate agreements to international treaties.

Part of the dynamics of politics includes understanding how policy implications can change over time. We like to think there is a solution for any environmental problem, and that is generally true. What changes over time can be society’s values concerning how much risk is acceptable, our understanding of technology and our ability to continually innovate less costly solutions or our understanding of the environmental problem, and the nature of the impact. All of these factors play a role and influence the many different interest groups that engage in the political debate. Understanding the various interests in a debate is another essential element of understanding how environmental solutions can be influenced by politics. The risk acceptable to one group may not be acceptable to another, one group’s perception or confidence in an innovative solution will differ from another’s. These are all-important pieces of the political discussion and include public interest groups, groups with economic interests, groups substantially value driven, and groups directly impacted by actions or solutions.

We can summarize the elements of understanding and interacting with the politics of environmental solutions into four overarching categories:

The Political Forums

Local, state, national, international, and agency decision-making processes

The Format of the Debate

Budgets, laws, regulations or guidance, and agreements

The Interest Groups

Public, economic, values oriented, and those directly impacted

Policy/Political Continuums

Use of public resources, health risk, economic, environmental restoration, and science

These four elements are discussed in detail in the following sections of this chapter. It is important to remember that this chapter is an overview of politics and environmental solutions and as such should give the reader a basic understanding and appreciation of how it affects their work.

Political Forums

A strong argument can be made that the ultimate forum for politics is public opinion. That thought needs to be kept in mind throughout this discussion and many environmental solutions will have their day in that court. However, there will always be an institutional and geographic setting where public opinion is formed during the process of reconciling conflicting public and private interests. The location and design of a landfill or solid waste transfer station will be of keen interest at the local level; it may be of moderate interest at the state level and may have no public interest at the national level. While national standards for landfills can have strong interest at a national level by the interested parties, they may have very spotty interest at local levels.

Where public interest and therefore opinion can be influenced, is a fact that needs to be understood when working on environmental issues and solutions. We talk about this in tandem with the next sections on formats and interest groups, but the initial key to understanding how politics may impact the decisions around environmental solutions is to understand the forum.

So how do we go about the business of determining the political setting for the work we are doing? Like many things in the policy world there are no hard and fast rules, but there are certain helpful attributes.

The easiest attribute to examine is the geographic area of influence. The more site specific an environmental problem is the more local the solution will be. As you read through the later chapters of the book you will be going into great detail on physical, biological, chemical, and even economic solutions. Each of these can be very site specific. They can also have more far-reaching effects if they are first-time solutions or a new approach with limited prior exposure. In these instances a very local solution with all of the local impacts and interests at play can also gain state and even national attention. Thus, the site-specific nature of a solution or issue can be expanded geographically if it may be replicated and applied at other sites or locations. The key here is that the geographic effect plays a role in determining the political