Environmental professionals, if nothing else, can rightly claim an occupational niche that is anything but boring. The saying, “May you live in interesting times,” truly captures the dynamism of our work, even if it probably does not stem from an authentic ancient Chinese curse.

I read with great interest Cynthia J. Branton's piece titled “An Introduction to Religion and Ecology” in the December 2006 issue of Environmental Practice. It took me back some 20-plus years ago, when I heard Russell Brenneman, Esq.—a distinguished member of the Hartford, Connecticut, law firm of Murtha, Cullina, Richter and Pinney, but more importantly known as Amy Brenneman's dad—speak to a congregation on “How to Paint Your Church Green.” This was a grassroots program as to how to be better stewards of your environment and build your faith simultaneously. Russ always embodied the basic tenets of environmental stewardship and was considered the dean of New England's environmental law community. He is presently the elder statesman of our environmental stewardship movement and through his presentations has hopefully created many a “green church” and “green congregation.”

The need to conserve biodiversity is recognized as an international problem. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (http://www.biodiv.org) and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (http://ramsar.org) are two examples of international treaties that recognize this issue. The CBD contains explicit impact assessment provisions. Because the US has failed to ratify the CBD, joining Andorra, the Holy See, Iraq, Somalia, and Timor-Leste as the only nations that have not done so, the federal government has not had a consistent approach in its decision making. Nevertheless, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) does provide a mandate and a framework for federal agencies to consider biodiversity impacts, along with other reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of their actions. NEPA Section 101 discusses the need to preserve important historic cultural and natural aspects of our natural heritage. NEPA Section 102 requires a systematic interdisciplinary approach to environmental impact review and that agencies utilize ecological information in planning and development. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations (40 CFR 1508) further explain that effects that must be analyzed in a NEPA review include “ecological, such as the effects on natural resources and on the components, structures, and functioning of affected ecosystems … whether direct, indirect or cumulative.” The International Association for Impact Assessment (2005) has recognized impact assessment as an important decision-support tool to help plan and implement development with biodiversity in mind.

The 32nd annual conference for the National Association of Environmental Professionals was held from April 22–25, 2007, in Orlando, Florida. As a student at The Evergreen State College and volunteer Assistant Editor of Environmental Practice, I was able to attend. The conference was hosted by the Florida Association of Environmental Professionals and a total of 273 people attended, including eleven international participants from Belarus, Canada, England, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Sweden. Attending the conference was a valuable experience for me, especially to see how my academic background could be applied to finding practical solutions to environmental problems.

Books & resources.

Thirty-seven years after the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was passed, it should come as no surprise that the United States Congress, the President, federal agencies, and private industry have unleashed a major effort to streamline, update, or “reform” the NEPA process. Many of the major stakeholders, even including some environmental interests, believe that NEPA has failed to reach its objectives. Recent Congressional actions or proposals to expand exemptions from NEPA for certain projects, compress environmental review time, and even delegate NEPA compliance to the states are seen by NEPA supporters as overreactions that could eviscerate the Act's purposes and objectives. This article analyzes some of the benefits and risks of “environmental streamlining,” which apply not only to NEPA but also to investigations and reviews required by federal or state agencies responsible for compliance with other environmental laws. The focus is on recent federal legislation, Congressional proposals, Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) initiatives, and actions of selected federal agencies.

Environmental Practice 9:83–95 (2007)

The US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) baseline Hudson River health risk assessment (HRA) is evaluated and found to be biased toward keeping polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in sediments. The HRA systematically mis-quantified parameters, underestimating PCB movement from sediments to water and from water to air. The EPA excluded from its analysis all mono- and dichlorinated PCB congeners, which EPA subsequently estimated at one-third of total PCB mass in the river, and excluded dissolved and colloidal PCB. The EPA included silt-adsorbed PCB, but overestimated the rate at which it would settle out of the water column by inappropriately basing the rate on Stokes' Law for more massive spherical particles. Flat clay particles settle more slowly with a longer path length and residence time. The EPA omitted electrostatic charges on clay particles that separate them, preventing agglomeration and maintaining clay in suspension; they also assumed that particles never “reflect” back into the water column after settling, likewise underestimating PCB concentrations in water. Also omitted was PCB codistillation, in which PCBs at low bulk concentrations preferentially distribute to the air-water interface, accelerating PCB transfer from water to air. Indeed, EPA cited empirical data showing more rapid PCB water-to-air transfer, but reduced its effect on the HRA, reducing the transfer coefficient by averaging in lower modeled PCB transfer coefficients that ignored codistillation. Finally, EPA omitted PCB release to the atmosphere from hot water in cooling towers in communities along the Hudson River. Water at cooling tower temperatures may release PCB into the air more than 10 times faster than rates determined from the surface of cold water and multiple orders of magnitude more rapidly than in EPA's models. Together, EPA's procedures reduced airborne PCB concentrations from above to below de minimis concentrations. This, in turn, eliminated the requirement for EPA's HRA to quantify inhalation risks posed by airborne PCBs; the HRA, therefore, considered airborne PCBs, but attributed zero health risk to them.

Environmental Practice 9:96–111 (2007)

To prevent wildfires from damaging communities in the American West, many federal wildfire hazard reduction projects in the United States target fuel reduction on federal lands. Current federal policies stress efforts in the 77 million hectares of federally owned land considered to be in need of fuel reduction treatment. There is considerable debate, however, about whether this is more effective than fuel reduction efforts focused directly on the wildland-urban interface around communities. The project reported here uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to help provide spatial context and illustrate the approximate relative scales of the options involved. GIS was used to determine ownership patterns of lands in 500 meter buffers around all areas designated by the US Census as populated places in the 11 western states and to determine the amount of federal land most in need of treatment within these buffers. Within these 500 meter buffers, 68% of the lands are privately owned. Only 17.7% of the lands within the buffers are federal lands, while only 15%, or 310,771 hectares, of the buffers are both federally owned and considered to be most in need of treatment. A conclusion is drawn that targeting federal lands for fuel reduction may not sufficiently protect certain communities from wildland fire.

Environmental Practice 9:112–118 (2007)

Public involvement in the planning process is a prerequisite for democratic outcomes. Environmental issues regarding impacts of sound tend to be limited to mere exercises in noise estimation and guideline values. Such information is difficult for the layman to understand, and such a lack of understanding produces shortcomings in the democratic process. In addition to decibel calculations interpretable by experts, the sonic environment also can be described in more accessible ways. This article reports on a concrete planning case, the widening of the railway through Åkarp in southern Sweden, where the usual calculations of equivalent noise and maximum noise are undergoing critical analysis. In order to complement the noise description, a new measurement has been devised, “high noise time,” which is equal to the total time per 24 hours in which trains pass through a place without stopping. The frequency and duration of the passing of trains may be a better measure of disturbance than the maximum noise peak per passage or the equivalent (average) noise level distributed over 24 hours. Film technology also has been developed as a method for recording the frequency and duration of train passage.

Environmental Practice 9:119–127 (2007)

Water plays an integral role in most other resources, including, of course, life. The distribution of water is quite asymmetrical. Indeed, all our natural resources are distributed that way. The pattern is universal and underlies the Resource Buffer Theory (RBT), which implies that the large proportion of the asymmetrically distributed resource is a buffer on which we depend for the conditions that both have enabled life and ensure its—our—sustainability. Water's unique properties and universality mean that it is civilization's canary in the coal mine: if the water and associated environmental conditions are having problems, humans are having problems. Humans violate the universal pattern of carbon distribution by our numbers and by the conversion of insignificant proportions of the huge inorganic carbon buffer into the relatively miniscule carbon dioxide buffer with enormous impact. Like drought, which creeps up on us and has no apparent beginning, the current environmental changes are harbingers of a future wherein the most endangered species on the planet is us, the most invasive of species. We are exacerbating—and in particularly important cases, causing—those threats. A 400-year-old dictum by Sir Francis Bacon includes an urgent message for us in understanding how we adversely impact Earth's support systems. It also provides a strategy for how to deal with the challenges currently facing humanity. Two examples of how we can emulate the natural distribution of resources are presented. Hopefully, the time to act is not beyond our reach; there are some identifiable policy and management implications of these observations about the universal pattern of resource distribution, strategies, and practices, which we can and must exercise to have a chance at human sustainability.

Environmental Practice 9:128–135 (2007)

Environmental Citizenship. Andrew Dobson and Derek Bell, eds. 2006. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 296 pp. $125.00 hardcover; $24.00 paperback.

Citizenship and the Environment. Andrew Dobson. 2003. Oxford University Press, New York. 227 pp. $119.95 hardcover; $39.95 paperback.

Western political culture has proven itself to be remarkably durable. Despite the vicissitudes of the last twenty-five hundred years, many of its core beliefs and philosophical assumptions are still intact and continue to exert considerable influence on our contemporary political discourse. Perhaps the most venerable political construct to have survived from classical antiquity is the concept of citizenship. The ancient Greeks believed that the good life could only be achieved by the direct and active participation of the individual in the public sphere. That the Greeks explicitly privileged the public space of politics over the private space of the home is made clear by their use of the term “idiot” to characterize people who did not participate in the affairs of the political community or polis.

Coexisting with Large Carnivores: Lessons from Greater Yellowstone. T. W. Clark, M. B. Rutherford, and D. Casey, eds. 2005. Island Press, Washington, DC. 290 pp. $60.00 hardcover, $30.00 paperback.

Large mammalian predators form a basis for much conservation research for several reasons. As a group, they are land dependent and thus more extinction prone than most other organisms, can frequently serve as both flagship and umbrella species, and they are scary. The last has inspired mythologies from cultures worldwide. For any conservation issue and any species of concern, it is well accepted that science alone, while essential, will not solve the core of the problem. The crux of decline and endangerment lies in species' interactions with humans and thus, solutions will necessarily involve input from the social and policy sciences. Tim Clark has built his professional career on the last point, and it is an important one. Yellowstone National Park itself is a symbol, as are the three large predators that inhabit its vastness: grizzlies (Ursus arctos), wolves (Canis lupus), and cougars (Felis concolor). For some, these species are symbols of a healthy wilderness and an irreplaceable natural heritage; for others, they are symbols of horror and death. To many Americans, they may symbolize both. To an unfortunately large degree, previous federal eradication policies were so successful that the first two of the species are federally listed in all areas except Alaska, and the third (the cougar) is listed in Florida, the only Eastern state with a remnant wild population. Predators color our fears and inspire our hearts, but they also present unique and fascinating issues for conservationists and conservation research.

What's Toxic, What's Not. Gary Ginsberg and Brian Toal. 2006. Berkley Books, the Penguin Group, New York. 376 pp. $15.00 paperback.

“Get the Facts—and Guard Your Family's Health” … “Everything You Need to Know about: Mold, Lead, Radon, Asbestos, Food Additives, Power Lines, Cancer Clusters, etc.”. Wow! If the descriptors on the covers are to be believed, this is the be-all and end-all of reference books. Yet this is a 376-page paperback with no mathematical or chemical equation in sight, not even an appendix of technical information or tables. In reality, the objective of this text is not to educate the technical specialist per se (although I did pick up a few interesting facts and some information that will be useful in my adult education outreach courses), but instead to cater to the average, non-technical person. It is this latter, target audience that requires factual, solid, non-jargony information presented in a competent, logical, and easy-to-comprehend manner.

Contributors.