In my last column I addressed some implications of September 11 for environmental professionals (Environmental Practice, Volume 3, Number 4, December 2001). My concern was that government facilities would deprive surrounding communities of information. It turns out, however, that the problem may be of a different sort: the right-to-know provisions of several major federal laws. Under these laws, private companies must report emissions of toxic chemicals to state and federal authorities.

By the time you're reading this, the planning for the 2002 NAEP Conference in Dearborn is almost complete and registrations are coming in. The committee has worked many hours to prepare a program and associated activities that will provide participants with a most enriching and enjoyable occasion. This year's Co-Chairs are Ron Deverman of Parsons Transportation Group in Chicago and Robert Anderson of CTI & Associates in Brighton, Michigan. Ron is working on the technical side of the conference, and Robert is handling the logistical issues. The Michigan Chapter is providing a lot of support, as is our Conference Coordinator, Donna Carter. Numerous others have contributed to the effort, and I encourage you to visit our Web site to see their results. I look forward to another outstanding conference.

I heard a news item recently that suggested that the United States was in the middle of a minor time capsule crisis. It seems that the Bicentennial year of 1976 encouraged a flurry of activity to place time capsules. The earliest of these were generally scheduled to be exhumed in 25 years, or the year 2001. The minor crisis arose when one of several things happened. First, the capsules simply couldn't be found because the directions to locate the capsule were wrong. Second, the capsules were placed in inappropriate locations, or had been made of materials that could not withstand burial for 25 years, and the capsules had disintegrated or were useless. Third, some capsules were located and made of appropriate materials, but they had not been sealed adequately, and the contents inside were spoiled.

The Environmental Professional who happens to be employed by the government is in a peculiar position. For this situation, let us presume that the public employee has achieved an advanced level of education as a forest ecologist. The job held, however, is broadly regulatory and the employee is responsible for controlling public activities such as development, mining, and road construction wherever they may occur within the political jurisdiction. The political jurisdiction extends well beyond forest ecology and includes lakes, streams, marshes, and perhaps even the airshed, soils, and groundwaters.

In the war of 1812, Oliver Hazard Perry pronounced, "We have seen the enemy, and they are us." In recent years, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has come under increasing scrutiny and criticism as many agencies have experienced delays and inefficiencies in this process. I personally believe that much of this problem stems not from inefficiencies inherent in NEPA's regulatory requirements, but instead from the way in which the planning process is implemented.

The breakdown of the Soviet Union revealed to the world that much of the expanse of the former communist bloc is an environmental disaster area. This paper shows that a switch to a free-market economy has failed so far to produce any significant improvements, and in the future is even likely to reinforce old threats and generate new ones.

Global ecological catastrophe is pushing the world toward ecological integration, as well as toward closer partnerships and more cooperation in this field. Globalization leads to the development and improvement of new methods of international ecological security and safety. In this paper, I investigate the problems and perspectives of Ukraine's participation in international and regional ecological cooperation. Not only are these issues important to Ukraine, but they have significance for other countries, since Ukraine is representative of countries in transition--the socalled countries of the "second world," which have emerged as a result of social and political transformations at the end of the 20th century.

Atmospheric Dispresion Modelling: an Introduction to Practical Applications, 2002, R. Barratt, Earthscan Publications, Ltd., London

Bringing the Biosphere Home: Learning to Perceive Global Environmental Change, 2001, M. Thomashow, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

The Clean Water Act: What the Law Requires, 2001, Environmental Compliance Bootcamp video lesson, Government Institutes, Rockville, MD, and many more . . .

Plasma torches generate sufficiently high temperatures that virtually any organic material will pyrolize or volatilize, and any inorganic material will volatilize or break down into stable components in a molten state. If sufficient siliceous materials are present, the residual inorganic materials will form a vitrified product upon cooling. This byproduct glass is typically structurally stable and readily passes USEPA leachability tests, demonstrating the usefulness of this technology for remediating contaminated soils.

We examine the spatial and socioeconomic characteristics of a sub-set of brownfields, represented by sites removed from the CERCLIS (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System), or Superfund, inventory. The study area (six Northeastern US states) has a mix of manufacturing, farming and recreational activities, and is densely populated. Environmental concerns, including urban sprawl, are growing. A spatial econometric approach is used. Contrary to expectation, brownfields are not located predominantly in minority-dominated urban core areas, at least in the study area and as far as delisted CERCLIS sites are concerned. Instead, there is a higher incidence of such sites in urban fringe and low-income areas, regardless of racial composition. An implication is that existing remediation activities must be expanded to include areas not currently targeted by policy makers. Such areas should include, for example, not just urban core areas but also those facing urbanization pressures, whether or not they have traditionally been considered urban. The results should be useful in policy formulation in the study area and in other areas where local environmental quality is closely linked to land use decisions, and contribute to more sustainable land use.

Governments and managers have generally conducted inadequate cost-benefit analysis (CBA) by failing to incorporate environmental impact costs. This is not a straightforward task, owing to the intangibility, in monetary terms, of most environmental goods and services. By means of a theoretical example, we present a practical approach to correct cost-benefit analysis for environmental externalities that do not need natural resource valuations. The theoretical example is based on ventures that potentially pollute river waters. However, we think that the methodological approach presented here may be used to internalize (in monetary terms) the costs of negative external impacts on the environment, which may result from any type of venture or project.

Public meetings that are attended by a broadly representative cross-section of the potentially affected public are more likely than those that aren't to provide decision makers with an understanding of the range of citizen concerns regarding a potential decision. Previous research suggests that working and lower middle class women are particularly unlikely to attend environmentally related public meetings. This decreases the likelihood that decision makers will fully understand citizen concerns as a result of these meetings. This article reports on the results of a small qualitative study aimed at understanding why these women are less likely to attend. The interviewed women were socially oriented in their skills, activities, and sense of self-confidence. This, along with the way that these women conceptualized "environment," suggests that they are unlikely to see themselves as valuable participants in a public meeting on an environmental issue. Other obstacles to their participation, including a lack of time and self-con fidence, pertained more to women in one life stage than another. Environmental managers may attract more working and lower middle class women by making our suggested choices regarding meeting technique, attributes, and advertising.