Brownfields sites come in all sizes and locations. Some are viable projects simply due to market economics. Others are not as market friendly, the so-called second– and third–tier properties. Other sites may have little market value, but are desirable to put into community use such as parks and open space. Successful redevelopment requires the coordination of various interests, including the private sector, public officials, and the affected community. Brownfields transactions can range from simple to complex — this article presents an overview of potential players, their roles, and the skill sets that may come into play on any particular brownfields deal. The information presented here is intended to provide a broad–based background for environmental consultants desiring to be part of an effective brownfields redevelopment team.

Despite the plethora of studies about environmental organizations, few studies have examined the work experiences of employees. Consequently, this study analyzes the job mobility and earnings of 265 environmental professionals. The survey sample consisted of 153 White and 112 minority respondents, including 150 men and 115 women. The study examines three dependent variables: job tenure, starting salaries, and current salaries. It analyzes how the independent variables race, gender, educational attainment, disciplinary background, type of college attended, length of time working in current organization, length of time working in the environmental field, and type of environmental organization worked in are related to the outcome variables. The study found that the perception of wage inequity was stronger among minorities than Whites. However, binary logistic regression analysis found that neither race nor gender were significant in predicting job tenure, starting, or current salary in multivariate models.

Environmental Practice 13:370–385 (2011)

In December of 2000, Environmental Practice published an article by Robin Shoal in which she concluded that ISO 14001's ability to reduce negative environmental impacts depended largely upon the strength and sincerity of the environmental commitments of those firms choosing to adopt an ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS). According to Shoal, the jury was still out on whether ISO 14001 would move beyond hype and offer true hope for improved environmental performance of firms worldwide. Building on the work of Shoal and others, this article draws a more definitive conclusion about the ability of ISO 14001 to actually improve the environmental performance of American firms and the motivation of those firms seeking certification. Data from a mailed survey of randomly selected ISO 14001 certified companies in the US reveals that the majority of firms became certified out of a desire to “be a good neighbor” and to establish themselves as environmental leaders within their industries. While managers hope that ISO 14001 will help them increase profitability, they generally say that they care even more about ISO 14001's ability to improve environmental performance. Data from this study show that the vast majority of respondents reported environmental improvements related to the implementation of an ISO 14001 EMS, regardless of their reasons for becoming certified.

Creating and implementing effective tools for navigating the regulatory process is becoming increasingly important to the success of simple to complex projects, particularly those in urban settings. To guide a project through the planning and permitting processes, a skilled and coordinated team equipped with a practical and easily implementable toolkit is required. Tools must be integrated into the design development phase of a project and throughout the permitting phase to adequately meet complex regulatory requirements and begin the project’s construction in a timely and cost-effective manner. This article discusses the importance of defining a project, effective project communication, developing an Environmental Approvals Approach (EAA), and proper project scheduling to improve the environmental planning and permitting processes. The City of Seattle’s Elliott Bay Seawall Project is presented as a case study of these qualities.

Environmental Practice 17: 270–277 (2015)

Environmental professionals are often asked to serve on boards of nonprofit groups that pursue programs dealing with professional, conservation, or environmental matters. They are sought for their technical expertise and experience. In such a role, a professional is likely to encounter situations that could give rise to conflicts of interest. His or her previous experience in technical roles, however, may not have provided much practice in understanding how to deal with conflicts of interest or other issues of concern to nonprofit boards. Further, awareness of potential conflicts of interest is critical in many professional roles. Getting serious about avoiding and managing conflicts of interest begins by understanding what a conflict of interest is, what persons in particular are more likely to be in a position to produce conflicts of interest for your organization, and what might be the fallout from a real or perceived conflict of interest. This article is adapted from a publication providing advice to boards of directors of land conservation organizations. But it offers general advice applicable to board members of any nonprofit group. We illustrate the importance of this topic by reviewing three case examples.

Environmental Practice 14:206–211 (2012)

Western North Carolina is water rich, with high annual rainfall and historically low population. Therefore, water management has traditionally not been a significant policy issue. Recent droughts and high population growth, however, have stressed many water supply systems. To deal effectively with these stresses, new policies and management practices have been initiated, prompted by both state mandates and local pressure. As pressures are likely to continue, there is a need to understand what motivates policy development and what processes decision makers use when creating water management policies and programs. Previous research finds that decision makers are apt to base decisions on perceptions, personal beliefs and historical practice rather than on relevant water data. In this study, survey results are used to understand how decision-maker perceptions about water availability, growth, and environmental concerns correlate with water allocation and conservation policies. Results indicate that respondents are only moderately concerned about water availability and drought is the primary concern, rather than population growth. Few of these decision makers have implemented water education programs, but many have implemented drought-related conservation programs. Environmental concerns related to water management are quite low among all respondents.

Environmental Practice 16: 94–101 (2014)

The courts are increasingly finding that National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents need to address climate change impacts—both the impact of the project on climate change and the impacts of climate change on the project. In the scientific arena, the year 2007 was pivotal in climate change because the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was issued. The IPCC report concluded that warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that this warming is primarily caused by increases in greenhouse gas concentrations. To address the issue and its impacts on a given project, policy, or program for a NEPA review, the analyst is presented with the difficulty of summarizing a massive amount of literature from the earth, biological, and physical sciences. This article provides a summary of the recent literature, addressing the IPCC report, the evidence for climate change, effects in different regions, NEPA implications, and mitigation strategies. NEPA reviews in the area of infrastructure in coastal regions and in the area of water supply will need special attention in light of climate change. All of this will make for much decision making under uncertainty, but ultimately NEPA documents and environmental decisions are likely to benefit from consideration of climate change because more resilient projects are likely to be approved, even if climate change is not as intense as some estimates. This article emphasizes NEPA-relevant events and is not intended to provide details on the current regulatory framework under other laws.

Environmental Practice 12:144–157 (2010)

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) have used Every Day Counts tools and other strategies to accelerate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process for projects intended to relieve congestion and improve safety in the Twin Tunnels area of Colorado’s Interstate 70 (I-70) Mountain Corridor. These Tier 2 projects follow the I-70 Mountain Corridor Tier 1 Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). The Tier 2 Twin Tunnels projects incorporated tools from the FHWA Every Day Counts Shortening Project Delivery Toolkit, including the Planning and Environmental Linkages concept, legal sufficiency enhancements, and programmatic agreements; the Construction Manager/ General Contractor (CM/GC) alternative delivery method; and a unique stakeholder engagement approach. These tools were effective in reducing the Tier 2 NEPA process to half its normal duration, thereby accelerating overall project delivery. The Tier 2 process was easier to implement because of the scaffolding developed during the Tier 1 process. Establishing an early involvement agreement related to legal reviews allowed FHWA attorneys to work with the project team at early decision points. Using the CM/GC alternative delivery method allowed for early input from the contractor on the preliminary design, avoided the need for NEPA re-evaluations during the final design or construction process, and led to new ideas for avoiding or minimizing impacts to environmental resources. Early and continuous engagement with partner agencies and other stakeholders allowed for quick feedback and provided the necessary support to move the project forward quickly.

Environmental Practice 17: 278–290 (2015)

This study analyzes local institutions plus the practice of participatory decision making for promoting community development in fishing communities in Mozambique. This study covers the evolution of institutions and its impact at the household and community level particularly after the structural adjustments of 1987, which promoted new institutions at central and local levels, as well as the practice of participatory decision making. We combined participatory appraisals, focus-group discussions, and participant observation methods with quantitative data from structured surveys of representative samples for data gathered. Assisted by mode-of-regulation model and community power theory, our results demonstrated that since the policy shift in 1990, and particularly after 1994 (when public participation and decision making were introduced), central and local institutions were created, with some communities showing better results than others. By working together and depending on each other as social support networks, as well as by working with the government, people within fishing communities are generating secondary benefits by jointly building social infrastructure and community consensus to better cope with the impacts of adverse social and economic stresses that often occur in coastal regions of Mozambique. Specific stakeholder perspectives are accessed and analyzed for four time periods from 1987 to 2006.

Environmental Practice 11:32–51 (2009)

The extension of surfactant-based technologies for use in remediation of mercuric ion [Hg(II)]-impacted soils and ground-waters was explored. In concept, a target metal ion can be selectively sequestered and mobilized from the subsurface by a ligand solubilized in surfactant solution. The selected ligand, 1-decyl-2-thiourea (DTU), was used in this study due to its extremely high selectivity for Hg2+ and its compatibility with micellar solubilization. In batch semiequilibrium dialysis studies using a mixture of 0.3 mM DTU and 30 mM cetylpyridinium nitrate (a cationic surfactant), 99.8% of applied Hg(II) (0.1 mM) was retained, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of this ligand-surfactant system for separating the mobile contaminant from the waste stream. Isolation of the target metal ion from the complex is desirable to allow for ligand and surfactant reuse. As a function of the ligand type, this can be achieved by precipitation, pH stripping, or ligand-ligand exchange. In theory, for DTU, Hg(ll) removal can be done at an elevated pH by formation of a soluble mercury-hydroxide complex, which would pass a secondary ultrafiltration stage, allowing retention and reuse of the ligand-surfactant colloid. While only batch studies were conducted for this feasibility study, the possibility of utilizing flow-through ultrafiltration units coupled with contaminant isolation steps in pump-and-treat field applications is discussed.

Cooperation among waste generators to co-compost institutional, agricultural, and municipal solid waste can balance carbon: nitrogen ratios, yield a value-added product, and ultimately reduce solid waste disposal nationally. A study was conducted to determine concentrations of indicator bacteria and other bacteria in compost components, immature compost, and cured compost. Compost components included pulped institutional food waste, newsprint, farm animal waste, and municipal landscape waste. Carbon:nitrogen ratios were balanced (mean = 30:1) through cooperative co-composting of institutional and agricultural waste with municipal landscape waste. Compost windrows were mechanically turned an average of 15 times during 60-days of composting, reaching highest internal mean temperatures of 62° C. Raw food waste, animal waste, immature and cured compost samples were collected aseptically and analyzed for total and fecal coliform, Enterococci, Staphylococci, and heterotrophic bacteria using standard culturing techniques. Initial indicator bacterial concentrations of 4–8 log10 colony forming units (cfu) per milliliter (ml−1) or gram (g−1) dry weight recovered from animal waste and 2–3 log10 cfu g−1 dry weight recovered from raw food waste were reduced to below the detection limit of approximately 20 cfu g−1 dry weight in all compost samples analyzed. Staphylococci and heterotrophic bacteria concentrations recovered from immature compost samples were also reduced in cured compost. Results indicated that cooperative waste composting reduced culturable indicator bacteria concentrations in compost samples analyzed. Results suggested that cooperative solid waste composting may reduce environmental health concerns associated with institutional, agricultural, and municipal wastes, while generating a value-added soil amendment and reducing solid waste volume.

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 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations, at 40 CFR 1508.27(b) (3), list effects on “cultural resources” among the variables that must be considered in judging the significance of a proposed action's environmental impacts. In common though very unfortunate practice, “cultural resources” are often equated with “historic resources,” defined in the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) to mean places of real estate included in or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Bacterial reduction of mercury ions to elemental mercury by the mer operon-encoded microbial resistance mechanism has recently been shown to be a promising approach in the bio-remediation of mercury-contaminated wastewater. Mercury resistance is widespread among environmental bacteria and several isolates have proven to be adaptable catalyzers for mercury reduction in bioreactors. To accomplish high, stable, and predictable performance, however, the genetically engineered microorganism (GEM) Pseudomonas putida KT2442::mer73 has been constructed, which constitutively expresses the mercury resistance operon at a high level, is nonpathogenic, and does not contain plasmids. To assess the safety of this GEM in an open environmental application, gene transfer was investigated in stream and estuarine microcosms containing sediments from the Elbe River and Roskilde Fjord, Denmark. In P. putida KT2442::mer73, the merTPAB genes have been stably integrated into the chromosome to reduce the chance of horizontal transfer. Consequently gene transfer to an isogenic recipient strain, P. putida KT2442::Tc, could not be detected, although parameters such as recipient cell density, cell shock, continuous addition of cells, or application of mercury selective pressure were adjusted with respect to increasing the probability of gene exchange. On the basis of these experiments, the strain P. putida KT2442::mer73 can be regarded as safe.