The management of developer-led pressures on the marine environment is archaeology’s last frontier. Long inaccessible and invisible offshore, advances in technology have today propelled the sunken past into the consciousness of commercial archaeology. Arguably among no other form of heritage assets are archaeology and environment so complexly embedded. Lessons from the recent past have increasingly compelled developers to incorporate surveys of maritime seascapes into environmental impact assessments (coastal construction, sealane deepening, aggregate dredging, wind farms, and oil and gas pipeline and fiber-optic cable laying). Qualitative decisions about what to protect in situ, avoid, or excavate requires an objective understanding of significance assessment in relation to risk. The high profile of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage exerts increasing pressures on governments worldwide to seek sustainable development. Demersal bottom fishing, World War II shipwreck hull oil leakage, and global warming are newly emerged risks that require expanded heritage recognition.

Environmental Practice 18: 184–191 (2016)

The Marmion Way Corridor portion of the Metro Gold Line Light Rail Transit Project is unique. It is part of the City of Los Angeles's Historic Preservation Overlay Zone within the residential Highland Park neighborhood. Highland Park is centrally located within a larger northeastern portion of Los Angeles that has a population of 300,000, of whom approximately 40% are living at or below poverty level.

Recently I was faced with an issue that has been a subject of discussion since I joined. Each time, it is answered for a new cohort of members, but we somehow do not seem to maintain that corporate knowledge or convey it effectively.

Biofuels are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels but not necessarily sustainable. This article describes the legal power of the European Union (EU)—and the use of this power—to promote the sustainable use of the biofuels by formally binding criteria. The sustainability criteria laid down in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is analyzed, and explained is how it differentiates among biofuels on the basis of their environmental sustainability related to their processes and production methods. The use of these criteria has the twofold goal of making it possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by the use of fuels and to prevent the conversion of land characterized by high-carbon stock and high biodiversity for biofuel production. The EU rules do not prohibit trade of nonsustainable biofuels. The RED and the Fuel Quality Directive prohibit member states from counting nonsustainable biofuels as part of the fulfillment of their renewable energy obligations, and the European Community guidelines on environmental support are depriving the suppliers of nonsustainable biofuels from getting economic support. These EU rules may effectively eliminate the interest of the business in placing nonsustainable biofuels on the EU market. Thus, the EU exerts exterritorial jurisdiction by the way of the sustainability criteria. Only those sustainability criteria related to agroenvironmental practices are without effect on biofuel production outside the EU. The possible incompatibility of the EU rules and sustainability criteria with the World Trade Organization rules is discussed briefly. Mentioned are other examples of extraterritorial EU environmental criteria/schemes and several indications on the acceptance of such transnational protection of the environment.

Environmental Practice 15:50–61 (2013)

As 2011 comes to an end, and my rotation as lead editor comes to a close, I reflect on the progress and changes made at the journal in terms of publications, as well as the management structure. The editorial office of the journal has been effective at implementing a two-year round of changes to both the management and the visual look for the journal, with the assistance of Cambridge University Press and the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP). In the March 2011 issue, we introduced the new cover designed by Cambridge University Press, as well as a new table of contents with a diverse selection of manuscript categories for our authors. We have an active editorial board of 15 members who represent a healthy mixture of scholars and practitioners from across the United States. These folks have all reviewed or written manuscripts on an annual basis for the journal. We hope to expand the editorial board to include more international representation over the next couple of years.

This article presents the findings of an online survey and interviews with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) professionals on their opinion on the essential and most important components of agency NEPA programs. A list of NEPA program components was developed based on a review of books, articles, and papers on ways to improve the NEPA process. Results of the online survey indicate that all of the listed elements are considered important for an agency NEPA program to be successful. No program element was ranked lower than 3 (“somewhat important”). The highest-ranked element (1, “critically important”) was senior management support for the NEPA process. Interviews with senior NEPA specialists confirmed that senior management support for the NEPA process was critical, and that other critical components flowed from that support. Senior managers were interpreted as being the agency’s senior NEPA manager or the senior manager at each facility, installation, or command. Education was most frequently identified as how agency NEPA staff could develop and maintain consistent senior management support for the NEPA process. The interview sample size was small, and further research could be conducted with other agency representatives to identify additional successful methods to develop consistent senior management support for the NEPA process.

Environmental Practice 16: 1–9 (2014)

The smallest possible National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) document is one that cannot be made more streamlined. A NEPA document could not be more streamlined than to present eight elements of essential information as outlined in this article. Neither an environmental assessment nor an environmental impact statement would include a distinct, separate no-action alternative. Instead, today’s situation would be extended to the same point in the future, for purposes of comparison, as are the action alternatives. NEPA documents for projects would not develop alternatives to the proposal. Instead, NEPA documents would only develop alternatives that accomplish the same thing as intended by the proposed alternative. An environmental assessment would have no alternatives except for mitigating actions not already included in the proposed action. NEPA documents would not include exhaustive lists of possible environmental and other social and cultural consequences. Instead, relevance would determine which of these aspects are analyzed and compared (though under current NEPA regulations it seems that relevance determinations should be included in NEPA documents). Ultimate streamlining uses plain language. It meets all minimum legal requirements. It takes the fewest pages and should take the least time. It is the least amount of work that can produce the desired outcome.

Environmental Practice 16: 309–315 (2014)

Have you ever puzzled over a section of the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) regulations, wondering whether you are the only one who does not understand it, or cannot understand how it could be followed exactly as it is written? You are not alone.

Today we are living in a “go green” society where citizens recognize that the impact of what they eat, wear, and buy affects the earth. The terms green, sustainable, and eco-friendly have become buzzwords and hot topics in today's popular culture. Different variations of carbon-footprint calculators may be found on the Internet for individuals to use in order to determine how their lifestyle choices impact the earth. Companies hand out promotional canvas bags and reusable metal water bottles to persuade the public to reuse rather than to perpetuate consumption. So let's face it—it's hip to be green. Yet, as increased awareness of the drastic world climate change grows, we begin to realize that we need to not only make better personal decisions, but also alter how we build and plan for the future. The desire to build and live in an environmentally friendly way has planners, developers, architects, and government officials making sustainability standards a top priority when designing cities and neighborhoods for future development.