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.

The Army has recently published a final regulation that now will serve as the vehicle to guide implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This rule is a revision of former implementation guidance issued in December 1988. Army leadership issued the revision to both clarify and update the current regulation. Policy initiatives such as the National Performance Review have streamlined the federal government through decentralization, reduction and simplification of regulations, and management of risks. This revised rule strives to meet the spirit of the National Performance Review and other executive policy expressions issued over the last decade.

As the environmental, social, and economic problems associated with heavy reliance on pesticides become more apparent, many national and international organizations are promoting integrated pest management (IPM) as a way of reducing pesticides without sacrificing yields. IPM, which has been rapidly implemented in Indonesian rice production, is currently the most successful United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization-sponsored national IPM program in existence (United Nations, 2002). The integration of government policy with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization-supported farmer education points to the success and sustainability of a bottom-up approach in IPM, and is an important lesson to all practitioners involved in efforts that necessitate community participation.

Where were you on September 11, 2001? I was at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute, Emmetsburg, Maryland, preparing to teach a Debris Management Course to over 50 state and local emergency managers. Needless to say, I never expected to have to put into practice what we were teaching at the time.

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.

“For American Indian people, and for most indigenous people worldwide, the view of a healthy environment encompasses and supports our vibrant and ancient indigenous spirituality and culture.” Lori Lambert, PhD, enrolled Abenaki, Winds of Change Magazine, Summer 2001.

Environmental due diligence for industrial mergers and acquisitions has traditionally been viewed as ensuring that environmental liabilities associated with on-site contamination and regulatory compliance issues are fully accounted for in the transaction. However, this focus fails to obtain information on a number of potential strategic risk issues, nor does it provide for the type of proactive business planning that can add tremendous value to the overall due diligence process for industrial mergers and acquisitions. To eliminate these critical shortcomings, strategic environmental management (SEM) concepts need to be incorporated into the environmental due diligence process. This paper provides guidance on the incorporation and implementation of SEM reviews in these types of projects. This guidance includes examples of the types of objectives that SEM reviews can encompass to better ensure the integration of environmental issues with overall business planning efforts conducted during the due diligence process, in order to obtain a competitive advantage.

“What ever happened when CEQA was first passed?” This question has been asked of me many times. Certainly different people will have different answers, but let me respond from my experience.

Construction activities generate a myriad of negative effects on the environment. ISO 14000, the series of environmental management standards released by the International Organization for Standardization in 1996, has been introduced as a tool that can aid in reducing these impacts. The implementation of these standards is focused on the establishment of an environmental management system (EMS) that can guide an organization toward achieving its own environmental goals. Certification for the ISO 14001 standard has been successfully implemented at an international level, mostly in Europe and Asia. Different types of companies have achieved ISO 14000 certification, including those performing construction work. However, up until 2002, only one construction group has received certification for its subsidiaries. Benefits such as minimization of environmental impacts, marketing opportunities, and cost savings have been identified. Some parties, however, argue about the standards applicability in the US construction industry, stating that ISO 14000 is not economically feasible and that significant or proven environmental benefits cannot be associated with the standards usage. Therefore, the main goal of this article is to analyze ISO 14000 standards and their current status in the US construction industry, identifying advantages and setbacks of the application of this EMS in the organizational structures of US construction firms. The information is based on a literature search and a case study of a construction contracting firm certi- fied for the standards. The article concludes that the positive aspects of certification outweigh the negative aspects and recommends added government support and the combined use of ISO 14000 with other environmental systems and matrices.

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 . . .

Lebanon is a relatively small developing country with an area of about 10,400 km2 and a population estimated at 4.005 million people, with an annual population growth rate of 1.7% (United Nations Development Programme, 2001). Lack of statistical data is one of the major limitations when attempting to study both demographic profile and infrastructure services in Lebanon. One important and known demographic characteristic, however, is the high rate of urbanization. The urban population constitutes more than 80% of the total population. Population agglomeration in coastal regions has led to the shifting of agricultural land into dwelling cities and a growing demand for infrastructure that exceeds the provisions of basic environmental services, such as the provision of safe water and adequate sanitation (United Nations Development Programme, 2001). After 17 years of civil strife, a myriad of environmental problems has emerged, which range from water contamination and air pollution to soil degradation and haphazard dumping of wastes.

Does it “significantly affect the quality of the human environment” to bulldoze an Indian cemetery? To knock down a fine old building? To allow development that changes the character of a low-income or ethnic neighborhood? If a project subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) may do any of these things, should an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be prepared? If not, why not? Cemeteries, old buildings, and neighborhoods are among the environmental components sometimes called “cultural resources.” Impacts on them must be considered in judging impact intensity in an Environmental Assessment (EA) under NEPA. According to the NEPA regulations, an EA needs to establish—among many other things—whether “cultural,” “historical,” or “scientific” resources are likely to be affected, and if so, how serious the effect will be. How can NEPA analysts most efficiently do this? The first problem is to establish what to consider. “Historic resources” as defined in the National Historic Preservation Act certainly need to be addressed, but the NEPA regulations refer separately to “cultural” and “scientific” resources; several federal legal requirements besides NEPA and the National Historic Preservation Act identify classes of other-than-historic cultural resources for consideration. The next problem is to identify cultural resources and decide if they may be affected. This requires doing something that makes some NEPA analysts uncomfortable—talking with concerned people. Finally, determining impact intensity seems simple, at least with historic resources, because the regulations implementing Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act discriminate clearly between effects that are “adverse” and those that are “not adverse.” However, equating “adverse effect” under Section 106 with “significant impact” under NEPA would have disastrous practical consequences. The other types of cultural resources are not burdened with the definitional oddities of Section 106, but measuring impact potential on each of them presents its own challenges. A defensible methodology is proposed—again, based on consultation with concerned parties.

To reduce the potential risks posed by pesticides used in operations, the City of Seattle is implementing a comprehensive pesticide reduction strategy. The strategy calls for eliminating the most hazardous products and reducing overall pesticide use. This paper describes health and environmental criteria that were used by the city to evaluate pesticide products. These criteria included acute toxicity; presence of carcinogens, reproductive or developmental toxicants, or endocrine disruptors; persistence and mobility in soil; and hazards to off-target species. A checklist system was developed to place pesticides into three tiers according to potential hazards. Pesticides (except fungicides) that fall into Tier 1 cannot be used unless an exception request is granted. Results of the pesticide screening process are presented, including tier assignments by pesticide group and active ingredient, and a breakdown of which criteria were triggered most frequently. Excluding golf courses, pesticide use by the city declined by 36% the year after the policy went into effect. Including golf courses, the decline was 26%.

\cf1\f1 Consideration of cumulative effects as part of the environmental impact assessment process is seen as an essential element to ensure a complete determination of impact significance. These effects, defined as the incremental impact of an action when added to other past, present, and future activities, often result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time. While conceptually appealing, the analysis of cumulative impacts has been frustrated by the absence of tractable methodologies to facilitate their identification and inclusion in more comprehensive environmental impact assessments. In this article the potential role of remotely sensed data is discussed and a scoping methodology based on the use of remotely sensed data is presented. For over three decades remote sensing has enabled the collection of detailed environmental data in a systematic and reliable manner. The method introduced in this article utilizes the ability to transform remotely sensed data into landscape indicators that can be employed to summarize the status of the environmental system and detect changed conditions over time. Through this procedure the pattern of cumulative effects on critical environmental indicators can be observed and the contribution of new actions can be more easily discerned. The procedure outlined also supports the implementation of satellite-based monitoring to uncover trends within a specified planning region. A demonstration of this scoping methodology illustrates that even over a comparatively short time-horizon, remotely sensed data can provide sufficient information to help identify the significant issues surrounding cumulative change. \cf0\f0

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.

Phytoremediation, the use of plant systems for contaminant cleanup, is among the fastest growing areas of environmental remediation research, technology development, and implementation. The practice is facilitated by a number of plant adaptations. First, selected plant species can take up and accumulate certain metals in their shoots at levels that are toxic to ordinary plants (hyperaccumulation). The phenomenon is an evolutionary adaptation of specific plant species to natural metal enrichments; consequently, its occurrence is geographically restricted, and the plant species involved are highly specific with respect to types of metals tolerated. Other plant species can take up, metabolize and thereby detoxify certain organic contaminants in their shoots, or cause their transformations through substances released into their root zones (rhizospheres). The extent to which an organic contaminant may be translocated in plants is determined largely by its partitioning into lipid phases (its lipophilicity), while rhizo-sphere transformations are determined largely by types and amounts of plant exudations, and microbial populations that are stimulated by these exudates. Interactions between plant systems and contaminants that can facilitate phytoremediation are complex, and complicated further by strong influences of climate, particularly temperature, and matrix factors such as nature and reactivity of surfaces, pH, and oxidation-reduction statuses. The ways in which the various factors interact to render a contaminant more or less susceptible to phytoremediation are discussed, with the objective of providing information needed for decision making when considering phytoremediation for the cleanup of particular contaminants.

Environmental regulators and other stakeholders prefer cleanup technologies that are successful, cost effective, and not disruptive to a site. Phytoremediation offers an appealing in situ option to managers of remediation projects. Remediation project managers and teams must be experienced and work closely together. For moderately water soluble organic contaminates, it may be possible to utilize plant species that can translocate and metabolize a contaminant within their shoots. For highly lipophilic compounds, a phytoremediation strategy would best focus on stimulation of biodegradation within the root zone of plants. Metal hyperaccumulator plant species have demonstrated successful growth under high enrichments of specific metals. However, while there is promise for hyperaccumulators concentrating metals, their low biomass suggests total uptake may be low. Genetic manipulations of potential plants may possibly overcome this difficulty, but there are inherent societal concerns and risks. Matrix manipulation may enhance phytoremediation by improving the availability of metals, but care must be taken to not impair plant growth and prevent off-site migration of metals. A thorough site characterization is required to properly design a strategy. Costs associated with phytoremediation are competitive with other remediation technologies and cost recovery can be realized when metals have a high enough value to be recycled following harvesting from the plant biomass.

Emission and effluent trading programs are increasingly being advocated for the nation's air and water quality programs. However, important distinctions must be drawn between credit and allowance trading, based on how much decision-making authority is transferred from regulators to dischargers. Credit trading programs are extensions of command-and-control regulation. Allowance trading programs, like markets, decentralize decisions on the means to control discharges and the location of that control. A review of existing trading programs finds allowance trading programs stimulate more aggressive pollution prevention behavior and result in lower compliance costs than credit trading.

Charles H. Eccleston, who teaches a class titled “NEPA Advanced Tools for Planning” as part of each year's national conference of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP), opened the 2002 class in Dearborn, Michigan, by stating that the character of NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) practice has not changed substantially since te 1970s.

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.