Hugh S. Gorman

Brownfields in Historical Context

Numerous factors have shaped our societys use and perception of abandoned industrial property. These factors include: the reasons why firms originally located facilities where they did; why they subsequently abandoned those sites; past waste disposal practices that resulted in the contamination of many sites; the evolution of laws that assigned liability for that contamination; and changing public perceptions and needs. In the 1980s, as problems with the contamination of abandoned industrial sites became a significant public concern, barriers to redevelopment that already existed were magnified. Efforts to reintegrate these “brownfields” back into the landscape and economy became a major policy issue. More recently, new legislation has removed some of the barriers to redevelopment, resulting in a new approach to a complex problem.

Redefining efficiency : pollution concerns, regulatory mechanisms, and technological change in the U.S. petroleum industry

Today, pollution control regulations define how complex technological systems interact with natural ecosystems and competing human uses of the environment. This book examines the evolution of this industrial ecology in the United States by tracing numerous pollution concerns associated with the production, transportation, and refining of petroleum over the course of the twentieth century. In doing so, the book demonstrates that a pollution control ethic based on the efficient use of resources emerged early in the century and met with enough success to undermine the first calls for strict government-enforced regulations. The book also chronicles the failure of this efficiency-based pollution control ethic and its replacement by another. This second ethic required society first to define its environmental objectives and then to institute policies to achieve those objectives. The resulting regulations, by restructuring the economics of pollution control, have since redefined the notion of industrial efficiency.

Efficiency, Environmental Quality, and Oil Field Brines: The Success and Failure of Pollution Control by Self-Regulation

In the first half of the twentieth century, most firms sought to reduce emissions, effluents, and other pollution-causing discharges only when it resulted in the recovery of valuable material or decreased the amount of money spent on damage and nuisance suits. However, this did not necessarily mean that engineers and technical managers saw themselves—or the firms that employed them—as polluters. Rather, they assumed that as they made industrial operations more efficient, they would also address pollution concerns. This article illustrates the initial success and ultimate failure of this efficiency-based ethic of self-regulation by examining efforts to eliminate the pollution associated with the disposal of oil field brines. Until the 1950s, it argues, efforts to address problems associated with the disposal of oil field brines reinforced the notion that economic incentives to increase the efficiency of industrial operations overlapped with efforts to fight pollution. However, by the late 1950s, economic incentives proved incapable of encouraging further reductions in brine contamination. Yet pollution concerns remained. Since then, the efficiency-based ethic of self-regulation has gradually been replaced by an ethic that most people—and most firms—now treat as legitimate: reaching consensus on environmental objectives and then regulating pollution-causing discharges to meet those objectives.

State-Level Air Emissions Trading: The Michigan and Illinois Models

Since passage of the 1990 Amendments to the U.S. Clean Air Act, there has been growing interest in the use of economic incentives for air pollution control. This trend is epitomized by the federal Acid Rain Program and the RECLAIM program for smog control in the Los Angeles basin. The adoption of these programs for attainment of the ozone standard is problematic, because of vexing issues of geography, atmospheric chemistry, source coverage, and monitoring and enforcement. These issues are especially salient in the use of emission reduction credit (ERC) trading systems. Cap and trade programs circumvent some of these difficulties by limiting total emissions and increasing source coverage but may still face monitoring challenges. Finally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently proposing that states use another incentive program, known as Open Market Trading. Michigan and Illinois have both developed new market incentive programs for ozone compliance. Michigan adopted an ERC model for NOx and VOCs, while Illinois opted for a cap and trade program to reduce VOCs in the Chicago area. Though these programs are fairly young, their strengths and weaknesses can be identified. Problems with the Michigan program are so serious that it has been initially disapproved by the EPA out of concern that down-state areas could backslide into non-attainment status. Among the concerns are pre-enactment ERCs and counting ERC generation from facility shutdowns and curtailments. Although the Illinois program is more promising, it has problems of its own, such as low emission source coverage. Nonetheless, it is only through experimentation with market programs that their ultimate utility for ozone compliance can be determined.

An Education Program in Support of a Sustainable Future

The historical evolution and current status of sustainability education at Michigan Technological University is described. The history considers the last 15 years, during which, the faculty of Michigan Tech have been collaborating on the development of environmental curricula and courses. This development effort initially focused on specialized offerings for the environmental/chemical engineering programs. With time, recognition of the importance of environmental issues (wastes, natural resources, energy, etc.) to other disciplines across the campus grew. For example, chemists, biologists, foresters, etc. each have a role in characterizing the behavior of ecological systems. Engineering disciplines that are focused on the design of products, processes, or systems influence long term societal sustainability. Social scientists must understand the relationship/linkages between the environment, industry, citizens, and government. Greener products, environmentally responsible processes, life cycle thinking, and environmental stewardship need to become part of the modern lexicon of globally aware students. Faculty from diverse disciplines across the campus are now collaborating to develop courses and modify curricula to educate students with respect to the triple bottom line (i.e., sustainable economic, societal, and environmental future). Problems associated with the traditional education paradigm are discussed. A new education model aimed at training students to create a sustainable future is proposed.Copyright

RESEARCH ARTICLE: The Use of ISO 14001 in India: More Than a Certificate on the Wall?

Since its release in 1996, ISO 14001 has emerged as the leading voluntary system for certifying a firms commitment to environmental management. By using India as a case example, this article examines the benefits and limitations of ISO 14001 in improving the environmental performance of firms in developing nations. By overlaying an analysis of the standard with the experiences of knowledgeable stakeholders in India, we examine (a) possible motivations driving Indian firms to pursue ISO 14001 certification, (b) the value of ISO 14001 certification in encouraging firms to improve their environmental performance, and (c) the potential role of ISO 14001 as a regulatory tool. In the end, we conclude that the value of ISO 14001 certification is intimately connected to the quality of the certification process as well as the effectiveness of the local regulatory system. Furthermore, its main value appears to lie in the positive effects associated with a well-implemented environmental management system, which improves a firms ability to comply with environmental regulations consistently and efficiently over the long term.

Measurement and Modeling of Atmosphere-Surface Exchangeable Pollutants (ASEPs) To Better Understand their Environmental Cycling and Planetary Boundaries

Pollutants (ASEPs) To Better Understand their Environmental Cycling and Planetary Boundaries Judith A. Perlinger,*,† Hugh S. Gorman, ‡ Emma S. Norman, Daniel Obrist, Noelle E. Selin, Noel R. Urban,† and Shiliang Wu#,† †Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan 49931, United States ‡Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan 49931, United States Department of Native Environmental Science, Northwest Indian College, Bellingham, Washington 98226, United States Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada 89512, United States Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States Department of Geological & Mining Engineering & Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan 49931, United States

Environmental Reviews and Case Studies: Public Participation and Smart Growth in Silver Spring, Maryland

In 2008, the US Environmental Protection Agency identified the redevelopment of the Silver Spring central business district in Montgomery County, Maryland, as successfully modeling the principles of smart growth. An important component of the project involved the use of an innovative Green Tape program that streamlined the permitting process. This article reports on a survey of stakeholders associated with this project, which was undertaken to gain insight into the challenges of smart growth. The main issues identified by stakeholders revolved around the publics role in decisions associated with the treatment of landmark structures and the creation of public space. Stakeholders also suggested that a tension existed between regional plans to increase density and the desire of some residents (such as those in areas surrounding the Silver Spring central business district) to maintain the lower-density character of their neighborhoods. In general, this a case example of the tensions that can emerge as efforts to ensure efficient and predictable decision making, which developers and planners value, clash with efforts to facilitate community participation in decision making, which is essential if projects are to be responsive to a broad range of stakeholders.

Conflicting Goals: Superfund, Risk Assessment, and Community Participation in Decision Making

This article uses the history of a Superfund site—the Torch Lake site in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan—to suggest that the risk-based decision-making process of Superfund sends mixed messages, frustrating public participation even when some level of involvement is appropriate and desirable. In this case, Superfund-related conflicts in the community remained unresolved even after the USEPA issued its Superfund Record of Decision. Only after a public advisory council reviewed the beneficial uses of the waterway as part of a decision-making process required by the joint US-Canadian Area of Concern program did the community have a mechanism to reach some consensus on these issues. Rather than reducing a complex problem to a set of numbers that discouraged discussion, the review of beneficial uses facilitated discussions that allowed non-experts to place the various impairments in perspective. The implication for regulators who are required to make risk-based decisions is that, where public involvement in the decision-making process is appropriate, indicator-based discussions of beneficial uses are likely to be more productive than discussions centered around risk.

Local impacts, global sources: The governance of boundary-crossing chemicals

Over the last half century, a multijurisdictional, multiscale system of governance has emerged to address concerns associated with toxic chemicals that have the capacity to bioaccumulate in organisms and biomagnify in food chains, leading to fish consumption advisories. Components of this system of governance include international conventions (such as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Minamata Convention on Mercury), laws enacted by nation states and their subjurisdictions, and efforts to adaptively manage regional ecosystems (such as the U.S.–Canadian Great Lakes). Given that many of these compounds – including mercury, industrial chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls, and pesticides such as toxaphene – circulate throughout the globe through cycles of deposition and reemission, regional efforts to eliminate the need for fish consumption advisories cannot be successful without efforts to reduce emissions everywhere in the world. This paper argues that the scientific community, by monitoring the concentrations of these compounds in the atmosphere and by modeling their fate and transport, play an important role in connecting the various jurisdictional scales of governance. In addition, the monitoring networks that this community of scientists has established can be visualized as a technology of governance essential in an era in which societies have the capacity to produce and release such chemicals on an industrial scale.