Environmental Assessment

Rating:
Summary: Must-have book for those who care about the Environment
Review: OVERVIEW. This book is written by scientists, engineers and economists who have been at the forefront of environmental assessment and the incorporation of industrial ecology in environmental assessments since 1970 when the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) was passed. As practitioners and academicians, the authors apply their wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise gained over the past three decades to (1) bring order to the chaotic mass of environmental legislation, regulation, executive orders, policy acts, documents, and reports; and to (2) provide readers with a systematic, interdisciplinary step-by-step procedure for preparing environmental assessments and statements. They solve the problem, and help reader's solve the particular manifestation of the problem in the reader's life.

ORIGIN. While working together at the Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois in the early 1970's, they developed a handbook to assist U.S. Army personnel in addressing the NEPA requirement to prepare documentation of the environmental impacts of their proposed actions. This handbook developed procedures to include both the natural and physical environment and the relationship of humans with the environment. On page x of the Preface, they tell us that this sweeping incorporation of socioeconomic environment with the biophysical environment was controversial at the time and was considered to go far beyond what NEPA "really required." A couple of decades later, Ravi Jain, who was the leader of the Environmental Policy Institute (and this group of gentlemen), was awarded the Army Corps of Engineers "Engineer of the Year" Award in appreciation for his prescient focus.

FUTURE APPLICATION. Going beyond a static description of steps to follow in conducting a comprehensive, deliberative and systematic assessment -- which will help the reader satisfy existing environmental protection requirements, the authors takes a Socratic approach in conveying information to the reader so that the reader can anticipate future requirements. They not only provide information, they provide insight into their mental paradigm and reasoning process. They do this by asking questions. The book starts with a question: "What is environmental assessment?" The book ends with a question: "How are these contemporary issues (i.e., global warming, acid rain, deforestation, endangered species, biodiversity, cultural resources, ecorisk) different?" Imbetween the beginning and the end, each chapter has a section of discussion and study questions.

GLOBAL APPLICATION. In the same way that the U.S. did not pay much attention to environmental protection during the first 200 years of its existence, other countries around the world do not pay as much attention to environmental issues as they will in the future. Until the day arrives that there is a universal commitment to protecting the environment, to what extent should the U.S. apply NEPA outside its borders; and to what extent should the U.S. expect international partners to conform to NEPA requirements? There is not one simple answer to this question, and the authors present their considerations, examples of rulings to apply NEPA extraterritorially (e.g., in Environmental Defense Fund v. USAID a proposed program to spray pesticides in 20 developing countries ), and rulings against application of NEPA (e.g., in Greenpeace USA v. Stone in movement of chemical munitions by the U.S. Army across West Germany). The authors also are lucid -- and brave, in candidly discussing limitations to the effectiveness of applying one of NEPA's major tools, Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) globally: limited technical abilities, lack of data-gathering capability, lack of scientific understanding, and lack of expert staff hamper EIA in developing countries. Their presentation of different issues to consider in the extraterritorial application of NEPA and its assessments is not reductionist -- it appropriately expands the reader'perspective on global issues.

REAL-WORLD APPLICATION. The author's do not shy away from the harder-to-quantify organizational and political factors that can occur in industry, government and academia; they advise the readers to (be brave and) include those fuzzy factors in the EIA. For example, in Chapter 7, they acknowledge that it is not always possible to easily or quickly obtain information regarding regulatory (legislative) and non-regulatory (political) constraints. They advise the reader to include information on regulatory constraints by accessing available regulatory and legislative data systems (listed in Chapter Two); and to go ahead and include information on non-regulatory constraints, such as public opinion or internal organizational goals. They caution the reader that it is important to carefully consider these institutional constraints in the EIA process because they could place severe constraints on the successful implementation of projects or actions. This is good advice that readers can apply in the real-world.

BROAD APPLICATION. The tables, figures, case studies, discussion and study questions mean that this book can be used as a textbook in an academic setting; and as a tool to broach a difficult topic in an industrial or governmental setting. I can imagine the book being used to bolster one's point of view..."Oh, by the way, Mike, you know how we were talking about how Janice doesn't think that demographic factors should be included in the impact statement? That it will unnecessarily complicate her budget appeal? Jain's book has a table listing socioeconomic attributes that includes demographic and population effects (p. 260, Table 10.6), and a figure showing how direct in-migrating population changes the level of public and private services required, which in turn changes the public sector capital requirement (p.261, Figure 10.2). Janice could use this to argue for a higher capital budget...we should show her this before she has a meeting with the state legislature next week."

CONCLUSION. That environmentalists can apply knowledge from this book to the future, to forays into the global arena, and to assessments in the real-world increases the utility of this book. In the way that Michael Kotler's book on Marketing Management is a must-have for anyone serious about marketing, this book on Environmental Assessment is a must-have for anyone serious about the environment.