The environmental impact statement after two generations : managing environmental power / Michael R. Greenberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greenberg, Michael R.

Series:

Natural and built environment series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental impact statements--Law and legislation--United States.

Environmental impact statements.

Environmental impact statements--Law and legislation.

United States.

Environmental impact statements--United States--Case studies.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

xv, 229 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Managing environmental power

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon [England] ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2012.

Summary:

This book is about a subject that Michael R. Greenberg has work on and lived with for almost forty years. He was brought up in the south Bronx at a time when his neighborhood suffered from terrible air and noise pollution, and domestic waste went untreated into the Hudson River. For him, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was a blessing. It included an ethical position about the environment, and the law required some level of accountability in the form of an environmental impact statement (EIS).

Since then he has read the law and regulations that followed from it, worked on some EISs, read sections of many, and conversed with people who have prepared them and those who have reacted to them. And, while many of the analyses of the law and of the EIS process are helpful, they tend to be painted in black and white, without the subtleties an nuances that happen in the real world, and in particular, away from the winner-takes-all forum of the law courts. Only a tiny minority of cases and up in the courts, and the vast majority of EIS processes are resolved by discussion and negotiation rather than litigation.

To properly evaluate an EIS means reading tables of data, lengthy case studies and illustrations as evidence, and reading environmental and risk evaluations that are painted in shades of gray - the analysts many has done a more than adequate job of measuring impacts on cultural artifacts, yet failed to assess the noise impacts adequately.

After forty years thinking about and working with the NEPA and the EIS process, Michael Greenberg decided to conduct his own evaluation from the perspective of a person trained in science who focuses on environmental and environmental health policies. This book of carefully chosen real case studies goes beyond the familiar checklists of what to do, and shows students and practitioners alike what really happens during the creation and implementation of an EIS. Book jacket.

Contents:

A statement of values and forty years of field trials

Metropolitan New Jersey : transportation, sprawl and urban revitalization

Elis Island, New York Harbor : time closes in on a national cultural treasure

Sparrows Point, Maryland : proposed liquefied natural gas facilities

Johnston Island : destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile

Savannah River Nuclear Weapons Facility : managing the legacy of the military's nuclear factory

Animas-La Plata, Four Corners : water rights and the Ute legacy

NEPA and the challenges of the early 21st century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415601733

0415601738

9780415601740

0415601746

OCLC:

707887014