Search Results

This essay presents the results of an international effort to compare the actual outcomes of pollution control policies using economic incentive (EI) instruments with those using direct regulation or “command and control” (CAC). For six environmental problems, the policies used by the federal government in the United States are compared with the policies of one or more Western European countries. To the extent possible the problems and the policies were chosen so that a CAC policy on one side of the Atlantic is paired with an EI policy on the other. The six problems are: (1) SO₂ emissions from utility and industrial boilers, (2) NO_x emissions from utility and industrial boilers, (3) point source industrial water pollution, (4) phase out of leaded gasoline, (5) phase out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), and (6) chlorinated solvents.

This chapter examines a core subset of EU water directives as a way of illustrating the operation of the EU's system of environmental governance in respect of water policy. First, this chapter describes the EU's approach to water pollution policy, and in particular the significance of a particular set of directives, including the drinking water directive and the bathing water directive. Then, the focus moves to the process leading up to the directive on urban waste water. Finally, this chapter evaluates how far national policies and approaches have been changed, if at all, by EU developments in clear water policy. The conclusion is that, while EU water directives had an undoubted impact on national policy systems, there is little clear evidence of an outright Europeanisation of policy.

This chapter focuses on water and sanitation. Topics discussed include the importance of water quality; water quality, sanitation, and health; adequacy of freshwater supply to meet the world's needs, drinking-water quality criteria, drinking-water supply and monitoring, sanitation, water pollution control, recreational water guidelines, and ensuring safe and sufficient water supply.

This chapter addresses three distinct but closely linked issues. The first is sanitation, which is intrinsically linked not only to water supply, but also to issues of water quality (health) and the environment. The second section considers existing attempts at providing water quality standards and water pollution. These are as important in terms of drinking water as they are in terms of health and environmental aspects. The last section considers broader aspects concerning water and environment.

The chapter discusses the resource balance between the demand and availability of water – a critical resource for agriculture and livelihood security – in global as well as Indian context. The data and discussion of basin wise balances of surface and ground water indicate widely varying severity of ecological limitations of water resources over regions due to uneven spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation in India. It critically discusses all the important options of water resource development – like large storage development, inter-river linking, micro water shed development, and ground water conservation. It further reviews the ground water revolution of India augmenting agrarian productivity as well as its attendant problem of conflicts over the rights of its use, and policy issues relating to water institutions for equitable sharing of the scarce resource. It further discusses the sources of qualitative degradation of the resource, its valuation and control including government policies and actions.

This chapter considers the ways in which dirty water comes to be noticed and defined as pollution, thereby creating a case about which an enforcement agent has to take some action. Of crucial importance in defining the existence of pollution and determining the enforcement action is the judgement of the field staff. The field officer's conception of seriousness is bound up with his vulnerability to organizational control, whereas his agency's conception of seriousness is linked with a notion of publicity. In using his discretion as to whether or not pollution exists, the field officer is implicitly designing his (and his agency's) case-load of problems about which action is to be taken. Implicitly also, he is expressing agency policy about pollution control through the cumulative effects of discrete decisions, making concrete the aspirations and rules embedded in the law and marking out yet another series of boundaries between the legal and the deviant.

The Coase theorem states that with zero transaction costs, private and social costs will be equal and the value of production will be maximized. Absence of transaction costs means the world is a single economic unit. The Coase theorem gives us a good insight into local level problems. Assigning property rights to one of the parties (it does not matter whether it is to the polluter or the pollutee) results in efficient allocation. However, some problems may arise when the theorem is applied on a grander scale, such as in the cases of water pollution, acid rain, even depletion of the ozone layer. When applied on a global scale, although assigning property rights leads to a socially efficient outcome in the absence of transaction costs, the transaction costs at this scale could be so enormous as to outweigh the original externality problem. Some implications are considered.

Chapter Five probes the zone of jurisdictional overlap that belies the dual federalism ideal, where both the states and federal government hold legitimate regulatory interests or obligations. It explores air and water pollution, counterterrorism efforts, climate change, nuclear waste siting, and disaster response as examples of interjurisdictional regulatory problems. Tensions among federalism values are especially heightened in these environmental, land use, and public health and safety regulation—all legal realms that match compelling claims for local autonomy and/or expertise with equally compelling needs for national uniformity and/or federal capacity. After illustrating the different reasons for jurisdictional overlap through these examples, the chapter reconceptualizes dual federalism’s bright-line boundary problem as a matter of “regulatory crossover” into the interjurisdictional gray area. The chapter then discusses how uncertain federalism theory creates two kinds of risk for good governance in the gray area: (1) that fear of doctrinal liability may deter needed interjurisdictional efforts, and (2) that doctrinal uncertainty may invite self-serving regulatory abdication. Finally, Chapter Five demonstrates the benefits of jurisdictional overlap through the detailed case study of regulatory backstop in climate mitigation and adaptation governance, reviewing regional cap-and-trade programs like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), federal and state renewable portfolio standards, green building requirements, and transportation sector initiatives. Finally, it applies its framework of analysis to the Katrina experience, concluding with reflections on how federalism theory more sensitive to gray area governance might have led to a different regulatory response.

Within geography, physical geography is concerned with the characteristics of the natural environment, the atmosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere; how they influence human activities and how they are affected by them across the face of the globe. It comprises geomorphology, climatology and biogeography, and proceeds by monitoring, modelling and managing environmental change. Geographical research at first concentrated on the direct impacts of glaciation on the geomorphology of Britain, such as the glacial erosion of northern Britain and its indirect impacts, especially the effects of changing sea levels. Physical geographers in the last 100 years have taken some comfort from the knowledge that their skills are applied in matters of public interest and importance. Now the pace of global environmental change is such that these skills will be essential in the next 100 years, in solving some of the great contemporary environmental problems such as global warming, the global disappearance of forests, desertification and water pollution.

This chapter describes the history and current state of water supply development and the water quality issues that Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China have needed to address. It identifies the efforts to undertake long distance imported water transfers and their environmental impacts; water quality problems from surface and groundwater sources, and water management issues, including a discussion of water privatization efforts and increased bottled water sales. It analyzes different river systems and watershed basins and various dependencies on non-local sources, such as Hong Kong’s dependence on water from Guangdong waters, Los Angeles on water from Northern California and the Colorado River, and China’s coastal regions and regions in the north on various transfers from where water is more plentiful to where it is scarce. It also looks at the water quality-water supply relationship and how polluted sources have led to a loss of supply.

This chapter looks at the uncertainty surrounding the law as regarding subterranean water at the time the Bradford Waterworks legislation was being promoted in 1840. This may explain why the Bradford Water Company, and later the Corporation, did not secure rights to the continued flow of the water under East Many Wells Farm owned by Edward Pickles. The chapter also discusses the 19th-century development of water law in greater detail to put the decision in Pickles in a broader legal context. The absolute nature of the property right in underground water established in the case reverberates beyond the small corner of water law relating to appropriation of flowing underground water. The Bradford Waterworks Act 1842 is also considered, along with William Blackstone's treatment of water law and his conception of property, case law and literature between Blackstone and 1840, developments between the time of incorporation of the Bradford Waterworks in 1842 and the Pickles litigation in the 1890s, American law on water and property in the 19th century, legal category of subterranean water in a defined stream, pollution of percolating waters, and absolutism in property.

This chapter focuses on environmental dimensions of water. The first section of this chapter reproduces general environmental law instruments relevant in the context of protection and conservation of water and related ecosystem. This is followed by a section on environmental law instruments that specifically address the issues of water pollution and water quality. Protection and conservation of water requires regulation of a number of activities that affect water bodies and thus the fourth section captures regulation of activities in catchment areas and regulation of activities that particularly and directly affects water—for example sand mining. Protection and conservation of water also requires augmentation measures and measures to ensure optimal use of water. The fourth and fifth section, thus, focuses two such measures, rainwater harvesting and recycle and re-use of wastewater.

This chapter assesses water quality regulation in the US. Topics covered include federal water quality laws; the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 and amendments; the Clean water act; the regulation of point-source and nonpoint-source pollution; inadequate scope of water-quality regulations; challenges for enforcement; unequal distribution of safe drinking water; the economics of safe drinking water for small systems; unregulated contaminants and mixtures; and developing a twenty-fist-century water-quality policy.

This chapter presents a brief historical-institutional analysis of where water resource and sanitation issues fit in the development of the São Paulo metropolitan area. It then explains some of the guiding ideas about development, technical expertise, and participation that helped define the relationships among actors even when political arenas for dissent were very limited. It also reviews the kinds of organizations that developed to protest water pollution and the contexts in which they did so, and finally explores the factors that led to the beginnings of a more integrated and participatory approach to water resource management in the region. The boundary between activists within and outside of the state was found to be extremely thin and constantly shifting. There was also the possibility that well-developed interactive networks between the state and societal agents could mitigate some of the fears both of the community organizations and of the water engineers.

This chapter explains the effects of storm water in water sanitation, flooding, and the depletion of groundwater aquifers. Several provisions have been passed by the federal state in order to address these issues, such as the Clean Water Act and the California Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act. The chapter takes a closer look at the costs and benefits of these and similar government actions, and at how far they are able to address water pollution. It explores the arguments of communities such as the Coalition for Practical Regulation on how some of these costly implementations are unnecessary due to the fact that most cities are already addressing the issues. Furthermore, regional, economic, racial, and ethnic distinctions are taken into account. How each state reacts differently to these pollution issues, how they are directly or indirectly affected, and how all are looking for a more ethical storm water policy, are examined.

This chapter examines how water pollution diminished the value of American rivers and destroyed their essence as a natural resource. For more than 200 years, rivers in America were used as a convenient dumpsite for sewage, toxic waste, and agricultural runoff. This occurred despite the fact that two-thirds of the country's drinking water comes from rivers. The effort to pass meaningful and enforceable national water quality standards was a long, incremental struggle that finally bore fruit in 1972, when the Clean Water Act, to be administered by the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was passed into law. Two years later, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. This chapter considers the experiences of three cities—Atlanta, Washington DC, and Seattle—that each has committed grievous sins against a local watercourse, but has made dramatic efforts to correct past mistakes. In particular, it looks at each city's river restoration initiatives.

This chapter includes excerpts from legal and policy instruments focusing on the environmental and health dimensions of sanitation, including water pollution and water quality. It emphasizes provisions concerning proper and safe treatment and disposal of sewage. The first section highlights relevant provisions of pollution control laws, as well as rules and notifications framed thereunder. The next section reproduces excerpts from a national-level policy and an administrative instrument. The following section, which deals with the state-level legal and policy framework, includes excerpts from the Model Municipal Law, 2003, which informs several state- and city-level laws, as well as from a city-level municipal law. This is followed by an overview of initiatives concerning water quality. Finally, the section on public health and sanitation reproduces provisions of a national-level administrative instrument, and at the state-level, it includes provisions of a law and the rules framed thereunder as well as bye-laws relating to sanitation and public health.

This chapter focuses on the protection and management of fresh water and coastal waters and of maritime waters, respectively. According to the centrepiece of EU water law, water is not ‘a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which must be protected, defended and treated as such’. At the same time, however, water resources are subject to considerable pressures, though the water environment is also subject to rather extensive EU regulation and has been so for some time. In that vein, the chapter focuses on legislation regarding the environmental protection of water, and does not cover other topics relevant to water pollution—air emissions, waste and chemicals, and so on—as they are already discussed in other chapters. This chapter first examines the legislation on water protection, such as the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and other such legal acts, and also deals briefly with maritime activities.

This chapter reviews the recent history of the struggle to clean up the Fox-Wolf River Basin in Northeastern Wisconsin, which surrounds metropolitan Green Bay. It highlights the strategies used nationwide as well as within this region during the first two epochs, and discusses the emergence of the third epoch of sustainability. The chapter also focuses on major achievements to date in cleaning up area waters and the remaining tasks, especially the substantial challenge of removing highly contaminated sediments laden with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) deposited years ago through discharges by area pulp and paper mills. Over time, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and other governmental bodies and industry have made use of all of the techniques available under the Clean Water Act and commonly used throughout the nation.