Canada has seen some community approaches to watershed management similar to network governance, citizen advisory boards, and participatory action mechanisms. These collaborative approaches are highlighted in scholarship, but are limited by context as implementation is not utilized well beyond local situations. The successes of Nova Scotia wetlands are generalizable, as they provide applicable knowledge about natural resource governance with limited federal guidelines, numerous exclusionary authorities, and new regional development tactics that are beneficial for many. In practice, this case study specifically explains the role of earnest, local, and inclusive participation that is well coordinated with multiple civic agencies.

Environmental Practice 14:143–153 (2012)

The increasing world demand for energy has led to an increase in the exploration and extraction of natural gas, condensate, and oil from unconventional organic-rich shale plays. However, little is known about the quantity, transport, and disposal method of wastes produced during the extraction process. We examined the quantity of waste produced by gas extraction activities from the Marcellus Shale play in Pennsylvania for 2011. The main types of wastes included drilling cuttings and fluids from vertical and horizontal drilling and fluids generated from hydraulic fracturing [i.e., flowback and brine (formation) water]. Most reported drill cuttings (98.4%) were disposed of in landfills, and there was a high amount of interstate (49.2%) and interbasin (36.7%) transport. Drilling fluids were largely reused (70.7%), with little interstate (8.5%) and interbasin (5.8%) transport. Reported flowback water was mostly reused (89.8%) or disposed of in brine or industrial waste treatment plants (8.0%) and largely remained within Pennsylvania (interstate transport was 3.1%) with little interbasin transport (2.9%). Brine water was most often reused (55.7%), followed by disposal in injection wells (26.6%), and then disposed of in brine or industrial waste treatment plants (13.8%). Of the major types of fluid waste, brine water was most often transported to other states (28.2%) and to other basins (9.8%). In 2011, 71.5% of the reported brine water, drilling fluids, and flowback was recycled: 73.1% in the first half and 69.7% in the second half of 2011. Disposal of waste to municipal sewage treatment plants decreased nearly 100% from the first half to second half of 2011. When standardized against the total amount of gas produced, all reported wastes, except flowback sands, were less in the second half than the first half of 2011. Disposal of wastes into injection disposal wells increased 129.2% from the first half to the second half of 2011; other disposal methods decreased. Some issues with data were uncovered during the analytical process (e.g., correct geospatial location of disposal sites and the proper reporting of end use of waste) that obfuscated the analyses; correcting these issues will help future analyses.

Environmental Practice 14:1–10 (2012)

Recent Department of Defense priorities are transforming the nation's military bases. As the result of base closures and reuse/redevelopment initiatives, many bases are rapidly changing, potentially affecting valuable cultural and historic resources. A creative approach to protecting and mitigating the loss of resources is examined in the Garrison Historic District on Joint Base Lewis–McChord (JBLM). JBLM, which is located in the Puget Sound region of Washington State, is the largest military base west of the Mississippi. The mitigation project, funded by the United States (US) Army Corps of Engineers (hereafter, Corps), demonstrates the tangible benefits of creatively repurposing historic and culturally significant facilities. These benefits include increasing awareness and appreciation of historical and cultural resources, improving public access to information, and encouraging reuse and recycling of districts and facilities.

Produced water from oil and gas development requires management to avoid negative public health effects, particularly those associated with dissolved solids and bromide in drinking water. Rapidly expanding drilling in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania has significantly increased the volume of produced water that must be managed. Produced water management may include treatment followed by surface water discharge, such as at publically owned wastewater treatment plants (POTWs) or centralized brine treatment plants (CWTs). The use of POTWs and CWTs that discharge partially treated produced water has the potential to increase salt loads to surface waters significantly. These loads may cause unacceptably high concentrations of dissolved solids or bromide in source waters, particularly when rivers are at low-flow conditions. The present study evaluates produced water management in Pennsylvania from 2006 through 2011 to determine whether surface water discharges were sufficient to cause salt or bromide loads that would negatively affect drinking water sources. The increase in produced water that occurred in 2008 in Pennsylvania was accompanied by an increase in use of CWTs and POTWs that were exempt from discharge limits on dissolved solids. Estimates of salt loads associated with produced water and with discharges from CWTs and POTWs in 2008 and 2009 indicate that more than 50% of the total dissolved solids in the produced water generated in those years were released to surface water systems. Especially during the low-flow conditions of 2008 and 2009, these loads would be expected to affect drinking water.

Environmental Practice 14:1–13 (2012)

Environmental professionals are often asked to serve on boards of nonprofit groups that pursue programs dealing with professional, conservation, or environmental matters. They are sought for their technical expertise and experience. In such a role, a professional is likely to encounter situations that could give rise to conflicts of interest. His or her previous experience in technical roles, however, may not have provided much practice in understanding how to deal with conflicts of interest or other issues of concern to nonprofit boards. Further, awareness of potential conflicts of interest is critical in many professional roles. Getting serious about avoiding and managing conflicts of interest begins by understanding what a conflict of interest is, what persons in particular are more likely to be in a position to produce conflicts of interest for your organization, and what might be the fallout from a real or perceived conflict of interest. This article is adapted from a publication providing advice to boards of directors of land conservation organizations. But it offers general advice applicable to board members of any nonprofit group. We illustrate the importance of this topic by reviewing three case examples.

Environmental Practice 14:206–211 (2012)

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that the climate is changing and that the changes are largely due to increased levels of carbon emissions into the atmosphere that are caused by human activities. The recommended response from society to climate change involves two sets of activities: mitigation and adaptation. Adaptation includes activities that attempt to adjust or respond to changes to the environment caused by climate change. For wildlife, a consensus is forming around an approach to adaptation planning that would improve the ability of an ecosystem to resist dramatic changes to habitats; build resilience into the ecosystem to recover from extreme weather events and changes in temperature and precipitation that may cause increased floods, wildfires, insect outbreaks, etc.; and lastly build realignment into our ecosystems through wildlife corridors or other connections through matrix landscape types that allow species to shift their ranges and transition into new areas when the need becomes inevitable. This commentary outlines a climate change adaptation strategy for wildlife within an eight-state region (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio) of the Midwest United States (US) focused on the design of an interconnected green infrastructure network of natural areas that helps refine future wildlife habitat conservation priorities while also providing other natural and human benefits to residents of the Midwest US. A landscape-scale green infrastructure network will be developed for this area within the next 18–24 months thanks to a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to the eight Midwest states, and the strategy outlined here serves as the foundation for implementing effective wildlife habitat protection projects in response to climate change.

Environmental Practice 14:45–56 (2012)

Most discussions of ethics in public participation emphasize the agency's obligation to engage in more public participation. Yet, ethically speaking, sometimes less is better. If the increased public participation lacks forethought and proper support, it may do serious harm. We analyze three types of ethical breach that may occur when an agency engages in robust public participation: uncomplicated lying or manipulation, failing to provide a fair exchange, and asking for wisdom but failing to support it. As we discuss the need for clear ethics, we look at three constituencies that might be impacted: public participants, the general public, and the resource. Because convening agencies tend to have disproportionate power in a public participation process, we argue that convening agencies (and, through them, their consultants) ought to develop ethical standards addressing the three categories with respect to all three constituencies. Finally, based on our analysis, we suggest that sometimes less public participation is better.

Environmental Practice 14:212–219 (2012)

Many consider the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) to be the workhorse of environmental protection in the United States (US). The 1973 ESA was passed by Congress with nearly unanimous support and was part of President Richard M. Nixon's far-reaching environmental agenda. Much has changed in ESA political and public support. In 2010, the Western Governors Association referred to the “nonsensical policy” in implementing the ESA (Silva, 2010), and Congress delisted a population segment—the western gray wolf (Canis lupus)—by amendment (US House of Representatives, 2011, p. 290). It is nothing short of astonishing to compare how different the discussion was at the genesis of the three ESAs as compared to now (Doremus, 2010).

Green infrastructure at the parcel scale provides critical ecosystem goods and services when these services (such as flood mitigation) must be provided locally. Here we report on an approach that encourages suburban landowners to mitigate impervious surfaces on their properties through a voluntary auction mechanism. We used an economic incentive to place rain gardens and rain barrels onto parcels in a 1.8-km2 watershed near Cincinnati, Ohio. A comprehensive hydrologic, water-quality, and ecological monitoring campaign documented environmental conditions before and after treatment. In 2007 and 2008, we engaged private landowners through a reverse auction to encourage placement of one rain garden and up to four rain barrels on their property. The program led to the installation of 83 rain gardens and 176 rain barrels onto more than 20% of the properties, and preliminary analyses indicate that the overall discharge regime was altered by the treatments. The length of the study (six years) may have precluded observation of treatment effects on water quality and aquatic biological communities, as we would expect these conditions to respond more slowly to management changes. These distributed storm-water installations contributed to ecosystem services such as flood protection, water supply, and water infiltration; provided benefits to the local residents; and reduced the need for larger, expensive, centralized retrofits (such as deep tunnel storage).

Environmental Practice 14:57–67 (2012)

Coal-mining activities in the Appalachian Basin have left behind an environmental legacy of acid mine drainage (AMD), which collectively discharges more than 1.2 billion liters of low-pH contaminated water per day into freshwater streams. Meanwhile, concerns over the use of freshwater for hydraulic fracturing applications in the Appalachian Basin are rising, where an average daily withdrawal of freshwater for hydraulic fracturing may approach 60 million liters per day. The use of AMD as a substitute for freshwater has the joint advantages of mitigating existing environmental damage to surface waters and relieving some pressures on freshwater withdrawals, but the practice faces technical, economic, and regulatory hurdles. To reduce sulfate levels, coal-mine drainage that is currently treated to meet Clean Water Act standards may need additional treatment for hydraulic fracturing applications. Reducing sulfate levels without the use of additional freshwater may involve costs of several dollars per barrel versus less than one dollar per barrel for freshwater purchased directly. The cost of treatment to remove sulfates would need to decline by perhaps a factor of 4 in order to be cost-competitive with the purchase of fresh water. So-called abandoned (untreated) mine drainage poses a larger environmental challenge, but treatment and transportation costs may be orders of magnitude larger. Issues regarding handling liability and storage costs for abandoned-mine waters in particular represent significant regulatory barriers. We find that treatment, transportation, and storage costs are the most important factors affecting water-utilization decisions in shale-gas development. While Pennsylvania has proposed policy reforms to address environmental liability issues associated with AMD use, implementation itself will likely raise costs for its use in hydraulic fracturing as compared to the use of freshwater. AMD use may become cost-competitive with the development and use of low-cost AMD treatment technologies in centralized locations designed for long-term use, along with efficient water transfer and storage facilities.

Environmental Practice 14:301–307 (2012)

My first exposure to ethics as a consideration in professional conduct came more than 25 years ago. At the time, I was a recent graduate in a fairly new job and had only recently joined the local chapter of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP). I was educated, but green. What I had in my favor was a good upbringing, a stint as a naval officer, and a copy of the NAEP Code of Ethics.

Extensive shale gas development is expected throughout the Appalachian Basin, and implementing effective avoidance and mitigation techniques to reduce ecosystem impacts is essential. Adoption of best management practices (BMPs) is an important approach for standardizing these techniques. For BMPs to be credible and effective, they need to be strongly supported by science. We focused on 28 BMPs related to surface impacts to habitat and wildlife and tested whether each practice was supported in the scientific literature. Our quantitative assessment produced four general conclusions: (1) the vast majority of BMPs are broad in nature, which provides flexibility in implementation, but the lack of site-specific details may hamper effectiveness and potential for successful conservation outcomes; (2) relatively low support scores were calculated for a number of BMPs, most notably those relating to noise and light pollution, due to existing research documenting effects on behavior rather than directly on species' survival and fitness—an indication that more research is needed; (3) the most commonly and strongly supported BMPs include landscape-level planning and shared infrastructure; avoidance of sensitive areas, aquatic habitats, and core forest areas; and road design, location, and maintenance; and (4) actions to enhance the development and implementation of BMPs should include public education, increased communication among scientists, improved data sharing, development of site-specific BMPs that focus on achieving ecological outcomes, and more industry collaboration.

Environmental Practice 14:308–319 (2012)

What's beyond oil? This question is leading to one of the most important debates these days. Even if oil resources are only decreasing slowly (but surely), other options to power the future are essential in consideration of climate changes due to greenhouse gas emissions. An obvious solution can be found looking at the perpetual solar energy supply, especially in regions with high availability of sun irradiation. Converting this renewable energy with wind turbines or photovoltaic or solar power plants is common by now. But storing and using the electric energy generated with these technologies is quite difficult because of low energy densities obtained from current battery technologies. By contrast, hydrogen energy storage has the advantage of its higher energy density. It can be used, for example, for auxiliary power units (APUs) in combination with fuel cell systems, for powering automotive fuel cell–based drivetrains, or for local energy supply in fuel cell power plants. Additionally, hydrogen can be transported easily by trucks or pipelines even over long distances and can be distributed and sold. From the economic perspective, with hydrogen and fuel cells some interesting business models can be developed. Investing in hydrogen production and storage equipment, fuel cell systems for APUs and vehicle drivetrains, or a hydrogen infrastructure, return on invest can be seen some years ahead by selling hydrogen or fuel cell systems to national and international customers with increased ecologic responsibility. Finally, in spite of the longer energy conversion chain for hydrogen compared to pure electrical energy storage, hydrogen with the described advantages generated from renewable energies used in fuel cells is definitely an economic and ecologic chance for a greener future.

High-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a new technology that poses many threats to biodiversity. Species that have small geographic ranges and a large overlap with the extensively industrializing Marcellus and Utica shale-gas region are vulnerable to environmental impacts of fracking, including salinization and forest fragmentation. We reviewed the ranges and ecological requirements of 15 species (1 mammal, 8 salamanders, 2 fishes, 1 butterfly, and 3 vascular plants), with 36%–100% range overlaps with the Marcellus-Utica region to determine their susceptibility to shale-gas activities. Most of these species are sensitive to forest fragmentation and loss or to degradation of water quality, two notable impacts of fracking. Moreover, most are rare or poorly studied and should be targeted for research and management to prevent their reduction, extirpation, or extinction from human-caused impacts.

Environmental Practice 14:1–12 (2012)

As a member of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP)—and interested in the subject of ethics—of course you realize that economic factors figure into every project, one way or another.

Sustainability has become a guiding principle, a goal, and, in many cases, a standard for businesses, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), institutions of higher education, and environmental practitioners alike. Over the last quarter century, a widespread flurry of action in the name of sustainability has been burgeoning in a variety of settings and nations. A simple Internet news search reveals literally thousands of examples of different actors and organizations taking action in the name of sustainability. From the development of new university curricula to corporate sustainability reports, sustainability is invoked as a driving force for an ever-increasing number of organizations. The concept has become a rallying cry for a new way of operating and functioning. Like the environmental movement of the 1970s, the sustainability movement is marked by mobilization and an increased awareness of the challenges facing our current generation, as well as those who will come after us. Yet, it is not clear that actions taken in the name of creating a sustainable future are all based upon a consistent understanding of the concept of sustainability. In other words, are we all speaking the same language when it comes to the concept of sustainability and, similarly, sustainable development?

The field of environmental consulting has been around for decades, but in North America it began in earnest in the 1970s, partly in response to passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and similar federal and state regulations, and experienced rapid growth through the next several decades. Currently there are hundreds, if not thousands, of environmental consulting companies that range from one-person firms to large companies with thousands of employees.