An Allegory about NIMBYism

Remove contaminated soil.
Restore the aquifer to drinking water quality.
Replace air strippers that vent to the atmosphere with carbon filters.
Redevelop properties to bring in new tenants and raise property values.

What do these objectives have in common?
Throughout the history of a particular Silicon Valley Superfund site, these goals have been supported by the community, responsible parties, and regulators.  And at face value, they each appear to be protective of human health and the environment and benefit the neighboring community.

Only more recently has the concept of sustainable remediation been used to look at cleanup programs from a holistic viewpoint, and examine the collateral damage that some remedial decisions can cause, even those that appear to be protective.

In the 2008 Optimization Evaluation reports prepared by Northgate, Geosyntec, Weiss, and Schlumberger, we found that annual carbon (CO2) emissions related to the operation of five treatment systems at the Silicon Valley Superfund site ranged from 42 to 281 metric tons. For comparison, the EPA estimates that the annual CO2 emissions from a typical passenger vehicle are approximately 5 metric tons.

In a 2010 economic analysis of 25 San Francisco Bay Area Superfund sites, Northgate staff, Maile Smith and Scott McLaughlin found that although concentrations of groundwater pollutants had been greatly reduced, contaminant removal rates were insufficient to reach cleanup goals.  Furthermore, we found that the benefits of groundwater cleanup were reduced by the cross-media (e.g., water to air) pollution impacts of the remediation programs. The study indicated that the collective pollution reduction achieved by the cleanup programs at these sites is less than the pollution generated by the production of goods and services required to operate and maintain the cleanup programs themselves.

And this week the Center for Investigative Reporting published an article on the journey of the groundwater pollutants from that particular Silicon Valley Superfund site, illustrating the pathway that pollution takes after it is pumped from the ground and filtered through those carbon vessels.

“There’s really no such thing as throwing something away,” said Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Rusty Harris-Bishop. “You’re always throwing it somewhere.”

It's an interesting tale, and certainly highlights the potential collateral damage that can occur when we collectively decide, "not in my backyard."

Read the complete article here:  http://cironline.org/reports/cleanup-silicon-valley-superfund-site-takes-environmental-toll-6149

The Social Cost of Carbon

Joanna M. Foster, NY Times, September 18, 2012

In 2010, 12 government agencies working in conjunction with economists, lawyers, and scientists, agreed to develop a common standard for the social cost of carbon. The reason was that, in calculating the costs and benefits of pending policies and regulations, the Department of Transportation was assuming that a ton of emitted carbon dioxide imposed a $2 cost on society while the Environmental Protection Agency plugged 10 times that amount into its equations.

Instead, they decided that all agencies would use the same baseline of $21 per ton as the standard in monetizing the social costs of the seven-plus billion tons of carbon generated by US power plants, vehicles, and factories each year.

But a new paper published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences concludes that the costs of carbon pollution and related climate change are vastly greater — possibly two to 12 times as much. The authors argue that the federal government is not adequately taking into account the impacts of climate change on future generations.

At the heart of this debate is a disagreement about how to apply an economic concept known as the discount rate. Simply put, the discount rate is based on how much it is worth to us now to prevent that future damage. The governmental agency group looked at discount rates of 2.5, 3, and 5 percent, ultimately settling on 3 percent and putting the cost of one ton of carbon at $21. But the new study opts for discount rates of 1, 1.5, and 2 percent, ultimately putting the cost of one ton of carbon at anywhere from $55 to $266.

Read the complete article here.

Environmental Economist Joins White House Staff

Nathaniel Keohane, most recently the chief economist at the Environmental Defense Fund, has moved to the National Economic Council at the White House to help direct environmental and energy policy.

Mr. Keohane is a vigorous proponent of the market-based system of cap and trade to control greenhouse gas emissions.

The top job at the economic council is currently vacant; the former director, Lawrence H. Summers, resigned at the end of 2010. Carol M. Browner, the White House coordinator for energy and climate policy, is rumored to be moving to a new post, possibly deputy chief of staff.

Via Green, a blog about energy and the environment, at NYTimes.com.