Local Environmental Groups Research Articles

The Messy Politics of “Clean Coal”

Clean coal is a widely used and highly contested term in debates over energy policy and climate change in the United States. While the discourse of “clean coal” originated in industry and government circles, it has been debated, shaped, and contested by a wide range of players, including environmental and social justice groups. In this article, I examine how different local, regional, and national environmental and social justice groups participate in debating and defining these technologies and their implications for the energy future of the region.

Russian Environmental Movement in the Baikal Region: An Analysis of Role Types and Collective Action Strategies of Local Environmental Groups

Russian Environmental Movement in the Baikal Region: An Analysis of Role Types and Collective Action Strategies of Local Environmental Groups

Are We on the Same Page? Action Agenda of the National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures

When it comes to the regulation of hazardous chemicals, change in any direction tends to proceed at a snail’s pace. The primary law governing chemicals and health, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA),1 has not been revised since it was passed in 1976, due in part to legislative gridlock and lack of consensus among stakeholders. So it may come as something of a surprise that over the past two years there has been a broad-based, intense, and relatively rancor-free effort to revitalize and rationalize how we manage hazardous industrial and naturally occurring chemicals. The National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures,2 brainchild of former Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR) director Howard Frumkin, delivered its final product—the Action Agenda3—on 9 June 2011. “Most of us would agree we don’t want to be around dangerous chemicals. That’s a fairly widely shared value,” Frumkin says. “But you wouldn’t know it based on the amount of polarization and shouting that goes on.” Now dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Washington, Frumkin became frustrated during his years at the ATSDR, where he concurrently directed the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He wanted to improve federal agency coordination, identify areas of overlapping or redundant responsibility, make information about chemical health effects easily accessible to the general public, streamline and integrate the enormous amount of scientific data on chemicals, and reduce children’s exposure to harmful chemicals. He also wanted to re-establish a strong connection between the public health community and the environmental and occupational health communities. And he sought a fundamental change of perspective from a system based on what the Action Agenda describes as reliance on “treatment after harm has occurred”3 to one that prevents health problems.

Who joins advocacy organizations? Water quality and participation in rural shoreline Great Lakes communities

Civic organizations play an important role in translating individual preferences into the emergence of collective action for protection of the environment. The purpose of this article is to examine factors that help explain why individuals become aware of, and to ultimately join, local environmental advocacy groups. We conducted a mail survey of property owners in four slow growing, politically conservative rural watersheds along the southeast corner of Lake Ontario, inquiring about length of property ownership, engagement in outdoor activities, observations of impaired water quality, level of concern about the watershed environment, and awareness of and membership in local environmental organizations. We used two binary logistic regressions and find that owning property on the waterfront and length of tenure strongly predicts both awareness of and membership in stewardship and advocacy organizations in these watersheds.

Arctic Oil Drilling Plans Raise Environmental Health Concerns

Arctic Oil Drilling Plans Raise Environmental Health Concerns

AIR POLLUTION Court declares EPA exemption on toxic releases unlawful

A federal court has struck down EPA regulations that allowed refiners, chemical plants, and other industrial facilities to release large amounts of hazardous air pollution during start-ups, shutdowns, and malfunctions (SSMs). Starting in 1994, EPA had allowed industrial plants to exceed their permitted pollution limits during SSMs. But in 2002 and 2003, EPA made changes to those regulations that alarmed a coalition of national and local environmental groups. Those groups challenged these changes in court. They argued that the provisions created an illegal loophole in the Clean Air Act, allowing some facilities to evade emission limits by claiming that they are undergoing SSMs during much of their normal operating time. “It’s a scam,” says James S. Pew, the Earthjustice attorney who argued the case for the environmental groups. In a 2-1 ruling on Dec. 19, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the SSM exemption violates the ...

Learning Contested Lessons: Participation Equity and Electric Utility Regulation

AbstractElectric utilities have typically enjoyed a close and cooperative relationship with the state regulatory bodies that oversee them. In 2001, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission mandated that the largest Colorado utility build a wind power plant as part of its conventional generating capacity, despite the utility's vigorous objections. Local environmental groups, intervening in a form of rule making called Integrated Resource Planning, succeeded in overturning regulatory capture. This paper explains this anomalous case and highlights the role of knowledge and learning in the outcome. The case shows the opportunities and limitations of using contested technical knowledge to push for institutional learning. The case also suggests the importance of repeated policy processes. Wind energy advocates perceived that they had acquired participation equity, ownership in the process akin to Kingdon's “softening up,” which led policy makers to take their arguments more seriously, opening up the possibility of institutional learning.

Public perception as support for scenic quality regulation in a nationally treasured landscape

Opponents of the Scenic Review Ordinance for controlling the visual effects of development in the Lake Tahoe Basin argue that the regulations do not meaningfully reflect general public attitudes. In part to address this concern, Tahoe's federally mandated regional authority commissioned a study to assess public perception of the scenic resource. The 392 survey respondents were comprised of tourists, members of local environmental groups, and lakefront property owners. Survey results, based on responses to both photographs and written questions, show substantial agreement across different stakeholder groups including those most vocally opposed to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). Although the magnitude of preferences differed somewhat, all groups preferred development that included more nature (particularly trees), was not “run down”, was less visually bulky, and contrasted less with the environment (e.g., darker colors and without large expanses of windows). These findings lend credibility to TRPA's Scenic Ordinance criteria, which encourage developers and homeowners to break up visible structural mass of their construction and reduce the perceived contrast of structures with their surroundings. Study implications are discussed in terms of the future of TRPA efforts and in terms of the effectiveness of studies such as these in bridging the gap between planning and successful policy implementation.

Of Two Minds: Groups Square Off on Carbon Mitigation

The highly urbanized area around Los Angeles is dotted with oil fields and refineries. Oil wells perch in yards, parking lots, even schools. The Wilmington oil field, which stretches beneath much of the land between Los Angeles and its port, as well as for miles off the coast, supplies numerous local refineries that in recent years have shut down repeatedly during power outages. Restarting the facilities often causes clouds of odorous and potentially hazardous gas to be released. After a 3 October 2007 shutdown, for example, a ConocoPhillips refinery released a cloud of “yellow, metallic dust” containing what company representatives called “a mixture of iron, copper, nickel, aluminum, carbon, and other elements,” according to the local DailyBreeze.com news service.

Environmental direct action in Manchester, Oxford and North Wales: A protest event analysis

Direct action campaigns against new roads in the UK received much attention, but campaign groups were locally organised and little is known about how they worked. Protests by three local environmental direct action groups in the years 1992–2001 are examined. Their repertoire was confrontational, targeted mainly at business and the state. Most protests were small-scale and most were unreported in either local or national media. In the larger groups, in Manchester and Oxford, most actions were carried out locally and direct action groups worked mainly alone. In the smaller Bangor group, campaigners sometimes needed alliances with less radical groups to campaign effectively, and travelled more to events outside their locality. Environmental direct action groups remain largely autonomous from strategic alliances. Their protests are challenges to the norms underlying political and capitalist institutions rather than calculated attempts to influence government. Evidence that their actions were affecting public debate sustained and revitalised action more than did changes in political opportunities.

Protecting Sacred Sites on Public Land: Religion and Alliances in the Mato Tipila-Devils Tower Litigation

Protecting Sacred Sites on Public Land:Religion and Alliances in the Mato Tipila-Devils Tower Litigation Eric Freedman (bio) Conflicts over Native American sacred places on public lands usually involve multiple interest groups. That was true in a dispute over a National Park Service (nps) policy to discourage climbing at Devils Tower National Monument during the month of the Sun Dance. Such conflicts sometimes end in court, as happened when a group called the Bear Lodge Multiple Use Association—a commercial guiding service—and recreational climbers sued the nps to challenge the plan as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; that clause provides that "Congress shall make no law . . . respecting an establishment of religion." The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and several of its spiritual leaders intervened on the side of the nps. What made this case unusual is that a variety of "mainstream" religious and religious rights organizations joined Native American groups and scholars who described themselves as "active in Federal Indian law and/or the religious issues under the First Amendment" in filing friend-of-the-court briefs in Bear Lodge Multiple Use Association v. Babbitt.1 The case reflects a broadening of the more common litigation alliances in which environmental groups participate alongside tribes and other Native American organizations. Here, no environmental groups participated as litigation allies. This case study uses interviews, judicial decisions, litigation documents, and other public records to examine the alliance in this lawsuit and its implications. This article discusses factors that informed decisions by Native American and "public interest" groups and the process by which they allied themselves. Mato Tipila (Bear Lodge)—also known as Devils Tower and, in Lakota, He Hota Paha (Grey Horn Butte)—is a rugged butte towering above the [End Page 1] Belle Fourche River in northeastern Wyoming. The United States' first national monument is a sacred place steeped in Native American culture and history, a place of religious practices and creation. The monument is open for recreational, aesthetic, research, and commercial uses under management by the nps, a unit of the U.S. Department of the Interior. It has become a magnet for as many as five thousand to six thousand climbers and their innumerable spectators among the monument's five hundred thousand annual visitors. As a result it is an economic asset for the regional tourism industry. In 1995 after three years of discussion including consultation with Native American groups, the nps adopted a Climbing Management Plan (CMP) to regulate recreational climbing activities and protect the monument's natural and cultural resources. The CMP culminated from a lengthy administrative planning process that acknowledged the potential for conflict between Indians and climbers.2 The process included extensive participation by stakeholders outside the nps: Native American communities strongly affiliated with the site; local and national climbing organizations; local and national environmental groups; and county government. There were work groups, mutual education efforts, "cultural brokering," and a compromise reflecting cultural values.3 As amended after the litigation began, the plan included educational and environmental programs; but the controversial component asked climbers to "voluntarily refrain from climbing . . . during the culturally significant month of June," when the Sun Dance and other Native American ceremonies occur.4 The CMP cited "the reverence many American Indians hold for Devils Tower as a sacred site." One goal of the plan was to teach the public about the site's character so the number of climbers would drop voluntarily to zero and thus forestall more stringent measures, including a possible mandatory ban. Ultimately, a U.S. district court judge and a federal appeals court rejected the challenge to the CMP. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a further appeal. The voluntary ban remains in effect. The monument's Web site describes the policy this way, "Climbers are asked to refrain from climbing during the month of June out of respect for American Indians."5 The effect of the policy is reflected in an average annual 79 percent decline in the number of June climbers, compared to the 1990–1994 preclosure average for the month. However, the voluntary compliance rate has been declining [End Page 2] and reached a low of 69...

Local Environmental Groups and the Creation of Social Capital: Evidence from Vermont

Scholars who have studied local environmental groups in the United States have tended to agree about three related, stylized facts: that such groups are widespread, that they are pursuing a diverse set of activities, and, at least implicitly, that they are creating social capital that significantly affects environmental policy. However, a healthy skepticism about these claims among academics and within the policy community exists due to a lack of significant data to verify them. In this article, (1) we collect and interpret data to demonstrate, in two counties of Vermont, that local environmental groups are indeed pursuing a diverse set of activities, developing a typology of these groups based on their main focus; (2) we show the groups are developing and maintaining social capital; and (3) we illustrate how these methodologies can enhance the literature on local environmental groups by testing claims about the extent and influence of these groups.

State Sponsorship and Community Environmental Groups: The Atlantic Coastal Action Program in Newfoundland

Introduction When the Canadian federal government announced in November 2002 that it would assume part of the cost involved in building a primary sewage treatment plant in St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador, thereby halting the flow of untreated waste into that city's harbor, no one was happier than the members and supporters of the St. John's Harbour ACAP (SJH). ACAP is the acronym for Atlantic Coastal Action Program, an initiative of Environment Canada that provides project funding for community environmental organizations active in coastal ecosystem issues. Newfoundland (1) has two ACAPs. Besides the St. John's group, there is one in Corner Brook, the Humber Arm ACAP (HA). Although the Corner Brook organization also sought sewage treatment for its region, it has made very little headway on the issue. In this study, we examine the two local environmental groups, focussing on two distinct questions. The first asks why one group had greater success than the other. Answering this question necessarily requires looking at the structures of the two organizations, their specific objectives, and the political context in which they operated. Our second question is somewhat less obvious. Both ACAPs can be considered to be environmental groups, because both receive funding from the Canadian government. We want to know how having federal sponsorship affects their relationships with not just Ottawa but with the provincial and local authorities as well. In particular, we ask how having a link to the federal government influenced the capacity of the two to deal with wastewater issues, if it did at all. To answer these questions, the paper proceeds through a series of steps. First, it looks at the question of state sponsorship of interest groups. It then lays out the two cases that make up the study, searching for difference in structure, objectives, or relations with the governments involved that can explain why they achieved different results. The article's conclusion summarizes the findings, suggests an explanation for the results, and comments on the impact of governmental sponsorship on the two and their work. State-sponsored Groups The development of environmental in Canada is a relatively recent phenomenon. Unlike other Anglo-American countries, there were virtually no conservation or environmental prior to the 1960s. Nevertheless, in a short period of time, about two thousand environmental were established involving an estimated one to two million Canadians (Wilson, 2002; Doern and Conway, 1994). Pluralist theory views the flourishing of interest as a natural product of liberal democratic societies. Other theories focussing more on the development of new social movement have provided explanations in terms of the rise of a new middle class, the nature of late capitalism, and the development of post-materialist attitudes. Despite different theoretical perspectives, are generally seen as autonomous organizations originating in civil society. Although some researchers have noted the significance of state funding for many environmental groups, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of the state in encouraging and supporting environmental groups. In their classification of interest groups, Whittington and Van Loon (1996) make a useful distinction between groups that have been primarily responsible for their own creation and maintenance (autonomous groups) and groups that have been either created or encouraged by government itself (state-sponsored groups). As with all classification systems, there is a degree of arbitrariness in determining what is and is not a state-sponsored group; the degree of state-sponsorship may vary from those that are essentially agencies of the state to those that obtain some minimal level of support from the state. As well, the concept of state sponsorship may be considered multidimensional, including such aspects as whether government was responsible for founding or encouraging the founding of the group, the degree of financial dependence upon government, and the degree of autonomy of the group in terms of setting objectives, selecting strategies to achieve their objectives, and the choice of key personnel. …

Regionalisation of Environmental Management: a Case Study of the Natural Heritage Trust, South Australia

AbstractRegional planning for and management of the environment and natural resources are the new foci of the Australian Government's funding initiative, the Natural Heritage Trust Phase Two (NHT2). NHT2 attempts to integrate and coordinate the efforts of the many local environmental community groups that work on‐ground. By operating at the regional scale, it is expected that more strategic and targeted outcomes will be achieved. This paper examines how the shift to regional‐scale delivery has affected key stakeholders in South Australia, focussing on the experiences of a sub‐regional environmental community group. Interviews with key regional stakeholders, participant observation and document analysis highlighted difficulties in the transition to regional delivery, for both regional and local groups. Limited funding, restrictive timelines, vague guidelines and prescriptive information, slowed the development of the regional plan and frustrated regional groups. A lack of communication and limited community participation in developing the regional plan created uncertainty and confusion in the sub‐regional community group, resulting in mistrust of and alienation from the regional groups. Concern was also expressed over the loss of the local‐scale focus, particularly as community leaders moved to higher decision‐making positions within the region. It is too early too assess the effectiveness of the regional groups. However, if the issues identified during the transitional phase are not addressed, then the regional groups may struggle to achieve their objectives.

Newspaper coverage of controversies about large-scale swine facilities in rural communities in Illinois1

The building and expansion of large-scale swine facilities has created considerable controversy in many neighboring communities, but to date, no systematic analysis has been done of the types of claims made during these conflicts. This study examined how local newspapers in one state covered the transition from the dominance of smaller, diversified swine operations to large, single-purpose pig production facilities. To look at publicly made statements concerning large-scale swine facilities (LSSF), the study collected all articles related to LSSF from 22 daily Illinois newspapers over a 3-yr period (a total of 1,737 articles). The most frequent sets of claims used by proponents of LSSF were that the environment was not harmed, that state regulations were sufficiently strict, and that the state economically needed this type of agriculture. The most frequent claims made by opponents were that LSSF harmed the environment and neighboring communities and that stricter regulations were needed. Proponents' claims were primarily defensive and, to some degree, underplayed the advantages of LSSF. Pro-and anti-LSSF groups were talking at cross-purposes, to some degree. Even across similar themes, those in favor of LSSF and those opposed were addressing different sets of concerns. The newspaper claims did not indicate any effective alliances forming between local anti-LSSF groups and national environmental or animal rights groups.

Networking local environmental groups in Germany: The rise and fall of the federal alliance of citizens' initiatives for environmental protection (BBU)

From the mid-1970s well into the 1980s, the Federal Alliance of Citizens' Initiatives for Environmental Protection (BBU) was one of Germany's most visible and influential environmental organisations, an unusual achievement for a network of local organisations. Lacking strong competitors, it was able to become a central movement organisation for Germany's rapidly growing anti-nuclear power and environmental movements. However, after institutionalisation of environmental concerns robbed the movement of some of its impetus, competing social movement organisations appeared, and government subsidies ended, familiar problems of grass-roots networks, which had plagued the BBU from the beginning, intensified. The resulting downward spiral cost the BBU most of its members and its prominence.

The Greening of Social Capital: An Examination of Land‐Based Groups in Two Vermont Counties*

Abstract By undertaking a census of all agricultural, outdoor recreational, and environmental groups (land‐based groups) in two adjacent counties in Vermont, we demonstrate the dramatic increase of local environmental groups in the last 15 years. Building on the methodologies of Kempton et al. (2001), we first show that official lists of nonprofit groups‐from the Vermont Secretary of State, the Internal Revenue Service, and local grassroots directories—significantly undercount local environmental groups. Second, we show that since the mid‐1980s, the number and membership roles of local autonomous environmental groups have grown rapidly relative to all other types of local and nonlocal land‐based groups in these counties. This article provides preliminary evidence of the recent “greening of social capital.”

Community environmental health assessment strengthens environmental public health services in the Peruvian Amazon

In December 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Peru Country Office (CARE Peru), initiated the Urban Environmental Health Project (SAU, in Spanish) to strengthen environmental public health services in urban and periurban settlements in Peru. The project received funding from the Woodruff Foundation as part of the CARE-CDC Health Initiative (CCHI). The “Protocol for Assessing Community Excellence in Environmental Health” (PACE EH) guided the development of a community environmental public health assessment (CEHA) process in Cardozo, a settlement in Iquitos, Peru. The project developed a three-phase process that merged scientific understanding and community perception about local environmental health problems. In phase 1, local environmental health technicians assisted the community in understanding environmental health conditions in Cardozo and selecting priorities. During phase 2, local technicians assessed the community-selected priorities: water and sanitation. Results from recent water quality assessments revealed that 82% (9 of 11) of samples from shallow dug wells, 18% (2 of 11) from deeper drilled wells, and 61% (11/18) from household drinking containers were positive for thermotolerant coliforms. Phase 3 activities produced an action plan and an intervention to mitigate health problems associated with inadequate water and sanitation services in the Cardozo community. As a result of the CEHA process, CARE Peru obtained funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop and implement an environmental health risk monitoring system and the proposed water and sewage intervention in the settlement. CDC continues to provide technical assistance to the local environmental health services groups in Iquitos through an agreement with CARE Peru as part of the USAID-funded Urban Environmental Health Models Project (MUSA). Technical assistance activities and the development of the environmental health risk monitoring system have helped to strengthen the local environmental public health services delivery system.

Is Greener Whiter? Voluntary Environmental Performance of Western Ski Areas

This study analyzes the initial implementation of the Sustainable Slopes Program a voluntary environmental initiative established by the U.S. National Ski Areas Association in partnership with federal and state government agencies. Our findings indicate that participation of western ski areas in the Sustainable Slopes Program is related to institutional pressures in the form of enhanced federal oversight and higher state environmental demands exerted by state agencies, local environmental groups and public opinion. The analysis also suggests that, despite these institutional pressures, participant ski areas appear to be correlated with lower third‐party environmental performance ratings. This behavior seems to reflect the lack of specific institutional mechanisms to prevent opportunism in the current design of the Sustainable Slopes Program. That is, the program does not involve specific environmental standards, lacks third‐party oversight, and does not have sanctions for poor performance.

Where the buffalo roam: Boundaries and the politics of scale in the yellowstone region

For more than twenty years, the state of Montana has pursued a controversial policy of lethal control to manage winter migrations of bison from Yellowstone National Park. In the late 1990s, as the state and a number of federal agencies attempted to cooperatively outline a more palatable scenario for bison management, local environmental groups became active participants in the debate. This paper examines the strategies pursued by these organizations in the course of their attempt to construct a new, ecosystem-level territorial space and jurisdictional scale for bison, and places their struggle within the context of existing work in geography on the politics of scale. Ultimately, the failure of their efforts illustrates some of the important constraints faced by social groups that attempt to create new territorial regimes and new scales of resistance in the interstices of existing political structures.