Re: environmental damage

[Ruth Weiner <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

Well NIRS calls me a "naive academic" so here is a response from my 
environmental studies teaching days:  "State of the environment" is too general.
 As far as regulating pollution, the U. S, is generally considered to be about 
15-20 years ahead of the rest of the world.  Except for LA, air pollution in 
large urban areas has decreased significantly in the last 20 years.  Most 
stationary emitters are well controlled, although perhaps not all state-of-the 
art controlled.  Surface water pollution has also been curbed significantly, and
wastewater and sewage treatment are far more common.

We have not done so well on cleanup of Superfund (CERCLA) sites, and are well 
behind schedule.  We (as a nation) came relatively recently to recognize the 
need to protect endangered species, so that is far from a perfect plan, but some
progress has been made.  We have severely limited the amount of CFC's sprayed 
directly into the air by eleminating CFC aerosol propellants and limiting CFC 
refrigerants, but we don't see much of a result in the ozone layer.

There is still a continuing argument over the need to limit carbon dioxide, and 
no agreement on how to do it.  We still need to do better with mass transit.  
Mined land reclamation has made some headway, but not a spectacular amount.

Logging practices are often still devastating, and logging on the national 
forests, with concomitant overburden loss and waterway pollution, continues at a
rate that is not very good for the forest or downstream environment.  We still 
have major problems with agricultural runoff.

Radioactive contamination?  That's insignificant as an environmental problem.

Worse off than ten years ago?  I don't think so.

Clearly only my own opinion

Ruth F. Weiner
Transportation Systems Department
Sandia National Laboratories
505-844-4791
fax 505-844-0244
rfweine@sandia.gov
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: environmental damage
Author:  dan-o@magadd2.nov.add.bnl.gov at hubsmtp
Date:    4/30/98 12:41 PM


Hi fellow Radsafers,
      Does anyone have any facts on the overall condition of our
environment (The U.S. and the rest of the world) as compared 
to 10 and 20 years ago?
      A discussion here at work has centered on the damage we have
caused to the environment..
      I say that we as a nation have a cleaner environment than 10 or
20 years ago since we began to cleanup and protect the environment. 
My co-worker claims the environment is worse off now and getting even 
worse.
      Any comments?
Dan Oldham