United States
ronmenta! Protection
gency
Office of
Communications
and Public Affairs
Volume ',', Number 4
September/October 1991
22 K-1000
•^
,,
Environmental
Education
—The Mandate
— Preparing Our Youth
—Training Professionals
— Informing the Public
—Thinking Globally
-------
?/EPA JOURNAL
United States
Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Communications
and Public Affairs
William K. Reilly
Administrator
Lew Crampton
Associate Administrator
Charles Osolin
Director of Publications
John Heritage
Editor
Karen Flagstad
Associate Editor
Ruth Barker
Assistant Editor
Jack Lewis
Assistant Editor
Nancy Starnes
Assistant Editor
Douglass Lea
Contributing Editor
Marilyn Rogers
Circulation Manager
Design Credits
Ron Farrah
James R. Ingram
Robert Flanagan
Front Cover:
From generation lo generation.
Photo by Gabe Palmer
for The Stock Market.
EPA JOURNAL
is printed on recycled paper.
A Magazine on National and Global Environmental Perspectives
September/October'1991 n Volume 17. Number 4 22K-1000
From the Editor
October 1, the start of the government's new fiscal year, activated the
National Environmental Education Act. The act was passed by
Congress and signed by President Bush a year ago.
The timing is propitious. In a recent national survey, more
than half of all high school students reported that they knew very little
about most environmental problems. Although teachers show great
interest in the environment, they simply do not have the time to go
beyond the curricula already set for them, and those curricula do not
incorporate environmental topics.
Meanwhile, the nation faces a serious shortfall in engineers,
mathematicians, and scientists. The growth rate in these occupations is
expected to reach 25 percent by the year 2000. EPA, one third of whose
workforce is engineers and scientists, expects to hire 1,500 more of them
in the next five years alone. But the interest of college freshmen in these
careers is declining even more rapidly than the demand for them is rising.
As for the general public, polls show that the long-term trend toward
heightened sensitivity about environmental matters continues unabated.
However, as we reported to you earlier [March/April Journal), the public's
rating of which environmental problems are the most serious differs in
major respects from that of the experts.
The new National Environmental Education Act is a modest piece of
legislation. No lofty goals, no grinding timetables, it authorizes
appropriations that total $65 million over the next five years. Funding of
$7 million is expected for this year. We are reminded that an earlier
environmental education law was passed in 1970 and repealed in 1981.
Then, the lead was given to the former Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare. This time, the lead is EPA's.
Stay tuned, o
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Contents
THE MANDATE
PREPARING OUR TRAINING INFORMING THE THINKING
YOUTH PROFESSIONALS PUBLIC GLOBALLY
A New Law with New
Directions
Can EPA keep the
promise?
by Jack Lewis
and Marvin Zeldin
Our Goals
"* We dare not treat this
planet as though we
have a spare.
"What Did you Learn
in School Today?"
Much more than the
three "R's."
by Jeff Welsch
What the Family Can
Do
Match a visual lesson
to a verbal one.
by Mary Melzger and
Toward
Environmental
Responsibility
How do we become
literate?
by Anthony D. Cortese
Shortfall in the
Workforce
Where will we get the
scientists and
Two-Way
Environmental
Education
Shouldn't one listen
as well as speak?
by Peter M. Sandman
The Resource of
Public Broadcasting
Hundreds of TV and
radio stations already
A Universal Task
by the Dalai Lama
The Peace Corps
Joins In
Can teaching English
help the upper Tisza?
by Judy Bra us
Enabling Others To
Act Wiselv
by William K. Reilly
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NEWSLINE*
Grand Canyon Visibility to Improve Under EPA Rule
EPA has adopted a final
regulation that will cut by 90
percent the pollution emitted
by the Navajo Generating
Station in northern Arizona.
The regulation is consistent
with an agreement reached
between business and
environmental groups that
the Agency had promoted
earlier. It marks the first time
that EPA has issued a major
regulation solely to improve
visibility. Administrator
ReiJly said: 'The Grand
Canyon is a symbol
worldwide of the grandeur of
the American landscape, yet
it has been routinely
shrouded by a winter haze
limiting visibility and
obscuring its magnificent
vistas. Today's stringent air
pollution standard will
protect this priceless natural
wonder and demonstrate the
Bush Administration's
steadfast commitment to
clean air and to the
protection of our national
parklands."
The Washington Post
reported: ". . . President Bush
today hailed an agreement
among the federal
government,
environmentalists, and
owners of a large power plant
intended to curb the major
source of winter air pollution
over the Grand Canyon, the
first use of a 14-year-old
federal law to protect scenic
vistas within a national park
.... The Grand Canyon
agreement has its roots in a
lawsuit against President
Ronald Reagan's
Environmental Protection
Agency and was brought to
fruition by Bush's EPA.
Along the way, the
administration's Council on
Competitiveness, which is
headed by Vice President
Quayle, sought
unsuccessfully to limit the
deal out of concern that it
would be too costly to the
power plant's owners ....
The agreement is noteworthy
because it was the first to be
produced by negotiation
rather than regulation. That
approach, fostered by EPA
Administrator William K.
Reilly, reflects 'the
common-sense view that you
can get further by seeking
people's help than suing
them,' Bush said."
The Los Angeles Times
commented: ". . . The air
pollution accord, made
public last month, requires
the Navajo Generating Station
in nearby Page, Arizona, to
reduce sulfur dioxide
emissions by 90 percent
before the end of the decade
in an attempt to end the
conditions that can leave the
canyon blanketed in haze
.... The plan is expected to
impose additional costs of
$89 million a year on the
coal-burning power plant.
For customers of the Los
Angeles Department of Water
and Power, which buys about
23 percent of the electricity
generated by the plant, the
additional cost is expected to
be about 2 percent a year
.... The pollution controls
initially were to have taken
effect in 1995, but under the
compromise they will not
begin until 1997. The
Administration predicts that
the cutbacks should improve
visibility at the Grand
Canyon only by 7 percent on
the average winter day,
causing some within the
environmental community to
contend that the plan does
not go far enough
Storm-Water
Runoff from
Industry Proposed
for Control
A general permit that would
be used to control
storm-water runoff from
industrial facilities has been
proposed by EPA. The
facilities include:
manufacturing plants, where
storm water comes into
contact with raw materials or
wastes; construction
operations that disturb five or
more acres; landfills;
junkyards; power plants;
mining operations; some oil
and gas operations; and
airports. Some city-operated
facilities, such as landfills
and certain sewage-treatment
plants, would also be
controlled by the new permit.
More than 100,000 facilities,
nationwide, could eventually
be affected.
Runoff of rain and .snow
from "nonpoint" sources
(pipes are "point" sources.
for example) is the largest
remaining water pollution
problem in the United States.
In built-up areas, runoff
flows into storm sewers after
picking up pollutants from a
wide variety of sources,
including such unlikely ones
as city parking lots and
suburban lawns. The sewers'
discharge to surface waters
poses threats to drinking
water, aquatic life, and the
recreational and economic
uses of these waters.
Industrial facilities can be
significant sources of
storm-water contamination,
releasing toxic metals,
sediments, oil and grease,
and a wide range of other
chemicals.
The general permit
proposed by EPA describes
pollution prevention
measures that industrial
facilities would have to
develop. The measures
include sediment and erosion
control; controlling spills;
and removing illegal hookups
to storm sewers and stopping
the dumping of oil and other
wastes into them.
When issued in its final
form, the permit will become
part of the National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) under the
Clean Water Act. EPA has
delegated NPDES permitting
authority to all but 12 states
and six territories, and it is
these several remaining
jurisdictions for which the
general permit is specifically
intended. However, the
Agency hopes the rest of the
states will adopt similar
permits to bring storm-water
runoff under control.
EPA JOURNAL
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Enforcement Actions
International Paper
Pleads Guilty to
Felonies; Will Pay
$2.2 Million in
Fines
International Paper Company
has pled guilty in federal
court to five felony charges
having to do with operations
of its Androscoggin mill in
Jay, Maine. The mill is the
largest in the state. The
government charges that the
company violated RCRA by
generating, storing, and
treating hazardous waste
without a permit. Further,
company officials lied to
federal and state authorities,
stating that the mill did not
generate, store, or treat
hazardous waste, and that it
discharged effluent through
only one outfall to the
Androscoggin River; in fact,
it discharged through two.
The company will pay $2.2
million in criminal fines, the
largest amount ever assessed
in Maine for either criminal
or civil violations, and the
second largest criminal fine
ever collected in the United
States.
Mobay and Allied
Colloids Cited for
TSCA Violations
In separate actions, EPA has
filed administrative
complaints against Mobay
Corporation of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and Allied
Colloids, Inc., of Suffolk,
Virginia, for violations of the
Toxic Substances Control
Act. The Agency seeks in
excess of $4.75 million in
penalties from Mobay; it
seeks $2 million from Allied
Colloids. Under TSCA,
companies must notify EPA
90 days before they
manufacture or import a new
chemical. EPA reviews the
notice for the intended use of
the chemical, as well as for
the chemical's potential
effects on human health and
the environment. If the
chemical passes review, it
can be added to the TSCA
inventory of approved
substances.
Allied Colloid's major
products include polymers
used in the paper,
pollution-control, mineral
processing, petroleum, and
textile industries. EPA
alleges, among other
complaints, that since 1983
the company has imported
seven new chemicals and
distributed them for
commercial purposes without
submitting notices to the
Agency.
Mobay, a subsidiary of the
German firm Bayer AG,
imports, manufactures, and
sells a variety of chemical
products. EPA's complaint,
which contains over 400
counts, alleges among other
violations that Mobay
imported chemicals for
commercial purposes that
were not on the TSCA
inventory.
EPA Would Throttle Down on City Bus Exhaust
Steep cuts in particular
emissions from
diesel-poivered city buses
would begin with the 1993
model-year under a rule
proposed by EPA. By 1994,
when fully in place, they
would reduce city-bus
emissions of particulates by
95 percent. Administrator
ReilJy said: "We have
received more complaints
about the huge, black billows
of smoke from buses than
any other issue relating to
vehicles. Today's proposal,
together wifh previous rules
to reduce sulfur in diesel
fuel, will protect a large
segment of the population,
improve visibility, and make
the black clouds of diesel bus
exhaust a thing of the past."
The Washington Post
reported: "... For anyone
caught behind a city bus in
downtown traffic, the
demand for clean air takes on
a sudden urgency. . . . But the
EPA's proposal to cut 95
percent of the particles from
diesel bus exhaust was a long
time coming. In 1977
Congress ordered the EPA to
set standards for diesel
particulates for 1981 model
buses. But before rules were
promulgated, the new Reagan
administration shelved the
order. Because the standards
had still not been set as of
last year, lawmakers imposed
specific limits and deadlines
in the Clean Air
Amendments of 1990. . . .
According to
environmentalists, the past
should have arrived years ago
for emissions of the tiny
hydrocarbon particles that
burrow deep into sensitive
lung tissue and, the EPA
says, can cause bronchitis,
asthma attacks, respiratory
infections, and cancer .... If
the proposal becomes final,
the noisome symbol of urban
air pollution would not be
expected to disappear until
the turn of the century. Only
3,000 new buses are
introduced every year to a
nationwide fleet of 44,000.
However, old buses typically
are rebuilt every four to five
years and, in cities of more
than 750,000 people, these
too must comply
The Wall Street Journal said:
"... The particulate-
emission rules
will cost the industry as
much as $70 million over 15
years, according to EPA
officials, who concede that
some of the proposed
standards may not be
achievable with currently
available technology .... For
new buses, the standards for
particulate emissions would
fall to 0.10 gram per brake
horsepower-hour for 1993
models—that is, a
277-horsepower bus engine
could emit 27.7 grams over
an hour. A standard of 0.05
gram would apply to 1994
and later models. The current
standard for trucks and buses
is 0.25 gram. This would
remove 270 tons of
particulate matter a year
when fully effective ....
Stanley Miller, manager of
alternative fuel project
centers for Detroit Diesel
Corp., a major engine
manufacturer, said the
company believes it will be
able to meet the 1994
standard with diesel engines
as well as with engines
powered by methanol or
natural gas. Under the EPA
rules, a transit-system
operator could comply with
the tougher rules by
switching to a
cleaner-burning fuel . . . ."
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
-------
NEWSLINEl
Standards Set for Municipal Landfills
EPA has set the first
comprehensive federal
standards for municipal
landfills. They include
location, design, operating,
and closure requirements, as
well as clean-up standards
for existing contamination.
Administrator Reilly said:
". . . Americans produce 180 ;
million tons of municipal
trash a year. Three quarters
of that goes to landfills.
These .standards build on
current state efforts to protect
groundwater and other
resources from
contamination."
The Wall Street Journal
reported: "... The . . . rules
... are estimated to cost
about $330 million a year, or
about $4 a household. [They]
have been delayed for more
than three years, partly in
response to White House
objections to their cost ....
Most of the 6,000 solid-waste
landfills operating today
aren't environmentally
acceptable, according to the
EPA, which predicts that 50
percent of those will close
within five years, partly as a
result of the new rules ....
Under the program, states
will have to incorporate the
federal standards into their
permit programs for trash
facilities and get those
programs approved by the
EPA. The EPA will impose
the federal standards on
states that don't submit
acceptable plans. If a state's
plan is approved, however,
the state can tailor various
requirements to local
conditions .... 'The good
news is this rule is out and it
offers some new protection,'
Temporary Relief
Proposed for Small
Businesses
The Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act (RCRA)
requires that owners and
operators of underground
storage tanks (USTs) show
said Daniel Weiss, who
works on waste issues for the
Sierra Club. 'The bad news is
there are loopholes, so some
people will remain at risk.'"
The Washington Post said:
". . . The nation's 6,000
landfills will have to install
special devices to monitor
the movement of
underground contaminants,
clean up ground water
polluted by trash, and cover
the dump daily with soil to
prevent pest infestation. New
landfills will have to be
rimmed with a clay and
plastic liner to prevent leaks
.... The standards were
issued nearly four years after
a deadline set by Congress.
Although the EPA proposed
regulations in 1988, they
have been held up since by
the Office of Management
and Budget. A lawsuit
brought by environmental
groups forced the agency to
publish the long- awaited
plan .... Public landfills
receive three-fourths of the
180 million tons of trash
dumped by Americans every
year. None of the garbage
meets the EPA definition of
'hazardous.' But significant
that they have the financial
means to cover clean-up
costs and damages that could
result from leaks. EPA has
proposed extending the
deadline by which small
businesses must comply with
the requirement. Many of
those affected have had
difficulty acquiring the
dangers are posed by
household pesticides,
mercury in certain paints,
lead in batteries and
newsprint and cadmium in
plastics . . . ."
The New York Times said:
". . . Perhaps the most
significant feature of the new
rules is a requirement that all
landfills monitor ground
water, the source of drinking
water for half of all
Americans, to detect leakage
of lead, plastics, or other
chemicals into the water.
Ground water is sampled by
drilling wells. Only
one-fourth of all landfills
now monitor the ground
water for contamination ....
The rules also prescribe the
use of advanced technology
to line the pits at municipal
dump sites, to protect soil
and water from chemical
contamination. The
protective layer typically
consists of a plastic lining on
top of two feet of clay. The
rules also specify daily
operating procedures,
stipulating that trash and
garbage must be covered over
with a layer of soil every day,
to suppress bad odors and
prevent trash from blowing
away .... In addition, dump
operators must monitor
production of methane gas to
make sure it does not build
up and cause explosions or
fires. Methane can be
produced through the
decomposition in a landfill of
leaves, grass clippings, food
scraps, and other organic
waste .
insurance that would
demonstrate they comply,
and a number of states have
created their own assurance
funds to assist them. Of 43
states that have created
funds, 27 have received EPA
approval to use them in
complying with RCRA. The
extension, from October 26,
1991, to December 31, 1992,
would give the Agency time
to work with the remaining
states on their funds. The
extension would affect the
smallest gas stations and
convenience stores; it is part
of a broad effort by EPA to
reduce the cost of regulations
on small business.
Black Fly Repellent
Poses Risk to
Women of
Childbearing Age
Insect repellents containing
the chemical ingredient
2-ethyl-l, 3- hexanediol may
pose a risk of birth defects to
pregnant women, according to
a notice issued by EPA.
Consumers can tell whether a
product contains the
ingredient by checking the
active ingredients listed on
the container. The following
products contain the
ingredient:
6-12 Plus Repellent Stick
6-12 Plus Repellent Liquid
Off! Insect Repellent IV
6100 Formula 2 Fly and
Mosquito Repellent Gel
Johnson Wax 6017 Formula
10 Insect Repellent
BF-100 Blackfly Repellent
Solution
Products are applied on the
skin. They are sold primarily
in northeastern and upper
midwestern states to repel
black flies.
EPA has advised retailers
that they should remove
products voluntarily from
their shelves. The Agency
has published notice in the
Federal Register that the four
companies registered to sell
and distribute 2-ethyl-l,
3-hexanediol products are
now prohibited from doing
so. The four have already
voluntarily requested that
their registrations be
cancelled.
EPA took action under the
Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, and Rodenticide
Act after reviewing new
EPA JOURNAL
-------
information submitted by
Union Carbide Corporation.
The information showed
possible adverse
developmental effects in test
animals exposed to 2-ethyl-l,
3- hexanediol. (The most
significant was failure of
lungs to inflate at birth.)
While the Agency is not
aware of any reports of
adverse human reactions to
repellents containing the
chemical, as a precautionary
measure it urges women of
childbearing age to avoid
using them.
Most Uses of
Parathion Cancelled
Motor Vehicle Regulations
Computers Would
Monitor Emission
Control Hardware
Commencing with the 1994
model year, EPA would
require that computers be
installed on all passenger
cars and light trucks to
monitor, as a minimum, the
engine (for misfires), the
catalytic converter, and the
oxygen sensor. Once each
trip, the computer would
scan these functions, locate
trouble, and store the
information. A dashboard
light would signal the driver
to have the vehicle checked;
trouble codes in the
computer's memory would
help technicians diagnose the
problem.
Emission control failures
often do not affect vehicle
performance, and owners
continue driving unaware.
However, such failures can
significantly increase
emissions and waste fuel. A
defective catalytic converter,
for example, can increase
exhaust emissions by as
much as 700 percent.
Computers have been
installed in some vehicles to
monitor engine operation
(e.g. air-fuel mixture) since
the mid-1980s. However,
their ability to perform other
functions has been
recognized only recently.
Early detection of emission
problems would not only
improve air quality but could
benefit owners economically:
Repairs would be less
complicated, and might be
covered under manufacturer
warranty.
The proposed on-board
diagnostic computer system
would add about $94 to the
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
cost of a new car, and about
$101 per light truck. Savings
in repairs and fuel, over the
life of a vehicle, would
reduce these costs to $40 and
$30, respectively.
EPA Proposes
Garages Recycle
CFCs from Auto Air
Conditioners
EPA has proposed mandatory
recycling of CFCs at garages
that service automobile air
conditioners. (CFC-12 is sold
under brand names such as
Freon.) Currently, when these
units are serviced, CFCs are
released to the air,
threatening the atmospheric:
ozone layer. The Agency
would also require that
technicians be trained and
certified in the proper use of
recycling equipment; the
equipment, itself, would have
to be tested by an
independent laboratory. To
clamp down on the handling
of CFCs by consumers, the
Agency would restrict the
sale of small containers of
the substance.
Although the motor-vehicle
air conditioner repair
industry is the biggest user of
CFCs in the United States,
EPA does not believe its
proposed regulation will
have significant economic
impact. Because of the
ongoing phaseout of CFCs
generally, service companies
would have initiated
recycling by 1992 anyway;
the rule would go into effect
January 1, 1992. In fact, more
than 100,000 recycling
machines have already been
sold to service garages under
an industry voluntary
program.
Registrants of the pesticide
parathion have volunteered
to cancel most uses
immediately under an
agreement they hove reached
with EPA. Parathion is one
of the most acutely toxic
pesticides registered by the
Agency. Administrator Reilly
said: "The agreement EPA
has reached with parathion
registrants will result in a
dramatic reduction in the
number of workers who
annually are poisoned by
exposure to this pesticide.
Those uses which pose the
greatest dangers to workers
will be prohibited almost
immediately and the Agency
plans to cancel the other
uses soon."
The New York Times
reported: ". . . Ending a
decades-long debate over the
deadly pesticide that has
been linked to more than 70
deaths and thousands of
illnesses among farm
workers, the Environmental
Protection Agency and the
maker of ethyl parathion
agreed today to eliminate its
use on all but nine crops by
the end of this year .... The
action will compel growers
oi fruits, nuts, and
vegetables—about 80 crops
in all—to seek more costly
alternatives to control more
than 200 types of insects and
mites. But agricultural
leaders in California, which
produces half the fruits and
vegetables in the U.S.,
said today that this probably
would not translate into
significant increases in
produce costs to consumers
because farmers have been
gradually reducing their
dependence on parathion as
the state has tightened
restrictions in recent years
.... A chemical that is as
harmful on skin contact as
certain chemical-warfare
agents, parathion is an
organophosphate developed
in Germany and approved for
use in the United States since
1948. It gained wide use after
1972, when DDT was
banned. Its advantage was
that it was inexpensive and
highly effective against a
broad range of pests, but
years of monitoring made its
hazards more clear .... The
chemical attacks the nervous
system when it is inhaled or
exposed to the skin, causing
nausea, vomiting, headaches,
blurred vision, sweating,
drooling, muscle spasms, and
in some cases coma and
death. It is extremely toxic to
birds, but the EPA said it had
no documented cases of
illness among consumers of
parathion-treated foods
The Washington Post said:
"... Under terms of the
agreement with the EPA.
Cheminova Agro of Denmark
will continue to produce the
pesticide—parathion—for use
on nine of the 900 crops for
which it was licensed. Most
of the chemical sold each
year is used on the nine
crops, and the Agency is still
seeking a ban on those
remaining applications ....
But the EPA's cumbersome,
uncertain process assures
that parathion will survive
for at least another 18
months—the final delay in a
regulatory history so full of
delays that environmentalists
consider it a classic failure of
government .... Linda
Fisher, who became assistant
EPA Administrator for
pesticides in 1989, blamed
the delay partly on the
central conflict within the
law that regulates pesticides,
which requires the EPA to
balance a chemical's costs to
the environment and to
public health against its
benefits to the food industry
-------
THE MANDATE
A NEW LAW
Can EPA
keep the
promise?
by Jack Lewis
and Marvin Zeldin
(Lewis is an assistant editor of EPA
Journal. Zeldin is a free-lance, writer
and environmental consultant.)
6
Mike Ilrisson jihnli
EPA JOURNAL
-------
"Human history becomes more and
more a race between education and
catastrophe."
—H.G. Wells in The Outline of History
ast year, Congress gave EPA a new
mandate: to promote environmental
education. How will EPA carry out
.Uthis broad mandate? What's already
being done around the nation in
environmental education by schools,
government agencies, nonprofit
organizations, the private sector? What
can be done? What should and should
not be done? And what exactly is
environmental education?
This issue of EPA JournoJ explores
these questions. But first some
background.
In J970, the year of the first Earth
Day celebration, Congress passed the
National Environmental Education Act.
Never fully funded, or implemented by
the former Department of Health,
Education and Welfare, the act was
repealed in 1981. In 1990, the 20th
anniversary of Earth Day, Congress
again turned to the subject. The result:
the National Environmental Education
Act of 1990. The stated policy of the
new law is "to establish and support a
program of education on the
environment, for students and
personnel working with students,
through activities in schools,
institutions of higher education, and
related educational activities, and to
encourage postsecondary students to
pursue careers related to the
environment."
Congress did not invent
environmental education. Dr. Thomas
Marcinkowski, head of the North
American Commission on
Environmental Education Research,
put it well last year in his testimony
on the proposed legislation: "The
educational and environmental roots of
environmental education may be
traced back a century or more. They
are traceable to the creation of our first
national park, our first attempts to
grapple with how to manage our
nation's bounteous natural resources,
and the nature study movement. They
are traceable to those working at the
turn of the century on the preservation
EPA's Role Under
the New Act
Among other things, the National
Environmental Education Act
directs EPA, through a newly
created Office of Environmental
Education:
• To educate the general
public—to "develop and support
programs ... to improve
understanding of the natural and
built environment, and the
relationships between humans and
their environment, including
global aspects of environmental
problems"
• To support development and
dissemination of "model curricula,
educational materials and training
programs" for elementary and
secondary students
• To develop and disseminate
environmental education
"publications and audio-visual and
other media materials"
• To develop and support
"seminars, training programs,
teleconferences and workshops"
for environmental education
professionals
• To develop programs to attract
students to environmental careers
• To make grants of up to $250,000
for projects "to design,
demonstrate, or disseminate
practices, methods, or techniques
related to environmental education
and training"
• To provide internships for
college-level students and
fellowships for teachers in
environment-related positions in
federal agencies
• To make national awards for
outstanding contributions to
environmental education.
of the vast tracts of land which now
comprise much of our national forests
and wilderness system."
"They are traceable," he continued,
"to the creation of federal level
resource management agencies, and to
the involvement of those agencies in
conservation education. They are
traceable to the youth camping and
outdoor education movements, and to
the development of ecology as a
science. They are traceable to the
initial monitorings of environmental
impacts, and to the international
conferences of the 1960s. By 1969, the
date many cite as the beginning of
environmental education, a century of
groundwork had been laid."
Today there are literally hundreds of
organizations across the nation
involved in environmental
education—public and private schools
at all levels; local, state, and federal
government agencies; nonprofit
organizations; private companies;
professional associations; foundations
and clubs. Programs vary from state to
state, from community to community.
But in one way or another, many
professional and non-professional
educators are hard at work trying to
"educate" anyone who will listen
about one or more aspects of the town,
city, state, nation, world in which we
live— about our environment.
There are regional and national
associations of environmental
educators. There are clearinghouses
and networks for the interchange of
environmental education ideas,
techniques, and programs.
Several federal agencies are involved
in environmental education—the Fish
and Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Soil Conservation Service,
the Tennessee Valley Authority, for
example. And EPA itself has been
promoting environmental education
ever since it published its first public
information brochure 21 years ago.
Today EPA operates 19 clearinghouses
and nine hotlines, providing
information on a wide variety of
topics. Through publications,
audio-visuals, speakers' bureaus,
poster and essay contests, conferences,
seminars and other activities, EPA
headquarters, regional offices, and labs
have to one degree or another been
conducting environmental education
for years.
And, of course, the media have been
covering environmental issues—and in
so doing have imparted environmental
education to the public. Indeed, the
environment as an issue ranks high in
public awareness.
With all this environmental
education going on, why then a new
National Environmental Education
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
-------
Act? Because, Congress said, the status
quo just isn't good enough.
The act says flat out that current
federal efforts "to inform and educate
the public concerning the natural and
built environment and environmental
problems are not adequate" (emphasis
added).
The act says flat out that existing
federal support "for development and
training of professionals in
environmental fields is not sufficient"
(emphasis added).
To remedy these shortcomings, the
act says that the federal government,
acting through EPA, "should work
with local education institutions, state
education agencies, not-for-profit
educational and environmental
organizations, noncommercial
educational broadcasting entities, and
private sector interests to support
development of curricula, special
projects, and other activities, to
increase understanding of the natural
and built environment, and to improve
awareness of environmental
problems."
Further, the act directs EPA to work
with those same interests "to develop
programs to provide increased
emphasis and financial resources for
the purpose of attracting students into
environmental engineering."
Many educators, environmentalists,
and scientists agree with the new law's
premise that environmental education
must be improved. The legislation was
strongly supported by a wide range of
What Is Environmental
Education?
Neither the original Senate bill (S.
1076) or House bill (H.R. 3684)
considered in 1990 specifically
defined environmental education.
During public hearings, several
witnesses noted the lack of a
definition. The act finally passed
contains this language:
"Environmental education" and
"environmental education and
training" mean "educational
activities and training activities
involving elementary, secondary,
and postsecondary students, as
such terms are defined in the state
in which they reside."
Students in
Washington state
get a close
encounter with
Douglas fir trees.
Washington Forest Proterljor
professional associations and
organizations. Many witnesses noted
that, despite substantial progress in
recent years, environmental education
is not a priority in most of the schools
in the United States. There's a shortage
of educational materials and trained
educators to teach environmental
concerns in grades K through 12. Few
students receive even a rudimentary
grasp of key concepts in environmental
science, ethics, health, or related social
sciences. Then too, as noted elsewhere
in this issue, while the need for
environmental professionals is
growing, the number of students
enrolling in the courses leading to
those professions is declining.
While they supported a strong
federal role in environmental
education, many urged EPA to
encourage and support development of
successful programs, not to replace
them; to complement, not duplicate,
existing programs; to build on existing
clearinghouses and methods. Several
cautioned EPA not to reinvent the
wheel. Said Terry L. Wilson, director
of the Center for Mathematics, Science,
and Environmental Education at
Western Kentucky University: "In the
field of environmental education, there
are a number of well-conceived
'wheels' that can become viable parts
of a national effort. What we may need
are some axles to connect these wheels
into a more coordinated whole. And
don't forget to keep applying the
grease."
So what now? What does the new
law mean for EPA? For other federal
agencies with environmental education
programs?
For EPA itself, the new law directs
the Office of Environmental Education
to coordinate all federal statutes and
programs administered by EPA
"relating to environmental education."
For the federal government in total,
the new law directs the EPA Office of
Environmental Education to "work
with the Department of Education and
with other federal agencies, including
Should EPA Prepare
Curricula?
"A wide variety of expertise
already exists in the areas of
curricula development and
production—in universities, in
non-profit groups, and in research
and education centers. In our
view, EPA's role as lead agency
under the bill should be one to
encourage and to spark curricula
development, education programs,
and training materials—not to
develop them ourselves in-house.
Our preferred approach would be
to link up with groups who have
considerable expertise in these and
allied fields."
—EPA Administrator William K.
Reilly, statement to Congress,
April 19, 1990
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Science Advisory Board Recommendation
In a September 1990 report to
Administrator Reilly, EPA's
Science Advisory Board offered 10
recommendations on reducing
environmental risk. One
recommendation, on
environmental education, is
repeated in part here.
"In a democracy the support of
individual citizens is important to
the success of any national
endeavor. In the national effort to
reduce environmental risk, such
understanding and support are
essential, because both the causes
of and solutions to environmental
problems are often linked to
individual and societal choice.
Consequently, EPA must expand
its efforts to educate the public in
general and the professional
workforce in particular, both in
terms of what causes
environmental risks and what
reduces them.
"For example, EPA should work
to reduce the gap between public
perceptions of risk and the
scientific understanding of risk. In
many cases, public perception and
scientific understanding are quite
different, if only because scientists
have ready access to information
that the public does not. It is
important that EPA increase its
efforts to share risk information
with the public, because in the
long run the public will have to
approve EPA's risk-based action
agenda ....
"EPA also should take several
specific steps to develop and
sustain the nation's scientific
capability and workforce. For
example, the Agency should
provide technical and financial
assistance to universities to help
them incorporate environmental
subject matter into their curricula
and to train the next generation of
environmental scientists and
engineers.
"In this regard, EPA also should
support graduate and post-
graduate training programs in the
relevant scientific disciplines, and
nurture the participation of the
scientific community in
interdisciplinary research. The
nation is facing a shortage of
environmental scientists and
engineers needed to cope with
environmental problems today and
in the future. Moreover,
professionals today need
continuing education and training
to help them understand the
complex control technologies and
pollution prevention strategies
needed to reduce environmental
risks more effectively."
federal natural resource management
agencies, to assure the effective
coordination of programs related to
environmental education, including
environmental education programs
relating to national parks, national
forests, and wildlife refuges."
To institutionalize federal
coordination of environmental
education programs, the new law
creates a federal task force on
environmental education. Chaired by
EPA, the task force includes
representatives of the Departments of
Education, Interior, and Agriculture,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the Council on
Environmental Quality, the Tennessee
Valley Authority, and the National
Science Foundation. The new law also
creates an 11-member, private-sector
advisory council on environmental
education.
To implement the new act, Congress
authorized appropriations of $12
million for fiscal year 1992, $12
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
million for fiscal 1993, $13 million for
fiscal 1994, $14 million for fiscal 1995,
and $14 million for fiscal 1996. First
funding of the new law—about $7
million—is expected this fall.
To supplement federal
appropriations, the new law creates
the National Environmental Education
and Training Foundation as a
nonprofit charitable corporation. The
foundation will seek private
contributions to be used to help carry
out EPA's environmental education
programs. No contribution may be
accepted if it is contingent upon
conveying "a particular point of view
favorable to the economic interests of
the donor or its constituents or
associates." And no contribution may
be accepted if it contains an explicit or
implied requirement which would
benefit the donor and which is "not
consistent with the environmental and
education goals and policies" of EPA
and the intent and purpose of the law.
What's ahead? The 1990 National
Environmental Education Act poses
new challenges for EPA and for
environmental educators across the
nation. The act's objectives are
noble—and apparently nonpartisan
and noncontroversial, for not a single
organization or individual openly
opposed the legislation.
Privately, however, questions have
been raised: Can EPA really fulfill the
promise of the act? Will Congress
appropriate enough money, year after
year, to make a difference? Is the 1990
act more rhetoric than substance? Will
it go the way of the 1970 legislation?
Or will the new law really bring a new
era of environmental education that
substantially changes the way we live?
As H. G. Wells might ask, will we win
the race against environmental
catastrophe? o
-------
THE MANDATE
OUR GOALS
We dare not treat
this planet
as though we
have a spare
by William K. Reilly
(Reilly is Administrator of EPA.)
Nothing better defines what we are
and what we will become than the
education of our children ....
Today, education determines not
just which students will succeed, but
also which nations will thrive in a
world united in pursuit of freedom in
enterprise."
So said President Bush earlier this
year when he unveiled the
administration's new National
Education Strategy, "America 2000."
America 2000 is a national
strategy—not a federal program—to
ensure that America remains a leader
in the world by becoming a leader in
education. Secretary of Education
Lamar Alexander has called it "a bold,
complex, and long-range plan"—one
embraced by the entire federal family.
The strategy anticipates major change
in America's 110,000 public and
private schools, in every American
community, in every home, in our very
attitudes about learning.
The federal government's role will
be limited—as it always has been: to
help set standards, highlight examples,
contribute some funds, encourage and
nurture programs, to work in concert
with state and local governments,
schools and universities, business and
industry.
America 2000 has six national
education goals. By the year 2000:
• Every child will start school ready to
learn.
• Every high school wiJJ graduate at
least 90 percent of its students.
• Every student will leave the fourth,
eighth, and twelfth grades with a solid
foundation in English, math, science,
history, and geography; and every
school in America will teach its
students to use their minds and
prepare them for responsible
citizenship.
• U.S. students will be first in the
world in science and math.
• Every adult American will know how
to read and will have the skills to
compete in a global economy.
• Every school in America will be free
of drugs and violence—and will offer a
safe, disciplined environment where
students can learn.
Environmental education is a key
component of America 2000, and EPA
is prepared to join this effort. Under
the National Environmental Education
Act signed into law by President Bush
last year, EPA is establishing an
environmental education office. For
the first time in the Agency's history,
our statutory mandates now include
education in addition to enforcement
and regulation.
Our two broad goals in education are
to increase environmental literacy
throughout the country and to
encourage young people to pursue
careers in math, science, engineering,
Our success depends on
engaging those outside the
Agency.
10
communications, and other fields
essential to future environmental
improvement. In addition, the office
will have a mission of international
outreach, of leadership in promoting
environmental education around the
world. Many countries already look to
the United States for guidance in
matters environmental: Education is a
way to open doors and foster
understanding on environmental issues
of global concern.
Our new office will provide a focus
for independent programs within the
Agency, coordinating similar activities
with other federal agencies. We will
nurture public-private partnerships,
serve as a clearinghouse for
environmental education materials,
provide seed money to state and local
governments and private groups, and
reach out to those underrepresented in
environmental issues. And we will
continue to recognize outstanding
contributions through a number of
award programs.
Our success depends on engaging
those outside the Agency. We are
relative newcomers to the field, and
our purpose is not to duplicate the
good work already underway across
the country. As the Agency observed
in its Report to Congress on the Office
of Environmental Education: "Only
EPA JOURNAL
-------
through cooperative efforts and
partnerships will we be able to
accelerate the development and
implementation of environmental
education programs, individual
environmental awareness, and the
development of a more scientifically
and technically literate workforce."
To kick off our new program, in
November EPA and other federal
agencies are convening a conference,
"Building a Shared Vision for
Environmental Education," to bring
together in Washington, DC, an initial
group of environmental educators to
launch a series of partnership-building
workshops. The energy, enthusiasm,
and imagination of those already
involved in environmental education
are inspiring. We intend to provide a
forum for the exchange of ideas,
stimulate discussion, and get the word
out about proven programs.
I'm impressed by what's out there.
Last month, I visited Eleanor Roosevelt
High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, to
help launch America 2000 and its
Dozens of organizations, like
California's Bar-O Ranch, already
are actively involved in
environmental education. This
boy, a newcomer to the
wilderness, developed a
fascination for birds.
Maryland counterpart. I conducted
water quality experiments with future
scientists in the school's innovative
Environmental Studies class, met with
students in a general assembly, and
presented two trees on behalf of EPA
to the school's ecology club. They
replaced a tree that a bus driver had
run over the week before, and one that
had died last year. The bottom line:
"no net loss."
Relocating goldfish before draining and cleaning a
waterfowl pond at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston,
Massachusetts.
Earlier, in February, I traveled to
Austin, Texas, to join high school
students taking water samples as part
of an early warning system for the
Lower Colorado River Authority. These
students are learning how water
quality serves as an indicator of the
overall health of the Lower Colorado
River watershed and the plants and
animals that live there. Such
experience in the field brings home the
value of science. It shows how science
is applied to real world problems to
protect the resources we value. It also
quickens the interest of students in
science to see its practical value in
managing the environment.
This past summer, I presented a
check for $10,000 to the Franklin Park
Zoo in Boston, Massachusetts, for a
project to introduce inner city children
to careers in environmental
management. The eight-week program
offered hands-on experience in
projects such as designing a
wastewater filtration system for the
tropical forest hippo pool and
developing a composting system for
the zoo's plant and animal waste. This
is only one example of the
environmental education programs
undertaken by our 10 regional offices.
Under the new Environmental
Education Act, we will be able to do
even more—at the state and local
levels, through public- private
partnerships.
In all of the Agency's efforts, we
have no intention of getting in the way
of the good work now in progress or
imposing uniform approaches to
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
11
-------
environmental education. That would
be counterproductive. Rather, we
intend to serve as a catalyst to make
things happen, to encourage and
support and publicize the innovative
programs already underway.
And so, in the new fiscal year, we
will distribute grants totaling about
$2.7 million—ranging in size from
$5,000 to $250,000—to support
promising, locally initiated,
environmental education projects.
This year, we will award a major
grant of about $1.7 million to a
consortium of universities and
To dwell at length in the
house of ecology is to change
the way we think.
non-profit organizations for a
nationwide environmental education
and training program. Additional
funds will he made available in
subsequent years under this program.
We will develop internship and
fellowship programs to place; up to 250
students and 50 teaching fellows in
environment-related positions within
the federal government.
We will offer new environmental
education awards for outstanding
teaching, for excellence in print, film
or broadcast media education efforts,
for literature, and for other contributions.
The new education act also
establishes a bold new public-private
partnership—a National Environmental
Education and Training Foundation to
foster private support for the benefit of
environmental education activities.
The new foundation is chaired by
Drew University ('resident and former
New Jersey Governor Tom Kean.
Earlier this year, I accepted the first
contribution of $10,000 to this
foundation from Times Mirror
Magazines in New York City. So we're
off to a good start.
Why does all this matter? At heart,
environmental education is about
promoting stewardship, a lasting ethic
that recognizes the importance of
healthy natural systems to the future
well-being of our country, indeed of
the entire planet. That is the potential;
that is the promise.
To dwell at length in the house of
ecology is to change the way we think.
!t is to see whole systems and intricate
relationships and new possibilities: the
Central American leaf- cutter ant,
equipped with jaws like scissors; the
I?
dung beetle, which functions as a
miniature waste treatment plant. It is
to open ourselves to new variables and
new knowledge. It is endless
renewal ... it is the richness and the
reality of nature, its beauty and its
starkness.
To understand the language of the
environment is to cut across
disciplines and cultures ... to engage
our intuition as well as our
intellect ... to draw inspiration ... to
nurture our souls and grasp as best we
can the mysteries of life.
This planet is our home . . . our
common property . . . our legacy. We
dare not treat it as though we have
another one to go to.
We cannot afford to keep cutting
down our life-sustaining tropical
forests. We can't survive without
resources like the Chesapeake Bay or
the Great Lakes. We must achieve
sustainable, environmentally sound
growth—the integration of our
economic goals with our
environmental needs.
Environmental literacy can help lead
us to an ethic of stewardship—a sense
of duty to care for and manage wisely
our natural endowment, our
productive resources, for the long haul.
In the end, environmental education
boils down to one profoundly
important imperative; preparing
ourselves for life and all its surprises
in the next century. When the 21st
century rolls around, it will not be
enough for a few specialists to know
what is going on while the rest of us
wander about in ignorance.
It is my hope, therefore, that by the
turn of the century every citizen will
be fluent in the principles of ecology
and will have a working knowledge of
the basic grammar and underlying
syntax of environmental wisdom.
The Chinese philosopher Lao-Tsu
wrote two and a half millennia ago:
In the end, we will conserve
only what we Jove ... we will
love only what we
understand ... we will
understand only what we are
taught. (Emphasis added)
The first step toward stewardship is
awareness. Today, under the
Environmental Education Act, we are
taking that step so that we and our
children and our children's children
may live in harmony with the natural
systems on which all life depends, c
THE MANDATE
FIRST
STEPS
We hit the ground
running
by Lew Crampton
On October 1, 1991, the provisions
of the National Environmental
Education Act of 1990 became
effective. We at EPA are
authorized, for the first time in our
20-year history, to launch a
wide-ranging initiative to stimulate
and support environmental education
and environmental educators.
Depending upon the Congressional
appropriations process, the Agency
should be in a position to put its
resources where its heart has been by
providing grants and fellowships to
promising environmental educators.
As relative newcomers to the field,
we've spent much of the past year
gearing up to implement the new law
and learning from people who were
already active. My charge to the staff
in our new Office of Environmental
Education has been to listen to
anybody who would talk to us to
ensure that our program is aimed in
the right direction.
To make certain that EPA is
listening and building partnerships
and alliances, we are creating a formal
advisory council to assess the national
scene and he'p guide us on our way.
The members of this council will be
respected individuals from each of our
constituency groups. Their advice will
serve to ensure that our programs are
on target.
Although the provisions of the new
act did not go into effect until just
recently, Bill Reilly had already
supported a series of internal moves
(Crampton is EPA's Associate
Administrator for Communications and
Public Affairs, which includes (he
Office of Environmental Education.]
EPA JOURNAL
-------
that enabled the new Office of
Environmental Education to hit the
ground running. As an example, the
Agency invested in the development of
a clearinghouse of detailed information
on those environmental education
products and activities which EPA has
sponsored. We intend to have the
prototype of this clearinghouse
available for review and critique early
next year. After we determine that it
does, indeed, meet the needs of
environmental education professionals,
the operation will be expanded to
include all environmental education
materials developed by the entire
federal government.
Again, our emphasis is upon
producing a selective, truly useful, and
effectively used clearinghouse.
Likewise, we will be designing the
system so that as much of the
information as possible will be
available through networks such as
ECONET and the Alliance for
Environmental Education's network of
Environmental Education Centers.
Another initiative is a periodical
called Education Notes. Our office is
distributing this periodical to almost
every elementary school in the nation.
The intent and content are
straightforward. We want to give
teachers the kind of information and
tools they can use immediately. From
personal experiences to poetry to
games, each issue of Education Notes
will be filled with the kind of practical
information that resourceful teachers
can apply to increase the
environmental component of their
daily curriculum.
Another initiative is an important
conference on developing partnerships
in environmental education in
Washington on November 19 through
21. At that conference, we will gather
together representatives of key
interest groups in environmental
education to both learn from them and
get their reactions to our plans. For
example, the new Environmental
Education Act calls for EPA to allocate
several millions of dollars for grants in
support of environmental education
activities nationwide. To date, we have
issued preliminary guidance on how to
apply for these grants. Before this
guidance goes final and, more
importantly, before any grants are
awarded, we expect the information
we gather at our November conference
to guide us in crafting an effective
program. The hundreds of small grants
to be awarded each year should help
to unlock the tremendous creative
talents of educators nationwide and
help stimulate the growth of a more
environmentally aware, and
responsible, citizenry.
Of particular emphasis in our
initiative will be an expanded,
aggressive internship and fellowship
program to bring hundreds of
additional teachers and students into
positions with federal agencies and
laboratories where they can develop
and fine-tune their environmental
education expertise. Here our
emphasis will be upon minorities,
native Americans, and others who may
currently be underrepresented in the
environmental and teaching
professions.
People have asked me: Why are you
getting all excited about this? What
can teaching kids about living life
gently when it comes to the
environment really mean? What makes
you think that all this can make a
difference when it comes to solving
some of the most complex
technological and scientific problems
of our age? Well, I've been in this field
as a regulator and enforcer for over 10
years, and I've seen education work.
Two years ago, a young student was
at the White House to receive an
environmental youth award from the
President. Not satisfied just to receive
his award, in front of all the cameras,
reports, and microphones, he asked the
President if the White House had a
recycling program. Today there is a
recycling program in the White House.
Bill Reilly, Hank Habicht, and the
17,000 people of EPA have great
expectations for our environmental
education program. For this reason, it
is important that we reach an
understanding about what
environmental education entails.
I don't mean that we need to spend
time word-smithing any particular
definition of environmental
education—the job's too big and too
important to get bogged down in such
details. What we do need to achieve at
the outset is an understanding of
where each of us is coming from, to
clarify the scope and mission of each
major player in the environmental
education field, and to get on with the
job.
To succeed we need to develop a
new definition of the three R's—Roles,
Responsibilities, and Relationships. In
terms of definitions, my tendency is to
be inclusive rather than exclusive. Of
course, we want to support
environmental education activities
which are proven effective. Yet we
also need to stimulate progress by
supporting imaginative ideas which
may sound strange but may yield great
benefits. Just as the strength of an
ecosystem, or a nation, is in its
diversity, so the strength of our
environmental education initiatives
will be in their diversity.
But diversity also needs a context
that provides overall direction to
where we are going and how we
intend to get there. I am sensitive to
our need to plan strategically and to
keep our energies focused on positive
and progressive programs. This is
clearly an area where all of us must
work together.
Change for change's sake doesn't
appeal to me. But the need to reform
our educational system is so great that
changes are not only inevitable, they
are essential. We fully intend that our
environmental education activities will
encourage and engender positive
change and will be closely linked to
the America 2000 strategy set forth by
the President and the nation's
governors.
We prepare for the coming century
through environmental education,
through fostering environmental
literacy. With more and more voices
clamoring to be heard, it is important
that basic assumptions and
vocabularies are widely shared and
respected throughout American
society, if not the world. With more
and more local initiatives needed, it is
important that individuals have the
knowledge to make wise choices.
Educated consumers can become
environmental stewards; they can
demand—and get—environmentally
safer products, products with less
packaging, and more recycled and
recyclable products.
Informed citizens can take the
initiative, as members of their
communities or members of
conservation groups, to address the
daunting problems ahead of us. Like
reading itself, environmental literacy is
fast becoming an essential competence;
almost certainly, it will be central to
any successful strategy to grapple with
the enormously complex issues of the
next century.
At EPA it is our hope that by the
turn of the millennium, every citizen
will be fluent in the principles of
ecology and will have a working
knowledge of the basic grammar and
underlying syntax of environmental
wisdom. D
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
13
-------
THE MANDATE
THE CHALLENGE
Will we end up where we're headed?
by Thomas H. Kean
Three years ago New Jersey tourism
officials wanted to find out
whether the state's new
clean-ocean programs were
restoring the confidence of beachgoers.
They surveyed visitors to the shore
and found startlingly widespread
ignorance.
And where there was knowledge, it
was usually twisted. For example,
several people said they'd heard of
"red tide"—and they thought it was a
brand-name chemical. One woman
knew that the New Jersey Department
of Environmental Protection was
conducting fly-over ocean testing, and
she understood that to mean the
department was lowering people out of
a helicopter to dip their toes in the
water.
Last summer, the WaJl Street Journal
released the results of a poll showing
that 80 percent of Americans call
themselves environmentalists. And yet
in that same poll, nearly 55 percent
could not recall a single instance over
the past six months when they bought
one product instead of another for
environmental reasons.
The National Science Teachers
Association conducted a survey of its
own. It found among high schools in
the United States, one-third offer no
physics course, one-fifth no chemistry,
one-tenth no biology, and a full
three-fourths no Earth or space
science. It's possible, then, that your
child has no access to basic: biology or
Earth science in her own school.
(Kean is President of Drew University.
He served as Governor of New Jersey
from 1982 to 1990, chaired the
National Wetlands Policy Forum in
1988, and is on the board of World
Wildlife Fund.]
These are three widely different
surveys, to be sure, but their numbers
add up. Compare them with the
mounting problems of global warming,
acid rain, ocean pollution, ozone
depletion, wetlands loss, and the
massive yearly extinction of countless
species. They add up, or more aptly,
subtract down, to a disturbing deficit
of ecological understanding and action.
It is what I call an environmental
deficit. The world we depend upon for
our sustenance cannot long sustain us
at this rate of waste and wanton abuse
of scarce resources. And yet few of us
are learning or applying the lessons we
will need to save our earth.
Several people said they'd
heard of "red tide"—and they
thought it was a brand-name
chemical.
The environmental deficit is in part
economic. By 1996, it could cost more
than $100 million a year just to
operate and maintain the federal
Superfund sites in my own state of
New Jersey. Some experts estimate that
the federal bill for Superfund cleanup
will reach $500 billion over the next
four to five decades. This money could
have been used to fund more Head
Start programs, or solve the health
insurance crisis, or fund any number
of innovative urban enterprise projects.
Instead it is the price we must pay for
the "out of sight, out of mind" attitude
toward waste disposal and pollution
that prevailed for much of this
century.
But for all the fiscal costs, there is
another environmental deficit in this
country. It is a deficit in awareness of
our precarious position, a deficit in
understanding how much we must do
to change the Western world's abusive
14
policies—in short, a deficit in
education.
We are in the midst of the
Information Age, but lost in the reams
of data is any rational method of
thinking about how our decisions
affect the world we inhabit. We are not
teaching enough about how to connect
science with policy. As Roy Vagelos,
the chairman of Merck & Company,
writes, "It is disturbing that the men
and women who will be the country's
leaders in the 21st century are not
being equipped to think intelligently
about the environment, energy, space,
defense, and biotechnology."
We have confused information with
intelligence. Our culture rewards
mastery of the first and presumes
mastery of the second. That's why
"Trivial Pursuit" is so popular, and
television game shows like "Jeopardy."
But as David Orr of Oberlin College
contends, education must be about
more than collecting raw data. Our
goal, he writes, should be "to connect
intelligence, with its emphasis on
whole systems and the long term, with
cleverness, which is being smart about
details." Orr argues that an economist
who lacks even the basics of ecology
cannot accurately calculate the Gross
National Product: "We add the price of
the sale of a bushel of wheat to the
GNP while forgetting to subtract the
three bushels of topsoil lost in the
production."
If we allow our environmental
deficit to grow, we risk danger both to
our economy and the health and
well-being of our posterity. To
maintain a shallow understanding of
the environment is to be transfixed by
a small but tangible problem like Alar
while ignoring a greater but more
mysterious risk like radon.
During my term as governor, several
hundred barrels of radium-
contaminated soil were
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Browning-Ferris Industries' Garbage Museum
in San Jose, California, is designed to show
how much Americans throw away daily, how
this practice damages the environment, and
how recycling can help.
Bob Samples photo. I'njjrrf \\'!l.l)
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
unearthed in one New Jersey
neighborhood. Several families were
forced to leave their homes while we
dealt with the problem. We looked
everywhere for a place to dispose of
the soil safely. Expert after expert
assured us there was virtually no
danger to human health as long as the
soil was open to the air and not
trapped under a building. Still, every
New Jersey community we approached
rose up in fear and anger at the
suggestion that we dispose of it there.
If people had known enough about the
relative risks, my administration could
have saved millions of taxpayer dollars
and enormous political capital.
Addressing the need for better
environmental education will be
difficult given the present state of
affairs. Simply put, our public schools
are failing our children, and we must
do all we can to reverse the course.
Once you could live the American
Dream through hard work and
perseverance. But today that's no
longer true. The 21st century worker
will need to offer more than the sweat
BFI photo.
of his brow; he will need to know
computers, understand other cultures,
and perform complex tasks.
In short, the citizen of the next
century must be able to think
intelligently and critically—and that
critical thinking will apply to more of
life than the job site. Our social,
economic, political, and certainly our
environmental problems are more
complex than ever and demand
intelligent choices from each citizen.
Thankfully, Americans are beginning
to recognize the need for better
environmental education. They
understand that our nation's poor
grades in science and math are
ominous portents. And they are
coming to the belief that they can't
rely on the experts alone to heal the
Earth. The Wall Street Journal study
indicated that better than 50 percent
believe it will take fundamental
lifestyle changes, rather than scientific
breakthroughs, to effect dramatic
changes in the environment. One man
told the Journal, "Changing the way
15
-------
Few of us are learning or
applying the lessons we will
need to save our earth.
we live is a little more sure, the way I
see it."
I see it the same way. At EPA
Administrator Bill Reilly's request, I
have agreed to head a new effort called
the National Environmental Education
and Training Foundation (NEETF),
which is all about changing ^the way
we live. NEETF is a non-profit
partnership between government and
private groups, chartered by federal
legislation and aimed at fostering a
new environmental ethic through the
powerful tools of education and
training.
Our vision is both compelling and
collaborative: We want to promote a
global commitment to meeting the
needs of the present while ensuring
that our children and grandchildren's
children can meet their own needs. We
want to instill in the minds of people
throughout America and, indeed,
throughout the world, the idea that
sustainable development holds the key
to a better life for us all.
Right now, there are hundreds of
organizations, many of them
outstanding, with clear and noble
missions. Some are trying to increase
the pool of environmental
professionals in our country, while
others try to build environmental
awareness among all citizens. But
these efforts are scattered around the
country, and they often operate on a
shoestring budget. For one reason or
another, they don't get the publicity or
the support they deserve. Many of
them would benefit by talking with
one another or joining forces on a
project, if they had the chance. At the
same time, many bright young people
consider careers in
environment-related areas but see little
financial reward.
The foundation represents the first
attempt in our nation's history to bring
together these diverse individuals and
organizations. Our hope is that it will
be an information clearinghouse, an
idea center, and a fundraiser. We hope
to teach, to cajole, to trumpet the good,
and to collaborate.
• Through a resource bank and a
comprehensive directory, the
foundation will be a place to which
the public can turn for information
about and access to environmental
education and training programs across
the country.
• Through a staff of environmental
experts, the foundation will help
individual groups expand the reach of
their own education and training
efforts.
• Through annual competitive grants,
it will support outstanding programs,
recognizing and emphasizing those
that can be duplicated elsewhere.
• Through a combination of grants and
consulting, the foundation will be a
catalyst for the training and retraining
of professionals in all fields—from
accountants to factory foremen to
CEOs—to make them partners in
creating a more environmentally sound
and productive workplace.
• And through an endowment fund, it
will provide scholarships and
fellowships to deserving students who
commit themselves to environmentally
related research or careers.
The foundation's strength will be its
public/private partnership. I say that
from experience. Some of my proudest
accomplishments as governor came
about through a partnership between
government and the private sector.
One example was our state's hugely
successful Commission on Science and
Technology, which brought
industrialists, academics, and
government leaders together to
promote investment in our state
through high technology "incubators"
at a number of state universities.
Another example was the National
Wetlands Policy Forum, which
achieved real breakthroughs because
developers, environmentalists,
bureaucrats, and academics worked
together. The foundation will look for
opportunities like these. It will give
everyone a chance.—the business owner
and the bureaucrat, the activist and the
philanthropist—to combine resources,
both financial and intellectual, to build
an environmentally safe and
economically sound future.
The foundation will allow the
teacher and the production line
supervisor to talk together about how
that particular factory cuts its
environmental deficit and how it can
cut it more. It will be a place where a
town manager can turn for ideas about
reducing waste in his or her
municipality. It will be a place a
corporate leader can call to find
speakers, documentaries, or training
manuals on the environment. It will be
a meeting ground and a funding broker
for environmental education and
training organizations that want to join
forces on common goals. And through
its scholarships, it can be a breeding
ground for the next generation of
leaders in this area.
My hope is that the foundation can
marshall the energy and all the
research that is building across the
country so we can begin to erase our
environmental deficit, both fiscal and
educational. An old Chinese proverb
holds that "if we do not change our
direction, we will end up where we
are headed." The National
Environmental Education and Training
Foundation is our best hope of
changing direction toward a
sustainable economy and a safer
world, a
16
EPA JOURNAL
-------
"WHAT DID
YOULEABN
TODAY?"
Much more
than the
three "R's"
by Jeff Welsch
PREPARING OUR YOUTH
to*
(Welsch is a public information officer
in the Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources.]
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
isconsin parents are getting some
unique responses to the
time-worn question, "What did
you learn in school today?" Let's
listen in on the dinner conversation of
the fictional Badger family.
Fourth-grader Bucky: "We did this
really neat game in gym. The teacher
made us play 'Hooks and Ladders,'
and we pretended we were salmon and
we had to get past a bunch of stuff to
get to a safe lake. I got to be a fish
trying to swim up the river, and there
were some kids pretending to be
fishermen trying to catch me, and then
I had to jump over a dam, but some
more kids were eagles trying to grab
me to eat me. Then when my friend
Jimmy got to be a fish
Seventh-grader Becky: "That's weird!
We got to do this neat experiment in
science class to see how ground water
gets contaminated and spreads to other
people's wells. There was a big box
filled with sand, with a bunch of
monitoring wells in it. We had to try
17
-------
Environmental games
can make learning fun.
on phulu. i'VV'-St^vcns I'oinl.
to find where the contamination
started by testing the pH of the wells
with litmus paper. It was amazing how
far the pollution spread—almost all the
wells got contaminated, and the closest
ones were real bad."
Four-year-old Betsy: "We made big
bubbles with those rings that hold pop
cans together. The man said we have
to always throw them away because
birds can get them on their necks and
die."
Eleventh-grader Bobby: "I started a
new water color in art class today.
First, we all got a fact sheet on an
endangered species to study — mine
was on the Massasauga rattlesnake.
After we studied the fact sheet, we had
to sketch a habitat that would have
everything the species needed to live
and have the proper environment so it
could be safe and reproduce."
From the Wee Recyclers program for
preschoolers to special materials
developed for older students, with
study guides and Project WILD
(Wildlife in Learning Design) and
Project Learning Tree activities for all
grades, Wisconsin students are
(always) exposed to environmental
education.
But the interesting thing is,
Wisconsin students can't sign up for
Environmental Education class when
they register for school—and they don't
need to! That's because environmental
education is infused throughout the
curriculum at all grade levels.
"Our goal has been to frame
environmental issues as background
for basic educational activities," said
Cathy Cliff, education section chief for
the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources. "Requiring K-12 courses in
environmental education would be a
significant burden on teachers and
schools, which already have many
required subjects to teach. Rather, we
ask that reading, writing, and
arithmetic be taught using familiar
issues such as waste disposal, clean
water, and wildlife management."
Infusing the environment into the
curriculum is only one part of what
makes Wisconsin's environmental
education efforts a success. According
to Cliff, the combination of history,
tradition, partnerships, and action has
led to the state's nationally recognized
education program.
FRANK & ERNEST BOB THAVES
Frank and Ernest reprinted by permission of NEA, Inc.
iff' I
A PAT£ WITH
°t/r
18
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Wisconsin schools integrate
environmental issues into their
regular curriculum.
" ... we ask that reading,
writing, and arithmetic be
taught using familiar issues
such as waste disposal, clean
water, and wildlife
management."
"Taken singly, the environmental
education programs that we're using
are not so different from what people
are doing across the nation," noted
Cliff. "But when you add together the
many facets of our program—all
founded in the history of land
stewardship and progressive tradition
that is unique to Wisconsin and
backed by state law—then you can see
how we are different."
Wisconsin's agricultural heritage has
instilled in many residents, urban and
rural alike, a high regard for the land
and its use. The state also carries the
legacy of two great, pioneering
environmentalists, John Muir and Aldo
Leopold.
State laws requiring conservation
education were already on the books
in the 1930s. And since 1985,
teacher-education graduates in science,
social studies, agriculture, early
childhood, and elementary education
must have competency in
environmental education. That
competency requires that new teachers
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
have knowledge of the wide variety of
natural resources, methods of
conserving natural resources,
interactions between living and
nonliving elements of the natural
environment, and the ways citizens
can participate in the resolution of
environmental problems.
Most importantly, environmental
education in Wisconsin emphasizes
teaching kids how to think, not what
to think. "The premise is that our
children learn how to think and
evaluate problems and solutions,
rather than learn what we think are the
right or correct answers," said Cliff.
A mathematics problem has one
answer. But an environmental
problem, like religion or politics, may
have several answers.
"We want Wisconsin children to
become adults who understand that
each decision comes with a price tag
on our ecomony, social structure,
environment, emotions,
traditions—and heirs," added Cliff.
"That knowledge, along with the tools
to make informed decisions and the
realization that we have to take
responsibility for our own part in the
problem, will result in better answers."
Then there's the cooperative
approach. Environmental education is
officially championed by the state's
Department of Public Instruction,
which is supported by the Department
of Natural Resources, the University of
Wisconsin's educational system (the
University's Stevens Point School of
Natural Resources, in particular), the
University's extension program, private
nature centers, and the Wisconsin
Association of Environmental
Education. They all play major roles.
Together, they train the teachers and
provide the tools—study guides, fact
sheets, Project WILD (Wildlife In
Learning Design), Project Learning
Tree, curriculum guides, and much
more—so that teachers can be informed
and feel comfortable with the subject
matter.
Environmental education continues
to move forward. New on the scene,
and yet to make their full presence
known, are a Wisconsin Environmental
Education Board, the Center for
Environmental Education, and the
Environmental Education Grants
Program.
What really has made environmental
education work in Wisconsin,
according to Cliff, is the approach
taken to get things done. "We just do
it," she said. "We use the resources we
have to do what we can. We do it well,
and this generates more support for the
program."
What did Bucky, Becky, Betsy, and
Bobby learn in school today? Much
more than just reading, writing, and
arithmetic, c
-------
PREPARII|GJJRVOIITH
WHAT THE FAMILY CAN DO
Match a visual lesson to a verbal one
by Mary Metzger
and Cinthya A. Whittaker
(Mefzger and Whitfaker are mothers
and child-safety consultants. They
also serve as lobbyists on Capitol Hill
for child safety and accident
prevention issues. Ms. Whittaker works
for The Nature Conservancy, an
environmental group.]
Each time we wash the dishes, mow
the lawn, prepare a meal, drive a
car, do the laundry, or turn on a
lightswitch, there is a resulting
effect on the environment. Learning
what these effects are and working to
improve the results have become an
immediate mission for many of us. But
how do we ensure success for the
long term?
This question can be answered in
one brief imperative: Share the
knowledge with your children. Build
their lives on the fundamentals of
respect and nurturing of their planet.
After all, we will pass it into their
hands, just as the previous generation
passed it into ours. They must take an
active role in the Earth's care—the
sooner, the better.
Demonstrate by action how to
assume responsibility, and explain
why action is vital. Don't worry that
the information you impart is too
technical or advanced. Environmental
information can be tailored to suit
children's individual needs. You'll be
surprised at their readiness and
willingness to participate in the
learning process.
The best advice we can offer is to
start slowly. Do your homework. Focus
on the issues that are of greatest
concern to you. Perhaps you are
concerned with your external
environment—the water, land, or air.
Perhaps the effects of consumerism
weigh on your mind. There are a
number of fine books and magazines
on the market to help you decipher the
mass of information.
As you focus your newfound
knowledge on the children in your
care, remember that when dealing with
pre-school children, the basics are
important. How can a three- or
four-year-old understand the concept
of air pollution if the concept of air is
not even fathomable? Here's where
creativity comes in—where memory of
all those elementary school science
Sharing a sunset together on Dig Bay dc
Noc near Garden, Michigan.
experiments will come in handy.
Presenting a visual lesson
accompanied by a verbal one is always
much more effective, and much more
likely to be retained. Using activities
as a learning tool will not only teach
specific concepts but also nurture a
broader understanding of the
interconnectedness of all nature's
beings and natural processes.
Such activities and projects can run
the gamut and can help you and your
children appreciate the wonder of
Earth's natural processes. As we
mentioned before, they can take the
form of "science" experiments or can
be much simpler alterations to daily
activities. Decide what's best for your
family and begin acting! Here are a few
ideas:
20
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Since we mentioned the concept of air
as being a particularly tricky one for
younger children, try making a
pinwheel and talk about how air
moves although you can't see it. Open
up the discussion to include wind
power and energy.
You'll need four items:
Square piece of paper
Straw
What lives at the shoreline? A family
outing with nets can be a real learning
experience.
Paper fastener (the kind with
head, like a nail, and two
prongs that open up)
Scissors.
• Make diagonal cuts on each of the
four comers of the paper toward the
center. (Leave plenty of room in the
middle to insert the fastener,)
• Pull one corner of each of the
"triangles" toward the center so that
the corners overlap slightly.
• Using the prongs of the fastener,
make a small incision at the center and
insert the fastener through the
overlapping corners. Spread the prongs
apart slightly but not so far apart that
they won't fit into the straw.
«• Insert the prongs of the fastener
through one end of the straw to fasten
the paper pinwheel to the straw. It's as
simple as that.
* Note: If your children are interested
in decorating the pinwheel, this
should be done before the paper is cut
and fastened to the straw.
Other activities: To further show
"how air works," hang laundry
together and talk about the sun's heat.
While you're doing it, stretch a rubber
band between two clothespins on the
line. Check the rubber band in a few
days, a week, and couple of weeks if it
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
21
-------
lasts. If it deteriorates quickly, you
may live in an area with poor air
quality. You can talk more about the
air pollution in your neighborhood and
what can be done about it.
Water
To learn about the water cycle, try this
simple experiment. You'll need:
A large plastic bowl (if a clear
plastic bowl is available, so much
the better)
An empty mug or cup
A piece of plastic wrap large
enough to cover the top of the
bowl
A stone or other "weight."
• Place the mug upright in the middle
of the bowl.
• Fill the bowl with a few inches of
water (not so much that the water
begins to fill the mug, which should
remain empty).
• Cover the bow! with the plastic
wrap, making sure it is securely
fastened.
• Put the rubber band around the lip of
the bowl to make it air tight. String or
tape may be used for the same
purpose.
• Set the stone or weight in the middle
of the plastic cover directly above the
mug. During the experiment, the
weight of the stone will cause the
water to collect in one spot over the
mug so that it will fall into it.
• Place the bowl in a sunny place and
watch. You'll soon see how the
evaporated water condenses on the
underside of the plastic cover and,
when enough has collected, falls into
the rnug, like rain!
Water is the basis for all plant and
animal life on Earth and as such
should be considered precious and
never wasted. Let your children
conduct a home analysis and see
where savings can be made.
To see just how dependent we all
are on water, try this little experiment.
When your household gets up in the
morning, each of you should put a
small notepad and a pencil in your
pocket. Each time you use water
during the day, make a note of it (i.e.,
tooth brushing, cleaning the fish bowl,
filling ice trays, flushing the toilet). It
won't be easy to tell how much water
you use, but you'll be surprised at how
many times you do use it. Your list
should be very long. Think about how
much is used, multiplied by the
members of your household! This is an
excellent project for older children.
Land
Increased pressures from our
burgeoning population are placing
serious stresses on the
land—everything from overburdened
landfills to exhausted soil. The best
help a family can lend to this situation
is to recycle. Once your home
22
recycling is set up, consider the trash
found in our public areas:
• Organize your family, school, church
group, or neighborhood to clean and
recycle trash found in a designated
area every week. It could be the local
park, beach, or picnic area. You
choose.
• Make a concerted effort to stick to
your schedule of tending the area you
have chosen once a week, or even once
a month. Pick up all the trash you
find, recyclable or not. Have a contest
to see who picks up the most in a day
and reward that person with an
"eco-prize." It could be a nature book
or poster, a T-shirt from an
environmental organization—anything
you can think of. If you recycle the
metal cans you find at a place that
pays you for them, the proceeds from
your collection can be used to buy the
prize. Or you could save your earnings
over the course of a year and do
something really special with the
money, like making your group a
member of your favorite environmental
organization or adopting a whale or an
acre of rain forest.
In summary, we have a
responsibility to preserve and protect
not just one another, but all those with
whom we share the air, water, and
land. Use your conviction,
commitment, and knowledge to guide
you and your children. Your positive
action will prove to be one of the best
legacies you leave to your children for
it will encourage them to follow your
lead as they grow into adulthood.
There is so much more you and your
family can do. Q
This article is adapted from THIS
PLANET IS MINE by Mary Metzger
and Cinthya P. Whittaker. Copyright
(cj 1993 by Mary Metzger and Cinthya
P. Whittaker. Printed by permission of
Fireside/Simon & Schuster Inc.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
PREPARING OUR YOUTH
LEARNING THEATRICALLY
Let's use the right brain
by Peyton Lewis
In the musical play "Willa and Wetlands," three muskrats, right, invite Willa to join
them in their lodge.
Last year Congress passed a new law
calling for environmental
education. Environmental
education: Sounds good, but what
does it really mean? Most of us who
call ourselves adults never heard of it
when we were growing up. There can
be no question that we adults need
environmental education ourselves.
But to achieve any dynamic and
long-lasting effect on the environment,
we need to target young people, who
(Lewis is founder and president of the
National Children's 7'heater for the
Environment. She was an EPA
employee for 12 years, serving both in
Region 6 and at Headquarters.)
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
are the future of this planet. If we
teach them to have concern for the
environment, our children just might
give us some lessons in responsible
environmental action as well.
A case in point: A recent New York
Times article on the "eco-smart" child
detailed stories of vociferous children
who are educating their parents about
all manner of environmental
issues—whether or not the parents
want to hear. Children have the
advantage of taking fresh approaches
to the environment without suffering
from bad habits that adults have spent
a lifetime developing.
So how do we educate our children?
What will appeal to the hearts and
minds of children and help develop a
new environmental ethic? One unique
and exciting approach is by presenting
environmental information through the
arts. The National Children's Theater
for the Environment (NCTE) has
developed a program that allows
young children to process information
in an experiential way so that the
information becomes a part of
them—and not just another fact they
learned in school. Here's what we're
doing and why we're doing it.
Traditional environmental education
as confined to physical science classes
has been less than successful in
making children excited about the
environment and anxious to approach
solutions creatively. According to an
EPA Task Force report released in
1990, focusing on science classes "fails
to demonstrate and institutionalize the
cross-disciplinary nature of
environmental issues." Clearly, we
need to think more broadly in our
approach to teaching children about
the environment.
The 1990 report stressed that we
need to infuse the entire curriculum
with environmental education so that
children will be able to draw
connections to the environment from a
whole variety of disciplines. NCTE
operates on the idea that children
learn in many different ways, and we
want to engage all of their senses in
lively interactive learning.
When environmental subjects are
confined to the science curriculum,
one problem arises from the inherent
tendency of many science teachers to
appeal only to the analytical
(left-brain) learning styles of children.
According to a 1989 publication
released by the National Education
Association (NEA), studies on child
learning reveal that the right and left
hemispheres of the brain process
information differently. The left
hemisphere processes information
sequentially, analytically, serially, and
rationally. The right side grasps whole
ideas, patterns, and connections and
understands intuitively. The NEA
affirms that young students approach
reality through imagination, and the
arts are an integral part of how they
learn. NCTE, taking advantage of that
research, has designed a nationwide
effort to engage children's interest and
involvement in the environment
through a whole spectrum of art forms.
The centerpiece of the NCTE arts
package is a live play performed for
children in kindergarten through
fourth grade at their own school. The
play is designed to be performed in the
round, so that students can be close to
the performers and the actors can
23
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interact directly with the children. The
play stresses a humorous approach
that avoids any hint of preachiness or
talking down to the students. The
performance is followed by a teaching
videotape for use in the classroom,
which reinforces the ideas first
presented in the play. It is designed to
lead children in follow-up classroom
activities that engage them in art,
drama, dance, music, sculpture, and
poetry.
Through the videotape, children can
join in the activities and produce their
own art work expressing their
understanding of the messages
conveyed by the play. They can write
their own songs and create their own
dances and dramatic presentations.
The poetry section prompts children to
make action statements about steps
they personally can take to preserve
the environment. Each videotape is
accompanied by a resource guide
containing suggested classroom
exercises and outside excursions that
further reinforce important messages
well after the NCTE performance. The
program is designed to include a
home-fun kit with activities that the
children can do with their parents,
further extending the reach of the
project.
NCTE's pilot project was performed
in May 1991 in the Alexandria,
Virginia, schools. Funding was
provided by the National Safety
Council and EPA, with other
assistance from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
Central to the project i.s "Willa in
Wetlands," a musical play that tells of
a little girl who enters the wetlands
because she has heard they hold a
treasure. She is searching for gold or
silver, but instead she finds another
kind of treasure.
Along the way, Willa meets a
number of animals and plants who live
in the wetlands and comes to
appreciate them through her exposure.
She meets pink shrimp who don't
want to lose their comfortable shrimp
The right side grasps whole
ideas, patterns, and
connections and understands
intuitively.
beds. She is surprised to find a rock
band made up of rockfish with a lead
singer named Wild Rice. Wild Rice
sings her a snappy Rap song that is as
contemporary as today's school yard.
Other wetlands creatures are a bald
eagle ashamed of being bald, a trio of
crabs concerned about their weedy
homes, and three rnuskrats who want
her to join their lodge in the marsh.
The Great Blue Heron tells her what
she can do to save the wetlands, and
Willa realizes what the wetlands
treasure really is.
Follow-up activities to this play
include a trip to a real wetland where
children can look and see and feel the
environment. When children cannot
make such a trip, they are encouraged
to paint different habitats with
watercolors or create soft sculptures in
clay, fabric, or papier-mache. A variety
of exercises with pantomime and
music allows the children to create
their own experience of the wetlands.
The National
Children's Theatre
for the Environment
uses humor and
imagination to reach
youngsters. This bald
<.'<'j/j/i', a character in
"Willa and
Wetlands, " is
ashamed of his
baldness.
NCTE plans to expand this program
across the nation through the help of
theater departments of major
universities and community colleges.
Because of the opportunity for stage
performance and production
experience for their students, the
college and university theater
departments are willing to deliver
NCTE plays to the local elementary
schools.
Besides seeking general operating
funds, NCTE is looking for local
funding to go to local universities for
performances in local schools. We
believe that this kind of local package
will attract businesses that want to
contribute toward environmental
education in their own communities.
NCTE is also seeking supplemental
support for the promotion and
distribution of NCTE programs from a
variety of community-based voluntary
organizations.
The first subject for an arts package
was wetlands protection, followed by a
package on indoor air pollution. The
package concept is easily adaptable to
accommodate many different
environmental subjects, but the focus
will continue to be on what the
individual child can do to make a
difference. It is very important not to
overwhelm children with grim tales,
but rather to focus on positive
solutions.
NCTE also offers a full line of arts
services tailored to the individual
needs of groups that want to develop
environmental education programs for
children, including videotapes,
workshops, educational materials,
teacher training, and original plays.
We can develop specific programs for
educational institutions, corporations,
government agencies, or
community-based service organizations
that wish to use theater or allied arts
to teach an important environmental
message.
Teaching environmental information
to young children through the arts is
just one of many ways to do it, but we
believe it is a significant approach.
Think back on your own elementary
school experiences and recall which
ones left a lasting effect. Can you still
remember a poem you memorized? A
song you learned? Remember what it
felt like to be in the school play? It is
these memories that we are trying to
link with sound environmental
messages that will last a lifetime, n
EPA JOURNAL
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(WARING OUR YOUTH
THE GAMES CHILDREN PLAY
Even Verminous Skumm is made
of recycled materials
by Jack Lewis
The Toxic Crusader and his band
do battle with evil polluters.
Environmental education need not
be confined to America's
classrooms: Kids today do not have
to stop learning about the
environment once their lessons are
over at school. They can continue
picking up valuable ideas, often in
extremely kooky ways, from the
moment they return home to the
moment they go to bed. How? By
playing with environmental toys, by
participating in environmental games,
and—in some households—by playing
computer games hooked into their
family's personal computer. The range
of educational or quasi-educational
products catering to these various
leisure markets is already quite
extensive and constantly growing.
Here's a brief and impressionistic
survey of the fun-oriented
environmental toys now available.
Two major lines of "action"
toys—Captain Planet and the Toxic
Crusader—present environmental
themes in packages comprehensible to
kids four through seven. "Action toys"
are plastic figures approximately 4
inches high, with moveable arms and
legs, retailing for a very affordable
price in the $3.50 to $5 range.
Customarily, they are marketed in
clusters, complete with heroes and
villains, and children first learn the
characters' identities by watching
syndicated TV cartoon shows that
create a "pre-sold" market for spin-off
products.
Captain Planet, the creation of the
Turner Broadcasting System (in
conjunction with DIG Enterprises), is a
pro-environment superhero who stars
in a popular cartoon show that airs in
many major markets. Kids who like
that show can become honorary
"Planeteers" by joining Captain
Planet's fan club, by buying his series
of action toys ($4.99 each), and by
playing his special board game,
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
($12.99). Captain Planet and his
Planeteers wear the white hat of
eco-virtue; the Captain's enemies are,
needless to say, the dregs of the Earth.
For instance, among the "eco-villains"
featured in both the action line and the
board game is a character named
"Verminous Skumm," half man and
half rat, "an underground eco-villain
plotting to mold the world into his
own dirty image."
Captain Planet toys also typify the
new trend toward green packaging and
green manufacturing that is sweeping
many sectors of the U.S. toy
industry—and U.S. industry in general.
For instance, purchasers of Captain
Planet action toys are enticed with the
following information printed on the
package cover: "These figures are made
with 100 percent recycled materials,
and 10 percent of any sales proceeds
go to the Planeteer Foundation, which
fosters environmental protection
activities." Each package also includes
an "Environmental Tip," such as
"Turn off appliances; don't waste
electricity."
Playmates's Toxic Crusader toy line
offers more of the same. First kids
learn about the series' characters by
watching a cartoon show based on the
popular four-part cult movie, The
Toxic Avenger. Then they run out and
buy Toxic Crusader action toys and
other paraphernalia, ranging from a
grotesquely ugly costume called
"Toxie's Hideously Deformed Dress-Up
Set" ($9.95) to "Toxie's Light-Up Battle
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
-------
Mop" (complete with American flag!).
perfect for cleaning up hazardous
waste ($7.40), to Toxie's Toxic Waste,
"the green toxic glow-in-the-dark stuff
that turned Toxie from nerd to
hideously deformed creature of
superhuman size and strength" ($2.15).
Toxie, of course, is the fearless Toxic
Crusader, who like his more popular
cousins, the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles, owes his super-human
strength to a dunking in nasty
environmental poisons. Monstrously
muscular Toxie, a former 98-pound
weakling, leads a "band of deformed
do-gooders" as they do "battle with the
evil pollutant mutant Dr. Killemoff"
and his wicked cohorts.
For kids in the next age group—8
and up—there are plenty of
environmental toys and games now on
the market. The Kit Company's Green
House Game ($18), a board game
aimed at children 8 and up, involves
advancing from room to room in a big
house and pausing in each room to
determine what environmentally
sound decisions a kid can make
without leaving his home. Every good
decision is rewarded with an
"Environ-Mind Certificate" as well as
an "ecopoint." Whoever first gets 10
ecopoints wins the game.
A broader universe of environmental
problems is explored in Aristoplay
Ltd.'s Pollution Solution: The Game of
Environmental Impact ($21), aimed at
two to six players, ages 10 and up.
This game requires players, either
cooperatively or in competition, to
clean up a mythical township by
making decisions about water use,
family planning, recycling, and other
matters. Another intelligent board
game is L. Dawson Mason's Recycling:
A Solid Waste Management Board
Game ($19.95) for two to four players
ages 12 and up. Players get award
cards for "clean and consistent
sorting" and "Fine!" cards when they
make a recycling error. Organized on a
more factual basis is the new Great
Lakes Pursuit Game, marketed by Ohio
Sea Grant; modeled after Trivial
Pursuit, this $24 game—aimed at
teens 14 and up—consists of questions
and answers that impart valuable
information about the history, culture,
geography, and other characteristics of
the Great Lakes. The contestant who
knows the most answers advances
fastest around the playing board and
wins the game.
Computer games are the aristocrats
of environmental games; the most
In the computer game SimEarth,
players can subject their planet
to multiple disasters—and then
rescue or destroy it.
expensive and the most educational,
they are also the most sophisticated,
catering to teens 13 and up and
appealing to adults as well. Of these,
two in particular— Earthquest and
SimEarth—stood out in my estimation.
Earthquest ($79.95), marketed by
Earthquest, Inc., presents students with
a lively and entertaining
mini-encyclopedia covering more than
150 environmental, geographical,
demographic, and historical subjects.
The subject matter is brought to life
through dozens of interactive ploys
(such as quizzes and games),
imaginative computer graphics and
animation, recorded samples of music
and languages (including Croatian and
Swahili!), 43 maps, and a variety of
charts and tables. High-tech Earth
Questers begin as members of the
Earthquest Exploration Team and
aspire through skill and daring to
become "Global Environmental
Heroes." As of September 1991,
Earthquest—formerly only a
Mac-compatible product—is
IBM-compatible as well. (As EPA
Journal went to press, Earthquest Inc.
had recently released a brand new
computer game, entitled Ecology,
which computer game fans may want
to investigate.)
SimEarth, a new computer game
from Maxis ($69.95), is even more
ambitious than EarthQuest in that it
does not confine the player to planet
Earth. Earth is only one of seven
ready-to-evolve planets that the
SimEarth player can subject to varying
conditions of climate, evolution,
mutation, pollution, and continental
drift. Through skillful manipulation of
this complex software package, the
player can experience the often
surprising impact that diverse factors
have on each other when they interact.
Wars occur, volcanoes erupt, the
Greenhouse Effect causes flooding, and
nuclear accidents occur, all to
accompaniment of weird music and
sound effects. These
cataclysms—usually avoidable, if
intelligence prevails—teach youngsters
about the Gaia hypothesis: the concept
that planetary worlds are living
systems that adapt to changing
conditions. Students will learn more
specific, nitty-gritty information by
playing EarthQuest, but SimEarth will
give them a thrill that game does not
provide: the Godlike power of making
(and breaking) whole planets through
shrewd planning, malicious
misplanning, or some playful
combination of the two.
Playfulness is the saving grace of the
new green toys now available for home
use. Environmental problems are
serious, but let's not overtook the
value of playfulness in learning to deal
with them. What's more, who says
kids should have all the fun? If
environmental issues start to weigh
you down and that sour feeling of
apocalyptic gloom just won't go away,
imagine Captain Planet, Verminous
Skumm, Toxie, Dr. Killemoff, plus a
passel of Planeteers and Earth
Questers, all marching into your home
and fighting for (or against) Planet
Earth right in the privacy of your
den, a
26
EPA JOURNAL
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PREPARING OUR YOUTH
IN PURSUIT OF THE LOW
Who's in charge of the last Truffula seed?
by Jennifer Zicht
It reads like one of today's
environmental disasters: Greed
reigns. Industrialist destroys forest
despite warnings of
forest-right-to-lifers. Land wasted, air
polluted, water fouled.
Name the forest spokesman, Lorax.
Call the industrialist, Once-ler and the
trees, Truffulas. Put the language of the
story in whimsical rhyme, and you
have one of the most poignant and
sobering pieces of environmental
literature written for a six-year old—
The Lorax, by the late great Dr. Seuss.
This book has all the attributes of
good literature while serving as an
excellent environmental tool. Dr.
Seuss's prose is lively, if not zany,
clear, and logical. The story rivets the
reader's attention, and the message is
A creation of the late Dr. Seuss,
The Lorax helps young children
understand that natural
resources are not limitless.
{Zicht is a free-lance
writer in the
Washington, DC, area.)
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
so amusing and thought-provoking that
readers won't put it down.
As an educational tool, The Lorax
gives readers all the details leading to
the tragedy. It shows how an
ecosystem functions and how it
ultimately disintegrates as a
consequence of an individual's selfish
actions. It presents both sides of the
controversy in an unbiased fashion.
Above all, The Lorax gives the reader a
sense of commitment. As the Lorax
retreats from the wasteland, he leaves
a stone monument with the word
"unless" etched upon it. The meaning:
"Unless someone like you cares a
whole awful lot, nothing is going to get
better. It's not." The tale ends
optimistically when the reader is asked
to plant the last existing Truffula seed.
For many young children, The Lorax
may be a first introduction to
environmental education. Like many
other books, it can have a powerful
and lasting influence on a child's
thinking. As the world's environmental
problems escalate and environmental
education programs in schools
increase, the need for quality books
and periodicals, not to mention
textbooks, educational kits, and video
programs, will grow.
Since President Bush signed the
National Environmental Education Act
last November, book companies,
wildlife organizations, special interest
groups, and others have published
hundreds of environmental books for
children. The books come in all forms:
heavy duty non-fiction, light-reading
"think green" guidebooks, activity
pamphlets, coloring books, picture
books, and fiction. Magazines have
stepped up coverage as well. More and
more environmental listings fill the
pages of the Children's Magazine
Guide.
What are children getting in the way
of quality literature? Are the messages
as wholesome and unbiased as Dr.
Seuss's?
Continued on next page
27
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Rook stores and libraries now offer many children's books on environmental subjects.
Non-Fiction
Children need current and accurate
information to gain awareness and
knowledge for accessing today's
problems. To partially fill that need
there is a wealth of books for older
readers—age 12 and up—dealing with
single topics that range from famine to
ozone depletion. The books, averaging
a hundred or so pages, generally
feature black and white photographs in
fairly uninspiring formats.
In most cases1, professional writers,
not experts in scientific: fields, write
them. Often these writers have no
background in science. In defense of
professional children's writers,
magazine editor and writer Ross
Bankson states, "The writer's job is to
interpret, expand, and simplify
concepts. The writer acts as a filter
between scientist and reader,
eliminating the jargon and
complexities and leaving behind
crystal clear prose." Unfortunately,
many writers don't rely on scientists or
experts at all, but on secondary
sources. This leads to factual errors
and out-of-date material. All too often,
many writers fail to cite scientific
experts or include documentation,
bibliographies, and footnotes.
Well-written and academically
sound books do exist. Laurence
Pringle, author of more than 50 books,
is one of the foremost science writers
for children. Water: The Next Great
Resource; Lives at Stake: The Science
and Politics of Environmental Health;
Rain of Troubles: The Science and
Politics of Acid Rain; and Global
Warming: Assessing the Greenhouse
Threat are a few of his works geared
forages 12 and older. Pringle's clear
writing draws readers into the subject.
Expert opinions from both sides of a
controversy fill his pages. His books
always include bibliographies tailored
to the age group.
Another award-winning author,
whose methodology parallels Pringle's,
is Kathlyn Gay. Her books include
Silent Killers: Radon and Other
Hazards, Ozone, Acid Rain, Water
Pollution, and The Greenhouse Effect.
Not only is her writing clear, but she
often acknowledges experts in her
texts and includes footnotes,
bibliography, and a list of sources to
contact.
Although these single-issue books
provide excellent explanations and
background information, they can't
possibly keep up with new events in
the environmental arena. "Take CFCs,
for example," says life science teacher
George Martin of Bethesda,
Maryland's, Thomas W. Pyle Middle
School, "there's no way a book
published three months ago can keep
up with the politics of that topic. Only
periodicals and other media sources
can keep up with the latest
developments."
There is probably a greater need for
books dealing with single issues for
younger readers in elementary school
than for older readers. Young readers
don't have the math or reading skills
that give them access to adult
periodicals and books. For the
elementary school crowd, many book
publishers market series books with
beautiful illustrations, snazzy layouts,
and bite-sized texts. In comparison to
the drier textbook look of the
non-fiction books for older readers,
these slim volumes grasp the reader's
attention immediately.
One such volume in the Nova series
is Evan and Janet Hadingham's
Garbage.1 Where it Comes From, Where
it Goes. This book is a real page-turner.
It's filled with eclectic facts like TV
toss-outs and tinsel trash. It offers an
array of backyard garbage
activities—such as "garbage graveyard."
(Parents with pristine lawns will
especially appreciate this project.)
Other engaging and amusing sections
include: the poo-poo train, the case of
the vanishing trash bag, garbage
pirates, and Chicago's 1893 traveling
trash oven. Old photographs and prints
augment the color photographs and
comics.
Tony Hare's The Greenhouse Effect,
a British import, offers smashing
layouts with colorful diagrams and
photographs. In the section entitled
"Stoking the Furnace," an eye-catching
!8
EPA JOURNAL
-------
illustration covering nearly two pages
shows a hot air balloon rising. Curved
segments of the balloon, each a
different color, note the percentage of a
greenhouse gas entering the
atmosphere. Beneath the balloon
spreads a landscape, filled with
tractors, trucks, junked refrigerators,
and cows, each with an arrow
designating a particular greenhouse
gas. More books should invest in high
quality diagrams like this one.
"Sometimes a simplified text can't
explain a difficult concept, but a
diagram can," exclaims Ross Bankson.
Unfortunately, many series books
fall flat when it comes to text: too
many difficult words in a paragraph;
words not defined; concepts not
explained. Elementary school children
lack the background to understand
these books and the junior high kids
shrug them off as being too juvenile.
Nature Books
Wildlife and habitat books for all ages
are plentiful. Recent books explore
everything from species extinctions in
Madagascar to whales and elephants.
With marvelous color photographs and
beautiful paintings, these books can
only encourage young readers to
explore their natural world. To many
environmental educators, if a child is
encouraged to wonder about the
natural world early on, the chances are
good that he or she will develop a
life-long commitment to it.
Activity Books
Activity books for "turning the earth
green" abound. The Earthworks
Group's 50 Simple 7'hings Kids Can Do
to Save the Earth, Linda Schwartz's
Earth Book for Kids—Activities to
Help Heal the Environment, and Going
Green: A Kid's Handbook to Saving
the PJanet by John Elkingon, Julia
Hailes, Douglas Hill, and Joel Makower
are just a few. Enterprising children
ages seven and older will relish these
"how-to" guidebooks crammed with
activities and projects galore that they
can do on their own.
"In most families, it's the kids, not
the parents, who initiate recycling and
other activities to help their
environment," says Craig Tufts,
naturalist and director of the National
Wildlife Federation's urban wildlife
programs. "Kids don't have to change
their behavior markedly to make a
difference; adults have to change
ingrained behavioral patterns." With
these nifty guides, kids can explore
water wastage, excess packaging,
recycling, toxins, endangered habitats,
and hundreds of other environmental
topics. In Linda Schwartz's Earth Book
for Kids, youngsters first learn about
oil spills, then try their hand at
cleaning up a miniature spill in a
kitchen pan. After this experiment,
kids, as well as parents, have a better
understanding of the complexities of
an oil spill cleanup.
In some books, activities seem
linked to stances taken by lobbyist and
special interest groups. In one guide,
children are encouraged to tell parents
and neighbors not to buy animal
products, not to use disposable
diapers, and to avoid pets bred in
captivity. "Activities that help increase
understanding and make a child think
for him or herself are good and
positive environmentally," believes
George Martin. "Activities where
someone is telling a child what to
believe and what to do are detrimental.
Kids have to go into the world making
To reach the rivers and lakes where
they spend most of their lives, many
newborn eels swim for up to 3,000
miles nonstop.
A "Factoid" from 3-2-1 Contact, a children's magazine.
Reprinted with permission of Children's Television Workshop.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
their own decisions; they shouldn't be
someone's pawns in a cause."
Magazines
Magazines offer one of the best ways
for children to learn about their
environment in a leisurely and
enjoyable fashion. Where many good
books are inaccessible to young
reader's abilities or inclinations,
articles are not. Children's magazines,
targeted to the home market, rather
than the school market, are
entertaining and splashy, with brief
and up-to-date articles. Since the
competition among children's
magazines is fierce, more thought,
effort, and money is put into the
articles to entice the readers and keep
them enthralled.
Twenty or more excellent children's
magazines, devoted to geography,
wildlife, and current events, feature
well-researched articles on current
environmental problems. Many of
these magazines, like National Wildlife
Federation's Ranger Rick, National
Geographic's WORLD Magazine, and
Children's Television Network's 3-2-1
Contact, just to name a few, employ
inviting layouts, colorful graphics, and
color photographs to capture the
reader's interest visually, while
attacking some hard issues.
These magazines, especially Ranger
Rick and WORLD, are known for
unbiased reporting, research, and the
use of educational consultants. Often
they will approach environmental
issues by selecting photographs of
appealing subjects that draw the reader
into a story: a cuddly animal for an
extinction story; a fancy racing car
with a trail of exhaust for a fossil fuel
story. Frequently, games, activities,
and projects supplement these stories.
Short pieces on noteworthy children
who have done something good for
their environment often accompany
articles.
Frequently, a magazine will devote
an entire issue to environmental
concerns. Recently, Faces: The
Magazine about People, put out by
Cobblestone Publishing, devoted an
issue to recycling and its history.
Topics included: recycling in Greek
and Roman myths, art from trash,
recycling around the world, and
fashioning beads from discarded
magazines. 3-2-1-Contact devoted its
April issue to a series of
environmental issues, including air
and water pollution, alternative forms
of energy, and famine.
P3, the Earth-based magazine for
kids, is the only children's magazine
29
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devoted entirely to environmental
issues. "P3" stands for the earth, the
third planet from the sun. P3's text
entices with puns and plays on words;
its hip cartoons, drawings, and wild
layouts amuse. Features in one issue
included: "The Fossil Fuel Gas-Ette,"
with a cartoon showing picnickers
flinging fried chicken at one another at
the fossil fuel fan fried chicken fest;
"P34Me,C?"—an official P3 poster;
"Fool for Fuel." a pencil game where
readers help the driver of the
gas-guzzling car to the Solar
Trade-O-Mat so he can buy a mean,
clean, sun-powered machine; and
"Eco-kids," featuring kids doing good
things for their environment.
"We started our magazine because
there was a real need," says Jackie
Kaufman, publisher and one of the
founders of P3. "Kids are not protected
from anything these days. They see
everything on TV. We're the source to
explain the issues—and give them a
perspective on these issues."For many
children, P3's inviting layouts and
small nuggets of information may be
the only introduction they have to
their environment outside school.
Of all the magazines, P3 probably
encourages children's activism the
most. Many of the articles conclude
with letter-writing projects to the
President, executives of large
corporations, and governmental
officials. "Our magazine's goal is to
give kids a perspective on issues and
to tell them they have the power to
change things, "says Jackie Kaufman.
"Although small, letter writing is a
decisive tool. Kids can really pull a lot
of weight. The proof is in Starkist
dolphin-safe tuna." Some educators
believe it is good to encourage
activism, but that it shouldn't go
unleashed. "Kids need to do their
research, they have to know about the
issues, they must develop the skills
and knowledge before they take
action," believes George Martin.
In this same vein, children's
magazines and some activity books
feature children as role models. What
kind of children do parents want their
own offspring to emulate—a teenager
who single-handedly prevents a
developer from building a condo near
his home, or a BLT (Balloon Launch
Terminator), trying to prevent kids'
groups from launching helium
balloons because they threaten the
lives of sea animals who mistake the
soggy balloons for food?
Fiction
It's impossible to assess the
importance of fiction. Although a work
of fiction will not help with last
minute answers to an acid rain project,
it can offer far-reaching environmental
messages to readers of all ages. By
empathizing with characters, a child
can vicariously travel to a new world
and see that world from a different
perspective. From the point of view of
fuzzy and cuddly Wumps, toddlers see
the Wumps' green world destroyed by
Pollutians in Bill Peet's The Wump
World. From the point of view of child
sleuths, older readers investigate the
mysterious "environmental" death of a
robin in Jean Craighead George's Who
Really KiJied Cock Robin?
The messages in fiction, like those in
nonfiction, are not always wholesome.
An author can present any number of
issues by distorting truth and giving a
very biased opinion, thus warping
young minds. Children, especially
young children, are more
impressionable than adults, and they
often lack the background for deciding
whether something is wrong or right.
It's important that adults take the effort
to weed out some of these messages, or
at least put them into context.
The role of books and magazines is
important in environmental education.
They need to enlighten, teach, and
inspire children to become aware of
their world and its problems. Books
must help children develop the skills
needed to wrestle with problems.
"Ultimately," states George Martin,
"you want kids to go out into the
world thinking for themselves.
Environmental problems will affect
them in every aspect of their lives, in
any field they pursue. They are the
ones that have to come up with the
solutions." Books will serve in that
struggle. Here's Dr. Seuss:
"So . . . Catch!" calls the
Once-ler. He lets something fall.
"It's a Truffula Seed. It's the last
one of All! You're in charge of
the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what
everyone needs. Plant a new
Truffula. Treat it with care. Give
it clean water. And feed it fresh
air. Grow a forest. Protect it from
axes that hack. Then the Lorax
and all of his friends may come
back." Q
30
EPA JOURNAL
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TOWARD
E
How do we become
literate?
by Anthony D. Cortese
Traditionally, governments have
relied on command and control
regulation to protect the
environment. However, the diverse
and diffuse nature of human activities,
which are causing environmental
transformation and degradation, clearly
require that we use every possible tool
to change the behavior of individuals
and institutions. As articulated by the
EPA Science Advisory Board in its
recent report, Reducing Risk, these
tools should include market
incentives; technology transfer;
technical assistance; research and
development; the provision of
information to government, industry,
and the public; and education and
training.
Need for Environmental Professionals
A major shift in the relationship of
humans to the environment will
require a long term societal effort in
environmental education. Because
virtually every human activity affects
the environment, we need several
kinds of well-trained interdisciplinary
professionals.
Lawyers and other specialists are
needed to develop government and
industry policy, laws, and regulations
to protect the environment. Scientists
are needed to understand the natural
world, the effects of human activity on
the environment, and the fate and
transport of pollutants. Health
specialists should help us understand
the effects of pollution on humans and
Dealing with environmental problems is going to require not only skilled technicians but increasing
numbers of interdisciplinary professionals. This specialized class is for asbestos workers.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
31
-------
advise policymakers on strategies to
reduce hazards. Engineers are needed
not only to control pollution and clean
up contamination, but to develop
technologies and products which will
prevent pollution and minimize waste.
Economists are needed to evaluate the
costs of pollution and resource
destruction against the costs of
strategies and policies to prevent or
reverse them. Geographers and
planners are needed to develop
solutions that are socially, culturally,
politically, and economically
appropriate for different parts of the
world.
Unfortunately, there is a great
shortage of such highly trained
personnel. It has been estimated, for
example, that 100,000 new
professionals will be needed in the
United States alone to deal with
hazardous waste problems by 1995.
Further, the education and training of
the current workforce is incomplete.
Most professionals are trained to deal
with a subset of environmental
problems, such as air pollution, water
pollution, or hazardous waste. They
are not trained holistically to deal with
issues in an integrated and
comprehensive fashion. This only
exacerbates the intermedia problems
that have emerged in the last two
decades. For example, until 1980, pits,
ponds, and lagoons were used to
contain industrial wastes in order to
prevent the wastes from contaminating
surface water. Little regard was given
to the serious ground-water pollution
that resulted. Many recently
recognized problems, such as indoor
air pollution, wetlands protection,
global climate change, stratospheric
ozone depletion, deforestation, and
loss of biodiversity, are not
systematically included in most of the
academic degree programs educating
professionals.
Finally, current programs produce
people largely oriented toward
controlling, remediating, or cleaning
up environmental problems. We must
change our philosophy to anticipating
and preventing pollution as the
strategy of choice. Economic
development and industrial strategies
that reduce consumption of resources,
the use of toxic substances, and the
production of wastes are essential to
prevent further environmental
degradation and to protect human
health. Further, they are often the only
effective solution (e.g., removing lead
from gasoline), and they are less
expensive in the long run.
We need a concerted national and
international strategy to ensure that
there is an adequate and continuing
supply of environmental professionals.
These professionals must be trained to
understand environmental issues in a
holistic and integrated fashion
involving population, natural
resources, and pollution and both to
anticipate and to prevent as well as to
control and remediate environmental
problems.
Environmental Literacy and
Responsibility
All members of society consume
resources and produce pollution and
waste. It is essential, therefore, that
they all understand the importance of
the environment to their quality of life
and that they have the knowledge,
tools, and the ethic to carry out their
daily lives in ways that minimize the
impact of their actions on the
environment. That is, the ability to
have a sustainable future is entirely
dependent on having the next
generation of human beings be
environmentally "literate and
responsible."
Environmental literacy and
responsibility require a new education
strategy at all levels—K-12, colleges,
and graduate and professional schools.
The environment should not be solely
a special topic or a subject for
professionals who will work on
environmental problems. Because the
environment provides the basis for life
and is a major determinant of the
quality of life, it must be a fully
integrated and prominent part of all
education. This is especially important
for the education of professionals in
business, engineering, science,
medicine, architecture, economics,
government, science, demography, and
law. With such knowledge and
understanding, these professionals will
help make our productive sector and
government more efficient in the use
of natural resources and energy and
reduce adverse impacts of their
activities on society. Business and
industry will be more competitive and
successful and will improve
community and government relations.
What would it mean for
professionals to be environmentally
literate and responsible? A focus on
two professions—business management
and medicine—provides some insight.
Environmental degradation and
pollution are among the most
important concerns for business and
industry. Environmental pollution
affects the health and productivity of
workers, the general public, fisheries,
agriculture, and forests. Depletion and
destruction of natural resources will
constrain short and long term
economic growth. Societal remedies
such as laws, regulations, taxes, and
legal and financial liability for
environmental damages and restoration
will increasingly limit business
decisions. Investors and consumers
increasingly are demanding
environmentally responsible products
and activities. The costs of controlling
pollution and managing wastes are
increasing rapidly. So too is citizen
opposition to industrial activities and
pollution and waste management
facilities. All these may affect the right
or the ability of industry to operate in
many locations. Moreover, job seekers,
particularly graduating students, are
increasingly questioning the
environmental record and commitment
to environmental stewardship of
potential employers. The ability of
corporations to remain competitive
and to sustain their activity will
increasingly depend on their response
to environmental issues.
Business school students should be
taught how products sold and services
rendered affect the environment. They
should understand the significance to
environmental quality of facility
design and location, choice of
technology and process, management
of unwanted byproducts, mergers and
acquisitions, real estate transactions,
and investments. They should be
taught what business's legal and
financial liability is for pollution and
32
EPA JOURNAL
-------
At Tufts University, faculty from various
disciplines learn how to incorporate the
teaching of environmental issues into their
specialties.
waste, how environmental regulation
by government will affect their
business, and what they can do to
reduce compliance costs. The value of
business decisions, technologies,
products, and services that encourage
less energy and resource intensity
must be part of their education.
Since environmental effects and
depletion of resources are not
incorporated in the conventional
pricing of goods and services, business
students must be taught the principles
which account for these effects in both
the short and the long term, and how
current methods of short term analysis
mitigate against environmental
protection. Future business leaders
should understand how consumer and
investor pressure for environmentally
responsible products, services, and
manufacturing will affect business
competitiveness. And they should be
taught the social responsibility of
business in minimizing environmental
impacts throughout the entire
production cycle;—from the extraction
of resources through production, use,
and final disposal.
Unfortunately, such training is rare
in business schools. Sixteen major
corporations have supported an effort
through the National Wildlife
Federation to develop special courses
on environment and business and to
develop a book of case studies that can
be used for teaching in business
schools. Government and industry
have formed a new non-profit institute,
the Management Institute for
Environment and Business, to develop
programs for integrating environmental
education and research into business
schools. However, no business school
requires environmental management
education, nor has environmental
management been integrated into its
curriculum.
Traditional physician training is
designed around the medical model of
"finding and fixing" a health problem.
Practicing medicine in a world subject
to pressures from population and
industrialization requires that we
reorient our thinking to creating and
ensuring health, not just curing
disease. Human beings owe their
existence to the natural environment
and cannot be completely isolated
from infectious and toxic agents
transmitted through the environment.
All physicians, and especially primary
care physicians, should understand the
relationship of environment to health.
They should be able to detect,
diagnose, and treat environmentally
related disease, know how to obtain
information about environmental
hazards, how to advise patients on
strategies to reduce exposure to
hazards, and be able to refer patients
to environmental and occupational
medicine specialists. This will require
basic training in epidemiology and
biostatistics, biological, chemical, and
radiation toxicology, human activities
that cause environmental hazards,
pathways of human exposure to
environmental agents, strategies for
elimination and reduction of exposure
to environmental agents, treatment of
environmentally induced diseases, and
nutrition. Physicians should also have
a basic understanding of how natural
ecosystems function and provide
resources essential for life; how human
activities stress natural resources; and
should understand ecological
principles such as the ability of an
ecosystem to support human
populations on a sustainable basis, and
the strategies for managing population
growth.
There is an acute shortage of
occupational and environmental
medicine specialists. According to a
survey by Dr. Barry Levy in 1985,
two-thirds of the U.S. medical schools
require occupational medicine
training. However, the median time is
four hours in four years, and there is
no training on the effects of exposure
to environmental hazards in the
outdoor environment, in the home, or
during recreation. In addition, there is
no ecologically based training.
The Tufts Initiative
How do we make environmental
education an integral part of the nation
and the world's education? With the
strong direction and support of
President Jean Mayer, Tufts has made
a major commitment to ensuring that
all students graduating from Tufts in
the Schools of Engineering, Liberal
Arts, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine,
Nutrition, and the Fletcher School of
Law and Diplomacy are
environmentally literate and
responsible citizens. This is being
done through the Tufts Environmental
Literacy Institute (TELI), which
develops the capability of faculty in a
wide variety of disciplines to
incorporate the teaching of
environmental issues and perspectives
within their teaching specialties.
Established in 1990 with support
from the Allied Signal Foundation and
later with additional support from
Union Carbide and EPA, TELI
conducts a two-week intensive
workshop each spring on
environmental science, engineering,
policy, and management for faculty
from a variety of disciplines. The
program is conducted by
environmental specialists from
academia, government, industry, and
environmental groups. Faculty, with
modest financial and technical
support, work on revising their regular
curriculum to integrate environmental
issues and perspectives during the
summer. Revised curricula are
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
33
-------
reviewed by other faculty and, after
evaluation, are made available to
faculty at other universities as part of a
larger strategy to extend the reach of
TELI programs.
The results to date have been very
encouraging. In its first year, TELI
developed the capability for 25 Tufts
faculty members to incorporate the
teaching of environmental issues into
such diverse curriculum as mechanical
engineering, economics, history,
international diplomacy, drama,
sociology, and chemistry. This year, 45
faculty members from Tufts and 10
other universities, including
universities in Brazil and Canada,
participated in the program. A member
of the Supreme Soviet, a Korean
development economist, an Indian
university president, and a Brazilian
university faculty member joined Tufts
environmental specialists in
conducting the program. As a result,
between 5,000 and 8,000 students have
been, or will be, exposed to
environmental issues and perspectives
in non-environmental courses in 1991
and 1992.
For example, an engineering
professor has redesigned the freshman
course in Engineering Design involving
200 students. Using the university
itself as a case study, students
identified ways to reduce the use of
fuel, electricity, water, and solid
materials and the production of
pollution and wastes in three major
Tufts buildings. An economics
professor developed a course in
Environmental Economics and Policy
which involved executing a major
project in cost/benefit and life-cycle
cost analysis on products used by
Tufts dining services, water
conservation, fertilizer use,
transportation, and composting. A
language professor has revised all six
major courses required for a major in
Spanish to include environmental
readings from Spain and Latin
America and to make environmental
issues and controversies the subject of
paper topics and debates. Two civil
engineering professors have modified
their courses in geotechnology, soil
mechanics, and foundation engineering
to use environmental problems such as
landfills, sludge disposal, and waste
containment and cleanup along with
more traditional examples, such as
dam building. A direct result has been
the formalization of a new MS degree
in environmental geotechnology. A
drama professor is using an
environmental theme as the basis for
two acting courses. In both, acting is
being taught, but the environment is
the topic or theme for many in-class
exercises and homework assignments
(e.g., personal storytelling, scenes from
existing plays, and selected readings
about the environment).
Our long-term goal is to have TELI
serve faculty from high schools and
other universities in the Northeastern
United States and universities in
developing countries. The strategy for
the latter is to develop the capability
of universities to establish their own
TELI unique to their culture, but
connected with Tufts. We are planning
to conduct a training program for
faculty from the Universities of Sao
Paolo, Mato Grosso, and Brasilia in
Brazil in the summer of 1992. By
developing the capability of 500
faculty members from Tufts and other
universities over the next 5 years,
75,000 to 100,000 students will receive
broad, continuing and repeated
exposure to environmental issues in
the context of their regular disciplinary
studies.
EPA's Role in Environmental
Education
EPA should consider environmental
education as one of its most important
tools to motivate environmentally
responsible action. Because
environmental issues are
multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary,
and extremely complex, neither
universities nor other governmental
science agencies, which are organized
along traditional disciplinary lines, are
likely to make environmental research
and education a major priority. EPA
should play a dual role of providing
direct support for environmental
education and of leading an
intergovernmental and intersectoral
effort to develop a long term societal
strategy for environmental education.
This is extremely important because it
is impossible to take environmentally
responsible action unless we are
motivated and have the knowledge and
tools to do so. o
(Dr. Cortese is Dean of Environmental
Programs at Tufts University.)
34
EPA JOURNAL
-------
TRAINING PROFESSIONALS
SHORTFALL
IN THE
E
Where will we get
the scientists
and engineers?
by Maureen Delaney
As fewer students prepare for careers in science and technical fields, an increasing
demand for these professionals is predicted to exceed the supply. Pictured is a hazardous
materials worker training session.
(Delaney is Chief of EPA's national
recruitment program.]
crisis is looming in our workforce.
I Leaders in industry and
government are faced with a
convergence of trends that has
enormous implications for the future:
Labor needs in science, engineering,
and technology are growing, while at
the same time there has been a
dramatic reduction in numbers of
students preparing to meet the
demands of these vital occupations.
Congress, the Department of Labor,
and others have studied this gathering
crisis and, step by step, are coming to
grips with it. They have made strides
to inform various segments of our
society of the critical shortages
anticipated. They have called for
action from all sectors to address the
critical needs. The single most
important objective is to prime the
educational pipeline, beginning with
kindergarten, in order to cope with the
workforce realities of the 21st century.
These developments are of great
concern to the environmental sector
since our success in meeting the
environmental agenda relies on a
high-technology workforce.
A 1987 report prepared by the
Hudson Institute for the U.S.
Department of Labor, titled Workforce
2000, has been the catalyst for current
efforts to address the workforce issues
facing the United States as we
approach the next century. Workforce
2000 highlighted three major trends
which need to be taken into account
by those concerned with sustaining the
technological leadership this country
has traditionally provided. In order to
ensure the existence of a viable
workforce, both industry and
government will need to find ways to
address these predicted technological
and demographic changes: an
increased need for educated workers; a
much higher proportion (85 percent) of
women and minorities among new
entrants into the workforce by the year
2000; and a marked decline in the pool
of young workers.
The first issue that has been
identified is the need to meet coming
demands for educated workers. This
will require improvements in our
approach to education and training. It
is anticipated that between now and
the end of this century, the majority of
all jobs will require some
post-secondary education. There will
be a dramatic increase in new jobs for
such occupations as engineers,
mathematicians, and scientists. In fact,
the growth rate in those occupations
should reach at least 25 percent by the
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
-------
The single most important
objective is to prime the
educational pipeline,
beginning with
kindergarten ....
year 2000. However, the number of
students entering science and
mathematics fields has declined
significantly, and there has been a
noticeable decline in achievement in
these subjects as well.
For example, a 1987 study by the
UCLA Higher Education Research
Institute has found that freshman
interest in science majors has declined
by one-third in the past two decades;
interest in engineering is down by
one-quarter; and interest in computing
careers has fallen by more than
two-thirds in four years. Declining
student interest in science and
engineering has serious impacts at
advanced levels of study; in contrast,
the participation of foreign nationals
has increased dramatically. Today,
over 44 percent of students in graduate
engineering programs are foreign
students.
The Changing Labor Force (1985-2000)
1985 Labor Force: 115,461,000
Non-white women
Immigrant men
Immigrant
women
3% '
_Non-white men
6%
Net New Workers, 1985-2000: 25,000,000
Non-white men,
7%
Immigrant women 9%
White men 15%
'(Due lo rourvding percentage
Igwos may nol add up lo 100.)
36
Source
U S Department of Labor
A second significant issue in terms
of the dynamics of the U.S. labor pool
will be the dramatic increase of
women and minority group members
among entrants to the workforce.
Women will represent about two-
thirds of the new entrants to the
workforce, and "non-whites will make
up 29 percent. . . , twice their current
share" (Workforce 2000) by the year
2000. This is an important
consideration. Traditionally, women
and minorities have been tracked in
the education pipeline toward subject
areas that involve marginal
mathematical and scientific theory.
Given this trend, we as a nation are
not preparing the workforce of the
future to assume the important roles
necessary to maintain a highly
technical society.
The third major factor to take into
account regarding labor resource
realities of the 21st Century is the
aging of the workforce. By the year
2000, the number of workers between
the ages of 16 and 24 will decline by
almost two million. The decline in
new entrants to the labor pool,
coupled with the increased
technological nature of the work, will
create a shortage of people prepared to
address the serious technological
needs of the future, including needed
developments in the environmental
field. While a more mature labor force
has many positive attributes, one issue
is clear: There will need to be
additional training of individuals
already in the workforce to
compensate for a lack of incoming
qualified entrants.
In order to meet our technological
goals and maintain a leadership role in
the world, the United States will have
to do a significantly better job of
attracting students to mathematical
and scientific studies and supporting
career preparation in these fields. For
organizations in the business of
addressing environmental issues, it is
important to understand the looming
crisis concerning the makeup of our
labor force. The next step is to get
involved in finding solutions to the
problem: This should be made a matter
of priority.
Strategically, we must encourage all
students who have an interest in
science and technology to develop the
skills needed to sustain our
technological society. In order to
preserve our future labor pool, we
need to attract minority groups and
women into these non-traditional areas
of study. And beyond academic course
decisions lies the critical choice every
student faces regarding occupational
options as an engineer or scientist.
EPA has a responsibility to reach out
and help students understand the real
challenges and rewards of
environmental careers in science and
technology.
EPA's workforce needs reflect the
needs of the environmental sector in
general. Over one-third of all present
EPA employees have science or
Science and Engineering Pipeline,
from High School Through Ph.D.
Degree (1977-1922}
1977
All high school sophomores
High school sophomores
with S & E interest 730.000
1979 High school seniors
with S & E interest
590,000
1980 College freshmen
with S & E intentions 340.000
1984
Baccalaureate degrees in S & E 206,000
Graduate study in S & E 61.000
Master's degrees in S & E 46,000
1992
Ph.D. degrees in S & E 9,700
Source: National Science Foundation
EPA JOURNAL
-------
During the next five years
alone, EPA will hire at least
1,500 scientists and engineers
at all levels of the
organization.
engineering backgrounds. During the
next five years alone, EPA will hire at
least 1,500 scientists and engineers at
all levels of the organization. Looking
toward the longer term, EPA has given
its national recruitment program the
theme, "Preserving our Future Today."
EPA's responsibility extends beyond
concerns for ensuring that trained
graduates are available for our own
workforce. Attaining the nation's
environmental goals is predicated on
shared responsibility. Therefore, the
Agency has an obligation to be
concerned about the supply of
engineering and science students who
are preparing to meet environmental
challenges in industry, at state and
local government levels, and in
communities.
Moreover, EPA recognizes the
importance of contributing various
kinds of support in order to boost the
capacity of our academic institutions
to produce the skilled talent the
United States will continue to need,
and the Agency has developed
strategies to address the concerns
identified. For example, EPA has
launched an Academic Relations
Program which will target campuses
nationwide in a comprehensive
education and recruitment program.
This umbrella program encourages
active EPA/campus interchanges
through such means as student
employment programs, seminar series,
visiting professor engagements for EPA
officials, research grant programs,
equipment loans, and tuition
assistance. In coordinating these
activities, the program will use a
network system to maximize the use of
EPA resources and distribute
opportunities.
In addition, a major new initiative is
being implemented to support
minority academic institutions.
Administrator William K. Reilly
recently approved an action plan,
proposed by the Agency's Minority
Academic Institutions Task Force, that
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
37
-------
commits EPA to providing
unprecedented support to minority
campuses. The action plan includes
the following activities at minority
academic institutions:
• Creating three centers based at
academic institutions for development
of environmental curriculum
• Providing scholarships and
fellowships
• Developing a workshop series with
private sector support
• Providing major equipment and
research instrumentation acquisitions
• Creating an Academic Center of
Excellence in environmental science or
engineering.
These activities, together with an
emphasis on student employment
programs, cooperative education, and
tuition assistance, are intended to help
minority academic institutions to
become leaders in training the
environmentalists of tomorrow.
The 1990 environmental education
legislation authorized two new
programs that will directly support
students and education professionals
in pursuing environmental study and
experience. By providing government-
wide opportunities for relevant work
experience, these internships and
fellowships can be powerful tools to
attract individuals into environmental
careers and to build their
understanding of the complex issues
we face.
Revitalizing the nation's scientific
and engineering educational efforts is a
tremendous task that will require the
combined efforts of government,
industry, educational professionals,
and communities. EPA is committed to
being a leader in identifying,
supporting, and developing the
scientists and engineers of the future
through a myriad of programs.
Through such efforts today we can
create the opportunities needed to
develop potential scientists and
engineers to preserve our future. D
Resources for Environmental Job Seekers
The following private publications
list environmental or natural
resources jobs exclusively.
• Earth Work: New, monthly,
36-page magazine that includes
both extensive listings of jobs and
colorful features. Only job listing
published from within the
conservation community.
Broad-based—from student
through CEO and
supergrade—covering positions in
nonprofit organizations;
universities; local, state and
federal government agencies; and
private companies. Jobs listed at
no charge. Published by the
Student Conservation Association,
Department HM, P.O. Box 550,
Charlestown, New Hampshire
03603-0550. Call 603-826-4301.
• Environmental Opportunities:
Established monthly job listing
under the sponsorship of
Antioch/New England Graduate
School. Best known listing; edited
by career consultant Sanford Berry.
More than 150 jobs each month in
10- to 11-page newsletter format;
includes calendar summary.
Variety of jobs; particularly strong
in environmental education and
seasonal positions. P.O. Box 4957,
Arcata, California 95521.
• The Job Seeker: Bimonthly job
classified that includes a strong
component of environmental
science jobs with private
companies and others.
Easy-to-scan 16-page newsletter.
Route 2, Box 16, Warrens,
Wisconsin 54666.
• Environmental Careers:
Publishes paid display ads from
private companies seeking
environmental professionals in
specialized jobs. Available free by
writing: PH Publishing, Inc., 760
Whalers Way, Suite 100-A, Fort
Coldins, Colorado 80525.
Information on employment
vacancies at EPA headquarters
may be obtained by calling (202)
260-5055 (24-hour recording).
Also, information on jobs with
EPA regional offices and
environmentally related positions
at other federal agencies is
available from the U.S. Office of
Personnel Management (check
listings for 0PM Federal Job
Information Centers in the blue
pages of your telephone book.)
—Destry Jarvis (Executive Vice
President, Student Conservation
Association]
38
EPA JOURNAL
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THE PUBLIC
Making a point on Earth Day 7970. Twenty years later, environmental issues are more complex than ever.
Shouldn't one listen
as well as speak?
by Peter M. Sandman
Education is something we want to
do to people we think are ignorant.
Children are the model. They don't
know their times table, so we'll
teach it to them and then they'll know
it.
But education is also something we
want to do to people we disagree with.
There is an important bit of sleight of
hand here. What we really want, often,
is to shut our opponents out of the
issue altogether; if that's not possible,
then we want to persuade them that
we're right and they're wrong. But if
we acknowledge that what divides us
is a disagreement—not even a
disagreement predominantly over facts,
but one over values—then shutting
them out and even persuading them
begin to feel like improper goals. In a
disagreement, one ought to listen as
well as speak. Disagreeing is a
two-way process. Education, on the
other hand, is comfortably one-way.
Hence the growing interest in
environmental education among
environmental regulators. Fifteen years
ago, when regulators wore white hats,
and "I'm from the government and I'm
here to help you" wasn't a joke,
environmental education was widely
seen as something of a frill. It is now
accorded a somewhat higher priority.
People are getting in the way,
demanding impossible levels of
protection from essentially trivial risks,
stonewalling on the lifestyle changes
needed to get serious risks under
control, questioning the wisdom and
even the integrity of the regulators. In
irritation and frustration, out of the
corners of our mouths, we mutter,
"Let's educate 'em." Regulated
industries, of course, are right there
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
39
-------
with us: What better use for
environmental protection dollars than
to teach people they are afraid of the
wrong risks?
Of course, people are afraid of the
wrong risks. In most of the
disagreements between the American
public and the environmental
professionals, I am on the
professionals' side. I accept most of the
conclusions drawn in .Reducing Risk,
the 1990 report of EPA's Science
Advisory Board: that the public pays
too much attention to the health effects
of pollution and too little to its
ecosystem effects; that the public
worries too much about short-term
local risks and too little about
long-term global ones; that in
responding to public priorities, EPA
misses some huge risks while it throws
money at some tiny ones. I even accept
that the public's technical ignorance is
one of the factors contributing to these
problems. But it isn't the major factor.
And an education program is doomed
to failure if it is grounded in the false
conviction that the way to get people
to believe what we believe is simply to
teach them what we know.
Any environmental controversy can
be divided into a technical dimension
and a moral-emotional dimension. The
key technical issue is how much
damage is being done (to health,
environment, or both) and how much
mitigation can be achieved at how
much cost. The key moral-emotional
issues are such matters as these: Who
benefits? Who's in control? Is it fair?
Can I trust the people in charge? Did
they give me a choice? Do they
respond respectfully to my concerns?
In an article in the November 1987
issue of EPA JournaJ, 1 labeled these
two issue clusters "hazard" and
"outrage," respectively.
The public is preoccupied far more
with outrage than with hazard. The
engine that propels the fight over
safe-versus-dangerous, in other words,
is good-versus-evil. Environmental
issues that generate very little
outrage—radon, for example —rouse the
public much less than the high-outrage
issues like incinerator siting or
industrial effluent. Technical
information, however well taught, is
unlikely to change these priorities
because they are not grounded in
technical judgments in the first place.
What happens when you try to teach
outraged people how low the hazard
is? First, they don't believe you.
Outraged people naturally tend to
resist learning that they are technically
wrong. (You and I do the same thing
when we are outraged.) And when
outraged people do somehow manage
to absorb new information, their values
are unlikely to reflect the change.
Try this simple thought experiment.
Imagine a roomful of citizens listening
to an expert on pesticide risks, perhaps
someone like Bruce Ames of the
University of California. Ames has
conducted research suggesting that
natural carcinogens in food are several
orders of magnitude riskier than
pesticide residues. To summarize
Ames's argument in a single
oversimplified sentence: Broccoli is
more carcinogenic than dioxin. As
Ames tries to convince his audience of
this, he faces an uphill battle. But let's
assume the best. The audience is calm,
there is no cancer cluster in town, the
food is good, there's plenty of time,
and Ames is a persuasive speaker with
a lot of data to back him up. So over
the course of an hour or two, he
succeeds in convincing people that, in
fact, broccoli is more carcinogenic than
dioxin. This is something they didn't
know before, and now they know it.
The education goal has been achieved.
Widf World photo.
Up comes another speaker. "Now
that we know that broccoli is more
carcinogenic than dioxin," the second
speaker inquires, "which one do we
want the EPA to regulate, the broccoli
or the dioxin?" How would the
audience respond?
If you think the audience would still
favor strong regulations controlling
industry's callous, unconscionable
poisoning of the environment with
dioxin and not worry too much about
what God might have done to the
broccoli, you understand the resistance
of outrage to technical education. As
long as dioxin generates a lot of
outrage, and broccoli very little,
explaining their relative hazards is
unlikely to affect the public's
concerns, fears, or policy choices.
The solution, I think, is to make our
educational programs two-way rather
than one-way and to make them
sensitive to values as well as to data.
At its best, this is what environmental
education has always meant. But it
isn't what technical professionals
usually mean when they mutter darkly
about the need to educate the public.
Many professionals are themselves
understandably outraged at the
public's mistrust; they are in no better
mood to learn than the public is.
I propose a division of labor. Let's
agree that technical professionals are
the experts on what's hazardous and
what isn't. (They're wrong sometimes
and overconfident often, but they
know more than the rest of us.) Let's
also agree that citizens are the experts
on what's outrageous and what isn't.
Finally, let's agree that hazard and
40
EPA JOURNAL
-------
A bird rescued from an oil spill gets a bath.
Scientists have ranked oil spills among
relatively low-risk environmental problems.
Even so, public concern about such spills
runs high, partly because they involve an
"outrage factor."
outrage are both legitimate aspects of
risk, both deserving of regulatory
attention.
People's price for respecting the
professionals' domain of expertise, I
think, is a sense that the professionals
respect theirs. From Community
Right-To-Know requirements to
Superfund cleanups, the
fast-accumulating experience of risk
communicators tells us that people can
learn what the professionals want
them to learn about the hazard if they
are convinced that they will remain
free to insist on the outrage, to insist
that "values as well as data must
control the regulation of risk. An
environmental education program that
works, in short, will be
freedom-enhancing rather than
freedom constraining. It will help
people see the ways in which they are
right as well as the ways in which they
are wrong. And as it teaches the public
about hazard, it will teach the
professionals about outrage.
What does this mean in practice?
Instead of groundrules, let me suggest
a few questions to ask yourself about
any environmental education program,
but especially one aimed at reducing
public concern about risks the
professionals consider small:
• Is the purpose of your education
program to help people decide which
environmental risks they want to
tolerate and which they want to
oppose—or is it to corner them so they
feel they must tolerate the risks you
want them to tolerate?
• Does your education program deal
with such "outrage factors" as trust,
fairness, control, and dread? When you
tell people about a risk that is high in
outrage and low in hazard, are you
discussing only the hazard?
• When you compare risks, are you
"bracketing" a risk you consider low
by identifying other risks that are
higher and lower, or are you telling
people only about the risks that are
higher?
• How sure are you of your data? How
sure do your materials sound?
• What are the strongest arguments to
be made against your own position?
Does your education program make
them?
• How do you feel about the intended
audience of your education program?
Respectful? Or a little angry, perhaps
even contemptuous? Does it show?
• Is your program one-way or
two-way? Do you expect to learn
anything? Are there ways for people to
teach you why they see the issues
differently than you do? Do you want
to know?
• Think of an issue about which you
feel passionately — abortion, gun
control, pornography, whatever—and
imagine an education program on that
issue developed by an expert on the
other side. What signals of
understanding or insensitivity,
open-mindedness or
closed-mindedness, would you be
looking for? What such signals are you
sending?
Finally, for groundrules (and more
questions), let me suggest either of two
books by Billie Jo Hance, Caron Chess,
and Peter M. Sandman: Improving
Dialogue with Communities: A Risk
Communication Manual for
Government (Trenton, New Jersey:
Division of Science and Research, New
Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection, 1988) and Industry Risk
Communication Manual (Boca Raton,
Florida: CRC Press/Lewis Publishers,
1990). Q
(Dr. Sandman is Director of the
Environmental Communication
Research Program, Cook College,
Rutgers University.}
TOLES copyrieht 7997 The Buffalo News.
Reprinted with permission of Universal
Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
OZON£ DEPUTtf/V IS
TW/CE AS FAST AS W4S
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
41
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INFORMING THtPUttlC
THE RESOURCE OF PUBLIC BROADCASTING
Hundreds of TV and radio stations already help
by Lee H. Monk
The 1990 National Environmental
Education Act contains a provision
that specifically calls on EPA to
work with "noncommercial
educational broadcasting entities" to
educate Americans on environmental
problems. Educational broadcasting is
uniquely positioned to do just that and
over the last decade has. in fact.
provided many programs on
environmental issues to (lie public.
Educational, or public, broadcasting
reaches vast numbers of Americans.
Nationwide there are more than 400
public radio stations and more than
330 public television stations. Many o!
those stations are local, and
independently operated. As such, they
are acutely aware of the needs and
concerns of their local communities.
What's more, public broadcasting
gets good murks from the public on
educational value. In a recent survey,
01 percent of respondents gave public
broadcasting a B t on how well the
industry is doing in increasing
people's understanding of news events
and public; affairs. Public broadcasting
got an A- performance grade on
helping to educate children informally.
llltimatuly, public broadcasting
considers all of its programming -both
television and radio—to be
educational: children's programming,
drama, music and dance, science and
nature, skill-building how-to's, as well
as its much acclaimed public affairs
and documentary programming.
Public broadcasting reaches not only
into homes but directly into schools as
[Monk is the Director o|
Communications for tin; Southern
EducationuI Conimunk;ations
Association, the largest regional public
broadcasting organization in the
tuition serving education, public
television, and public radio in •!<)
states, ivith members in 17 .states, the
U.S. Virgin islands, and Puerto liico.)
well. More than twice as many
teachers use public broadcasting
programming and other instructional
materials than use other broadcast and
cable services, according to survey
results announced by the National
Education Association (NEA).
Public television has been a pioneer
in the uses of noncommercial
programming for more than 30 years. It
has presented high quality,
noncommercial educational preschool
programming, instructional
programming for students in K-12, and
college credit and postgraduate
courses; it has also provided literacy
training, continuing professional
education, and job training and
retraining programs.
One of public television's more
recent innovations has been
"interactive" educational
programming, which involves viewer
participation. The Satellite Educational
Resources Consortium (SERC),
composed of public television stations
and state departments of education,
delivers each school day live,
interactive, for-credit high school
courses to students in 23 states. SERC]
also provides live, interactive teacher
in-service and staff development
training seminars and workshops.
And public broadcasting has not
been content to educate and inform
solely through over-the-air
broadcasting. Almost all public:
television stations provide outreach
activities to supplement and support
their programming. One notable
example is KERA-TV, Dallas, which
sought to bring all segments of the
Dallas community together to discuss
common concerns such as racism.
On a wider scale, an organization
called the Public Television Outreach
Alliance leads and supports local
stations in creating television projects
with community impact. For example,
in 1990, the Outreach Alliance
concentrated on the environment with
its "Operation Earth" campaign. Race
42
to Save the Planet, a series of 10
one-hour programs was the centerpiece
of a yearlong effort designed to
encourage individuals to search for
solutions to both local and global
environmental problems. This series
was part of more than 35 hours of
programming on the environment.
Other components include three
college-level telecourses and a live
business teleconference, not to
mention a wealth of print materials to
help stations create their own
environmental awareness projects.
Public radio and television both
continue to feature programs on
environmental subjects. Public radio
currently offers several such programs:
Examples include American Energy
Update. The Environment Shoiv, and
Pollution Solutions; in addition, Terra
Firma consists of three- to five-minute
radio modules that provide
provocative probes into the
dysfunctional thinking behind the
environmental crisis. Other more
general radio programs, such as All
Things Considered and Morning
Edition, regularly touch on
environmental topics.
As for public television, several
major prime-time programs exploring
environmental issues are slated for the
1991 fall season:
• On After The Warming, journalist
James Burke reports from the year
2050, where humans and Earth have
survived the global wanning. Plus Hot
or Not: The Global Greenhouse
Debate.
• The Infinite Voyage, a quarterly
science series, will look at the ways
that humans study and explore the
world around them.
• Land of The Eagle is the first
television series to attempt a
comprehensive account of North
American wildlife and wild places.
• A National Geographic
Special—Hawaii: Strangers in
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Against the Odds, produced by KMBH-TV, Harlingen, Texas, focuses on
efforts to save the Kemp Ridley sea turtle.
Paradise—follows conservationists as
they make dramatic attempts to ward
off the extinction of Hawaii's
magnificent plants and animals.
• Nature will celebrate its 10th year
with a special on American birds;
NOVA plans an episode on an
experiment that could mean limitless
supplies of energy; while Scientific
American Frontiers looks at sea turtles.
So where does public broadcasting
get all this programming? From just
about everywhere. Public broadcasting
stations produce much of their own
programming. Other programming is
produced by independent producers,
both here and abroad. The reservoir of
producing entities is vast. And most
programs rely on funding from many
sources: public broadcasting stations,
national public broadcasting
organizations like the Public
Broadcasting System (PBS), National
Pubic Radio (NPR), and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting;
government agencies; private
corporations and foundations, and the
viewing public.
Once a program or series is
produced, it can make its way to the
viewing public in one of several ways.
Since each station is independent, the
management of an individual station
may decide to air a program acquired
directly from a producer. Stations also
receive programs via satellite from the
Public Broadcasting Service as well as
the four public broadcasting regional
organizations. The Southern
Educational Communications
Association (SECA), for instance,
distributes via satellite nearly 800
hours of general audience
programming to public television
stations every year, nearly 70 percent
produced by its membership. As do
other regional organizations, SECA
provides stations with materials they
can use to promote these programs to
their viewing public.
Examples of environmental
programming distributed by SECA
include: The Beaches Are Moving on
the barrier islands, from North
Carolina Public Television; Florida
Crossroads: Last Ditch on the dredging
and restoration of the Kissimmee
River, from Florida Public
Broadcasting; Future Conditional on
global warming from South Carolina
Educational television; Against The
Odds on efforts to save the Kemp
Ridley sea turtle, from KMBH-TV,
Harlingen, Texas; Energy: Progress
Revisited with ABC's Forrest Sawyer
on the history of man's application of
energy and speculation on our future,
from Georgia Public Television;
Gertrude Bo/m; Guardian Of The Bain
Forest, a profile of a woman who has
devoted her life to the preservation of
the rain forest, from KUHT-TV,
Houston; and Coastal Naturalist, a
quiet walk through the Georgia Sea
Islands with a naturalist who knows,
loves, and can respect the area, also
from Georgia Public Television.
Any public television station in the
country may pull down from the
satellite programming that is
distributed by the regional
organizations such as SECA. This
programming is often free to stations,
whereas the programming distributed
by PBS is not. Each public television
station is independent and makes its
own decisions on programming.
The distribution of educational or
instructional programming to schools
works in much the same way. SECA
administers the National Instructional
Satellite Schedule (NISS), which
provides satellite distribution of the
most popular instructional
programming. During the last school
year, 43 states with more than 24
million students subscribed to the
NISS service. Other services also
distribute instructional programming.
Public television's technology is also
suited to other methods of
disseminating information.
Teleconferencing, for instance, is a
very efficient means to reach distinct
groups of people. Several years ago,
SECA produced a teleconference
designed for school administrators in
all 50 states on asbestos removal in
school buildings. Many public: stations
produce teleconferences for
governmental agencies or private firms.
And all public stations have the
facilities to be receiver sites for
teleconferences.
To summarize: Noncommercial
educational broadcasting has the
resources, the technology, and the
grassroots relationships with the
education community to help EPA
provide information to the public: and
school children on vital environmental
issues and problems, o
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
43
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INFORMING THE PUBUC
IT WILL TAKE MORE THAN EDUCATION
Solo-driving addicts must feel it in the pocketbook
by James M. Lents
Detroit may have given figurative
birth to the automotive age, but
America's love affair with the auto
began in Los Angeles.
With its seemingly endless suburbs
connected by crisscrossing freeways,
Los Angeles is the first major
metropolitan area in the world that
was literally built around the auto.
Today, the area is the world's single
largest market for gasoline. Its 13
million residents drive 9 million motor
vehicles 240 million miles a day,
guzzling 15 million gallons of gasoline
and diesel fuel.
Yet, despite the promises of Madison
Avenue, driving is not what it used to
be. Long gone are the days of the free
wheeling motorist.
More typical today is area resident
Bruce McGowan, recently featured in
the Los Angeles Times, who spends
three hours a day commuting to and
from his job as a computer operator in
stop-and-creep traffic.
To get the most out of these
otherwise wasted hours, McGowan
does office work—on a portable desk
he carries in his car—when traffic
grinds to a complete halt.
He and millions like him have
created a burgeoning market for
cellular phones, mobile fax machines,
refrigerators that plug into cigarette
lighters, portable televisions, and
bucket seat massagers to soothe
frazzled nerves and cramped muscles.
Clearly, overdependence on the auto,
which causes 60 percent of Southern
California's infamous smog, constitutes
a major environmental problem.
Education has encouraged ridesharing in
Los Angeles, but smog and traffic jams are
sti/l the rule.
44
EPA JOURNAL
-------
The bottom line is that
motorists will not give up
their solo driving habit in
large numbers without direct
feedback or incentives.
Over the long run, cleaner
autos—and ultimately electric
cars—will help, but in the interim
what is the solution? What role can
environmental education play?
Here in the Los Angeles
metropolitan area, the South Coast Air
Quality Management District
(SCAQMD) has engaged in a major
educational effort to woo people out of
their single occupant cars and into
carpools and other ride-sharing
arrangements.
Under SCAQMD's Regulation XV,
employers are required to implement
incentive and education plans to
encourage ridesharing. The employer's
incentives are mandatory, but worker
participation is voluntary.
SCAQMD supplements this
regulation with advertising and
educational outreach efforts to promote
the benefits of ride sharing.
After more than three years'
experience with the program, I am
happy to report that we have had some
success. A recent study of employers
covered by the ride sharing rule found
that ride sharing increased by 5
percent over a two-year period. Ride
sharing increased most at firms where
top management was strongly
committed to the concept.
Education played a major role in
increasing the level of ride sharing at
these companies. Company meetings,
newsletters, videos, pamphlets, and
other efforts helped increase ride
sharing.
But strong incentives also played a
major role. Incentives, such as cash
payments and prize drawings, have
been effective in encouraging increased
ride sharing.
Over the past three years, we have
found that environmental education
alone cannot get large numbers of
drivers to share rides. This is because
the link between ride sharing and the
environment is not directly
perceptible.
Long after joining a carpool, the
individual motorist will still see smog
on the horizon and a traffic jam on the
freeway. Alternatively, the motorist
may live and work in a clean air area,
Promotion of electric cars
and vans may help reduce
Los Angeles' use of 75
million gallons of gasoline
and diesel fuel daily.
but his emissions contribute to
downwind air pollution.
The bottom line is that motorists
will not give up their solo driving
habit in large numbers without direct
feedback or incentives. For better or
worse, this can be accomplished only
by assigning a price to solo driving
commensurate with its environmental
damage.
This is what SCAQMD is beginning
to do with its ride-sharing regulation.
Rewarding those who rideshare and
denying the benefits to solo commuters
sends a signal that solo commuting
entails an environmental cost.
To further increase carpooling, we
are looking to extend incentives to
non-work trips to shopping centers
and special events centers, such as
stadiums and concert centers.
Initiating parking fees where parking is
free, or offering parking discounts for
carpoolers, are likely to be integral to
this program.
So what we've learned is that
education can help encourage ride
sharing, but it's going to take strong
financial incentives and disincentives
to get people to give up their addiction
to solo driving. Q
fDr. Lents is executive officer of the
South Coast Air Quality Management
District, the air pollution control
agency for Los Angeles, Orange, and
Riverside counties and part of San
Bernardino County.)
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
45
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INFORMING THE PUBLIC
THE
OF
What can a Senior
Environment Corps
do?
by John T. Grupenhoff
Carl Amick,
a Save Our
Streams volunteer,
surveys the habitat
of the
Little Bluestonc River
in West Virginia.
An enormous underutilized human
resource is available to help deal
with our environmental problems.
Many of our 60 million seniors
(persons over 50)—25 percent of our
population—are deeply concerned
about the increasingly polluted
environment we are leaving as a legacy
to our children and grandchildren.
Senior Americans have the
experience, skills, and time to make a
significant contribution. Until now,
however, no systematic national effort
has been made to tap that potential
through environmental education and
action; the emphasis in that regard has
been on young people.
There are many ways in which
senior Americans could have an
impact. Consider, for example, their
potential as environmentally aware
consumers:
• They control 70 percent of the total
net worth of all U.S. households.
• They own 77 percent of all financial
assets in this country.
• They purchase 43 percent of all
domestic cars.
• They represent 40 percent of all
consumer demand.
.11;
EPA JOURNAL
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Senior Community Infrastructure
Many seniors could become involved
in environmental issues through
massive, existing governmental and
non-profit institutions. There is a vast
federal, state, and community services
apparatus—including a system of
regional offices (congruent with
EPA's), state units on aging, 650 area
agencies on aging, and 8,500
community projects, many of which
could take on an environmental
component. More than 30 non-profit
national organizations, such as the
American Association of Retired
Persons (AARP) and the National
Council on the Aging (NCOA), serve
senior interests. Of these, AARP is the
largest-Cover 33 million members),
with regional and state offices, over
3,000 local chapters, and considerable
experience in the development of
voluntary service programs for its
members. Its membership magazine,
Modern Maturity, is second only to
Reader's Digest in total circulation.
The NCOA, serving professionals in
the aging field, has as one of its 10
constituent units the National
Institution of Senior Centers (NISC), an
association of over 2,500 of the more
than 14,000 senior centers across the
United States (more than the 8,600
McDonald's fast food outlets!}. Senior
centers have professional management
and appropriate facilities which could
be used for environmental and action
activities. Recently, the NISC Delegate
Council unanimously agreed to join
with the senior Environment Corps to
promote the development of "senior
environment teams" in these centers.
Also, a massive senior media
network, including hundreds of
newspapers and newsletters as well as
radio and TV programs across the
nation, is constantly seeking useful
information to present to senior
audiences: Certainly these outlets
would participate in environmental
education activities if asked.
The Senior Environment Corps
The recently established non-profit
Senior Environment Corps has been
organized precisely for this kind of
senior environmental education and
action, through community
organization and involvement.
Initially it will focus on developing
a nationwide network of senior
environment teams at senior centers. A
team portfolio of education and action
modules will be developed for
recycling, energy conservation, water
and air pollution, pesticides and
toxics, environmental consumerism,
and "mentoring" of young people on
environmental matters, to name a few.
Nationally, members of the Corps
will be unified by the idea of
environmental protection, held
together by a dedicated
communications structure, and
identified to each other and the public
by clothing items (hats, jackets, etc.)
carrying the Corps logo and title.
EPA and Seniors
EPA can help seniors help the
environment in a number of ways:
• By developing an understanding of
the importance of reaching out to the
senior community and helping seniors
become "empowered" through
environmental education and
organization
• By surveying the senior organizations
and their communications apparatus
and developing, in concert with senior
leaders, an environmental education
and action program
• By supporting development of
educational and action materials
pertinent to seniors, utilizing and
reshaping already existing materials,
including putting them in larger type,
along the lines suggested for the senior
centers
• By supporting a national conference
to provide the "kick off" for the
national effort, followed by regional
volunteer training meetings
• By supporting a systematic and
continuous information flow to the
senior media network.
Senior Environmental
Education Provisions
The National Environmental
Education Act contains two
provisions concerning senior
environmental education for senior
citizens (over age 50):
• One provision adds a "senior
American" to the Environmental
Education Advisory Council and
Task Force called for by the new
law.
• The other requires EPA to:
"describe and assess the extent
and quality of environmental
education programs available to
senior Americans and make
recommendations thereon;
describe the various federal agency
programs to further senior
environmental education; and
evaluate and make
recommendations as to how such
educational apparatuses could best
be coordinated with non-profit
senior organizations across the
nation, and environmental
education institutions and
organizations now in existence."
Clearly, there is enormous potential
for improving our environmental
situation through cooperation of EPA,
established senior organizations, and
the newly emerging Senior
Environment Corps; the structures
already exist to assure success. In
these efforts, it will be vital to
emphasize the "action" aspect of
senior involvement, a
(Dr. Grupenhoff is founder of the
Senior Environment Corps. During
deliberations on the National
Environmental Education Act,
Grupenho/f advocated the
amendments which were adopted by
Congress concerning senior
Americans.)
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
47
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INFORMING THE PUBLIC
CURIOSITY MIGHT SAVE THE DAY
How can we protect the quality of life?
by Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Editors1 note: On November 17, 1988,
Captain Cousteau gave a talk to EPA
headquarters employees in
Washington, DC. The following
excerpts from that talk we believe are
particularly germane to the subject of
environmental education.
I have often wondered if the
impulse, this tremendous
curiosity I have always
felt—which is to look through
keyholes at what happens in
nature—was exceptional or natural.
And the more I observe nature, the
more 1 think that the impulse toward
exploration is built into almost every
organism, including plants.
"Plants send feelers, their roots, as
far as they can. They have terrible
fights for space, as much as humans or
animals. I think this drive for
exploration is built in every living
thing, sometimes from necessity,
sometimes from sheer curiosity.
"Since 1966, first with my two sons
and then with Jean-Michel alone, we
have been going on our expeditions,
always keeping in mind that our work
is not only to explore, but also to try to
learn lessons about the deterioration of
our planet and the damage done to it
by human beings ....
"We are acting like Attila on the
Earth today. All this mechanical
killing, destroying, dynamite fishing,
using nets with mesh too small,
draining marshes and lagoons, cutting
passes in atolls, and changing the
courses of rivers—all these things are
not pollution, but they are increasing
the effects of pollution, The result is
really a synergistic effect between
pollution and other forms of
destruction.
(Cousteau is (in explorer,
oceanographer, and founding
President of The Cousteau Society.]
48
"On top of that, of course, comes the
elimination of species. Almost one
million species have disappeared since
the beginning of the 19th century.
Forever. That's eight percent of the
total known census of living creatures,
exhausted for future generations. Some
of those organisms which have
disappeared—most are plants—could
perhaps have given us medicines or
other useful products. But now they
will never be of any use anymore.
"It is the fluids of life—air and
water—that are in danger. As you
know, there is, by weight, a lot more
water than air, which means that
theoretically air is even more
vulnerable than water. Up until now, I
have given more attention to water
than to air; but I'm beginning to
change my mind because what is
happening today, not only with acid
rain but more importantly with the
warming of the planet, is mainly
damage to the atmosphere. The fate of
humankind is intertwined with these
problems: pollution, mechanical
damage, and heating of the planet,
which is another form of pollution.
And all of these problems are direct
consequences of overpopulation. I can
never repeat it enough. The problem of
overpopulation was clearly outlined in
the first years of the Club of Rome, but
for some unexplainable reason,
overpopulation has practically
disappeared from environmental
literature. I don't understand why.
Overpopulation has never been more
pressing; it has never been more tragic.
"When I went to school, the
population of the Earth was not quite
three billion. Now there are five
billion. For the near future, the
population of the Earth will increase
by one China every 10 years. How long
can that be carried on?
"Yes, it is probably possible, by
increasing production, by improving
the distribution of resources to the
poor nations, to feed 15 billion people
in the future. Not very well, but
decently. It is probably possible to
have 15 billion people survive on
Earth. But what kind of life are they
going to lead? Are we here to ensure
mere survival? Or are we here to
protect the quality not only of our own
lives, but of the lives of the people
who will come after us in the next
generations?
"When Calypso went recently to
examine the radioactivity problem on
the island of Mururoa, where the
French test atomic bombs, we were
thinking more of future generations
than about us. And when we see the
population growing to such an extent,
when we see the rich nations become
richer and the poor nations become
poorer while they grow in population,
the number of time bombs that are
planted around us—radioactivity,
overpopulation, destruction of
nonrenewable resources—is such that
we're inclined to yell, 'Stop it!' We
have to do something; we have to put
tremendous pressure on our
governments to stop these things. Our
indignation must be told. It must be
broadcast. We have to proclaim it; we
have to yell it; we have to show it, not
hide it in the corner of ourselves.
"There must be public pressure to
force the decision makers to take
action. I'm saying this to you because I
was there when EPA was created. I
was there to see the first triumphant
beginning of EPA. The entire world
was envying the United States for its
creation of EPA. From the beginning,
there were environmental laws that are
still there, and legal instruments that
are at your disposal. They still exist,
and they can and should be used. No
other country on Earth has anything
comparable. None.
"So you have the legal tools, but
because of political pressure, because
of lobbying, you do not make full use
of them. We suffer when we see this.
I've seen the change in the
government. You are suffering from
government decisions, from
EPA JOURNAL
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m
"""'
government indifference.
"This Agency has to remain
independent. I'm saying this openly
and envying the possibility. We don't
have anything like the EPA in France.
We have the Ministry of the
Environment, which is a slave to
government decisions, as they have
proven many times. They are not free;
they are not independent.
Theoretically, you have a degree of
independence that is greater than that
of any similar organization on Earth.
So we are waiting and praying that
you use it."
After the talk, Cousteau took
questions. Here is one of the questions:
"Do you think it's possible that an
environmental ethic can actually be
instilled into the teachings of the
major religions? What better way of
changing people's behavior than by
teaching from the pulpit?"
A "Yes, but you see, people can
do very little for the environment. By
behaving well, yes. But take a
housewife who buys a product for her
washing machine. She goes to the
supermarket, and she has a choice
among three or four products. None of
them is clearly environmentally clean
and guaranteed by EPA. At the
moment, the choices are made
according to advertising and publicity,
not according to the environmental
quality of the product. So what can the
average citizen or average housewife
do? They can use unleaded gasoline
instead of leaded gasoline; that's done
already. But for the household
products, for the medical products,
there is no control. There is no
recommendation based on
environmental quality. Yet Canada has
started something in that direction.
Canada now has a law that a product
in general use must bear a seal of
appropriate quality for the
environment. How this seal is given,
by whom, I haven't learned. But I do
know that the first step has been
taken ....
"... If we are educating the average
citizen, at least he or she must be
given the possibility of making the
right choice. Today citizens don't have
that opportunity." D
Cousteau's mission: Not only to
explore but to learn about
environmental deterioration and the
ways in which human behavior
damages the planet . . . and to
share this knowledge.
On Education Versus
Instruction
"... Education has nothing to do
with learning how to compress
acetylene without an explosion or
how to make an atom bomb. That's
instruction. A person is well
educated when they know how to
act or to behave in difficult
situations. Since antiquity, the
problems of education have
consistently been the subject of
masterpieces in tragedy and
theater, in the books of our souls.
No masterpiece has ever been
written on mathematics or
chemistry or physics, all of which
are labeled education. But it's only
instruction. When we made
education number three of the
[Cousteau] Society's priorities, we
didn't mean instruction. We mean
education. To oversimplify, when
we give information to the public
about the environment, The
Cousteau Society is instructing the
public: When we discuss what the
long-range consequences could be
and what solutions would serve
humankind in the long run, we are
participating in the education of
the public ....
"... We are social beings, and
to live in society with the high
degree of mind that we have
requires education. As soon as
education declines, the behavior of
societies goes to chaos. It's a
danger that is comparable to the
atomic bomb . . . ."
—Jacques-Yves Cousteau, from the
CaJypso Log, February 1989.
Reprinted with permission of The
Cousteau Society. For more
information, contact The Cousteau
Society, 930 W. 21st Street,
Norfolk, VA 23517.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
49
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i
.'•"*
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THINKING GLOBALLY
A
TASK
by the Dalai Lama of Tibet
The Himalayan Mountains symbolize the
enduring grandeur of the planet, yet they
represent a fragile ecosystem. Tibetan
culture reflects a deep reverence for nature
and wildlife.
Scientific predictions of
environmental change are difficult
for ordinary human beings to
comprehend fully. We hear about
hot temperatures and rising sea levels,
increasing cancer rates, vast
population growth, depletion of
resources, and extinction of species.
Human activity everywhere is
hastening to destroy key elements of
the natural ecosystems all living beings
depend on.
These threatening developments are
individually drastic and together
amazing. The world's population has
tripled in this century alone and is
expected to double or triple in the
next. The global economy may grow by
a factor of five or 10, including with it
extreme rates of energy consumption,
carbon dioxide production, and
deforestation. It is hard to imagine all
of these things actually happening in
our lifetime and in the lives of our
children. We have to consider the
prospects of global suffering and
environmental degradation unlike
anything in human history.
I think, however, there is good news
in that now we will definitely have to
find new ways to survive together on
this planet. In this century we have
seen enough war, poverty, pollution,
and suffering. According to Buddhist
teaching, such things happen as the
result of ignorance and selfish actions,
because we often fail to see the
essential common relation of all
beings. The Earth is showing us
warnings and clear indications of the
vast effects and negative potential of
misdirected human behavior.
To counteract these harmful
practices we can teach ourselves to be
more aware of our own mutual
dependence. Every sentient being
wants happiness instead of pain. So
we all share a common basic feeling.
We can develop right actions to help
the Earth and each other based on a
better motivation. Therefore, I always
speak of the importance of developing
a genuine sense of universal
responsibility. When we are motivated
by wisdom and compassion, the
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
51
-------
The Earth is showing us
warnings and clear
indications of the vast effects
and negative potential of
misdirected human behavior.
results of our actions benefit everyone,
not just our individual selves or some
immediate convenience. When we are
able to recognize and forgive ignorant
actions of the past, we gain the
strength to constructively solve the
problems of the present.
We should extend this attitude to be
concerned for our whole environment.
As a basic principle, I think it is better
to help if you can, and if you cannot
help, at least try not to do harm. This
is an especially suitable guide when
there is so much yet to understand
about the complex interrelations of
diverse and unique ecosystems. The
Earth is our home and our mother. We
need to respect and take care of her.
This is easy to understand today.
We need knowledge to care for
ourselves, every part of the Earth and
the life upon it, and all of the future
generations as well. This means that
education about the environment is of
great importance to everyone.
Scientific learning and technological
progress are essential for improving
the quality of life in the modern world.
Still more important is the simple
practice of getting to know and better
appreciate ourselves and our natural
surroundings, whether we are children
or adults. If we have a true
appreciation for others and resist
acting out of ignorance, we will take
care of the Earth.
In the biggest sense, environmental
education means learning to maintain
a balanced way of life. All religions
agree that we cannot find lasting inner
satisfaction based on selfish desires
and acquiring the comforts of material
things. Even if we could, there are now
so many people that the Earth would
not sustain us for long. 1 think it is
much better to practice enjoying
simple peace of mind. We can share
the Earth and take care of it together,
rather than trying to possess it,
destroying the beauty of life in the
process.
Ancient cultures that have adapted
to their natural surroundings can offer
special insights on structuring human
societies to exist in balance with the
environment. For example, Tibetans
are uniquely familiar with life on the
Himalayan Plateau. This has evolved
into a long history of a civilization that
took care not to overwhelm and
destroy its fragile ecosystem. Tibetans
have long appreciated the presence of
wild animals as symbolic of freedom.
A deep reverence for nature is
apparent in much of Tibetan art and
ceremony. Spiritual development
thrived despite limited material
progress. Just as species may not adapt
to relatively sudden environmental
changes, human cultures also need to
be treated with special care to ensure
survival. Therefore, learning about the
useful ways of people and preserving
their cultural heritage is also a part of
learning to care for the environment.
I try always to express the value of
having a good heart. This simple
aspect of human nature can be
nourished to great power. With a good
heart and wisdom you have the right
motivation and will automatically do
what needs to be done. If people begin
to act with genuine compassion for
everyone, we can still protect each
other and the natural environment.
This is much easier than having to
adapt to the severe and
incomprehensible environmental
conditions projected for the future.
Now on a close examination, the
human mind, the human heart, and
the environment are inseparably linked
together. In this sense, environmental
education helps to generate both the
understanding and the love we need to
create the best opportunity there has
ever been for peace and lasting
coexistence. Q
(The Dalai Lama is the winner of the
1989 Nobel Peace Prize.]
52
EPA JOURNAL
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THINKING GLOBALLY
THE PEACE CORPS
Can teaching English help the upper Tisza?
by Judy Braus
[hen it first flows into Hungary
from the Soviet Union, the Tisza
River is relatively
clean—especially when compared
to its infamous neighbor, the Danube.
But before long the water quality of the
Tisza begins to plummet.
The Szamos and Kraszna rivers,
flowing from Romania, dump heavy
metals, phosphates, and other
pollutants into the Tisza as it makes its
way south. At Tokaj, near the lower
end of the Upper Tisza, the Bodrog
River, flowing from Czechoslovakia,
dumps more tainted water. And along
its 600-kilometer path through
Hungary, the Tisza relentlessly
receives in-country pollution,
including waste and run-off from
chemical factories, power plants, and
agricultural fields.
Pollution of the Tisza River is just
one example of many serious
environmental problems facing
Hungary. Like the rest of Central
Europe, the country suffers from acid
rain, smog, hazardous waste disposal,
habitat destruction, and other
environmental problems. But there is a
bright spot in the doom and gloom of
the pollution and degradation. Armed
with enthusiasm and innovative ideas
and backed by an agency-wide
commitment to environmental
education, U.S. Peace Corps volunteers
have begun tackling environmental
problems at the grass roots level,
working in camps, schools, and
communities across Hungary.
An environmental education
workshop conducted in the dead of
winter in a small town near the
Czechoslovakian border gave many
volunteers their first opportunity to get
involved with Hungary's
environmental problems. During the
workshop, more than 60 volunteers
working as English teachers and their
Hungarian colleagues took part in
sessions focusing on air and water
pollution, solid waste, and natural
resource issues—as well as on teaching
strategies for incorporating
environmental education into their
English teaching lesson plans. They
also studied strategies for motivating
students to get involved in local
environmental issues and for helping
students develop lifelong
problem-solving skills.
As a result of the workshop, many of
the volunteers immediately began
incorporating environmental topics
into their daily lesson plans. During
site visits, Kathryn Rulon, Associate
Peace Corps Director for Education,
found that volunteers were
successfully using environmental
content to teach English, encouraging
student creativity, and empowering
students to make a difference: "I
couldn't believe how many of the
volunteers were creatively adapting
environmental content to match the
interests and concerns of their
students. I'd walk into classrooms and
the students would be debating energy
issues, writing environmental poetry,
or performing pollution raps.
Environmental education and English
teaching are a natural fit!"
Several volunteers also took the
activities and lesson plans developed
during the workshop to camp. They
HBBi •* '• . ^~~ .^••••^•^••••K^^^^^^BH^^B^
On assignment in Hungary, Peace Corps volunteers teach English and environmental literacy at the same time
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
53
-------
"I'd walk into classrooms and
the students would be
debating energy issues,
writing environmental poetry,
or performing pollution raps."
sponsored several successful summer
English-Environment camps
throughout Hungary, where they
conducted environmental education
activities focusing on pollution,
natural resource issues, and energy. In
addition, many joined with their
Hungarian colleagues to develop
country-specific role plays and
scenarios dealing with environmental
topics.
As for the problems in the upper
Tisza River, one Peace Corps
volunteer, Kevin Anderson, channeled
his concern into a concrete proposal
for action. Before the workshop, Kevin
had been working with the
Nyireghyaza Chapter of the Hungarian
Ornithological and Nature Protection
Society to band sand martins and also
to organize a summer environmental
camp. Through his work, he
discovered that the Upper Tisza not
only supports the largest colony of
sand martins in Europe, but it is also
rich in forest and wetland habitats that
provide homes to some of the most
diverse wildlife in the country. He
realized that a public awareness
campaign would be important, given
that many of his neighbors in the rural
town of Nyireghyaza consider the area
an undeveloped "wasteland" that
would be more useful if it were
developed.
It was after attending the winter
workshop, where he met with Steve
Wassersug, manager of the Regional
Environmental Center in Budapest,
that Kevin decided to apply to the
Center for a grant. He and Dr. Tibor
Szep, a leader of a local environmental
group, drafted a proposal requesting
funds to help protect the Upper Tisza
River watershed. Specifically, they
requested support to survey the upper
Tisza River and the riverside forests; to
educate the public and members of the
group about the ecology of the upper
Tisza River; to disseminate information
to both national and international
environmental groups and the public;
and to provide training for participants
in research techniques, environmental
54
education, and "environmental
English."
In spring, Kevin and his colleagues
celebrated their success: the Regional
Environmental Center presented them
with $10,000 to begin implementing
their Upper Tisza River Project Plan.
Already the group has conducted a
10-day research camp on the Tisza to
help train members to collect data and
monitor water quality. They have also
purchased a boat, a video camera, and
maps of the area to use in their river
surveys. They hope to add the data
they collect to the new Tisza Basin
Database, which is being developed by
a large environmental
non-governmental organization in the
Upper Tisza region.
Kevin's success—and the successes
of other volunteers—has given a boost
to the Peace Corps's environmental
efforts throughout Central Europe. This
fall, "environment volunteers" will
start their pre-service training in
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and
Poland—heading to their sites in
February. And next spring, two
environmental education workshops
for volunteers teaching English and for
their host country colleagues are
scheduled to take place in Hungary
and Czechoslovakia.
A growing environmental ethic is
even evident in the offices of Peace
Corps staff. In the Hungary office,
paper is reused and recycled. Bottles
and cans are collected for recycling.
And the staff is looking into using
recycled paper stock for all their office
needs. There's also an expanding
environmental education resource
library, open to Peace Corps volunteers
and their counterparts.
In a country where environmental
problems have been pushed aside for
so many years, Peace Corps
environmental education efforts can
make an important contribution to
in-country initiatives. After all,
thinking globally and acting locally is
what the Peace Corps is all about, o
(Braus is an environmental education
specialist with the U.S. Peace Corps.]
EPA JOURNAL
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Ifali I
ENABLING OTHERS
TO ACT WISELY
Help from tiny primates
with a big charisma
by Seth Rosenthal
This tiny monkey,
the golden lion
tamarin, was the
focus for a
conservation
education project
sponsored by
World Wildlife Fund
in Brazil.
Parades, radio and
television shows,
and other activities
help educate
Brazilians on the
need to protect the
endangered Atlantic
forest, the tamarin's
habitat.
\
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
Puppet shows. Mobile teaching
vans. Summer camps. Educational
television. Zoo and museum
exhibits. T-shirts and posters.
These may sound like pedagogical
gimmicks, but in fact they are part of
highly sophisticated strategies used by
conservation groups in the developing
world to educate local people about
their natural resources.
Environmental education efforts
have arrived not a moment too soon.
Science can help us understand the
magnitude of our impact on the
environment. Technology can give us
tools to manage our natural capital.
But only education can bring about the
lasting changes in attitudes and
perceptions that will shape the
behavior of future generations.
As part of its ongoing mission to
preserve the abundance and diversity
of life on Earth, World Wildlife Fund
(WWF) promotes local solutions to
global conservation problems. And this
process of working with government
agencies, private conservation groups.
citizen groups, schools, scientists, land
owners, and indigenous peoples is
essentially an educational one. For
WWF, environmental education means
empowering individuals, communities,
and societies to make enlightened
decisions about managing their natural
resources.
For that reason, a broadly based
scientific education is rarely of use to
people who are struggling every day to
feed their families and raise the quality
of their lives. As WWF sees it, the key
is to address local wildlife and
ecosystems in a manner appropriate to
each community. So although most
education projects supported by WWF
share a common intent and theme, no
two are the same.
Educational efforts may be centered
around a particular issue: the killing of
endangered sea turtles for profit by
financially strapped Mexican
communities; the invasion of a park in
Africa by slash-and-burn
agriculturalists who lack better
alternatives; the deterioration of a coral
reef ecosystem in the Philippines from
destructive fishing practices like the
use of cyanide and dynamiting.
Or the efforts may be more general:
using zoos, museums, national parks,
55
-------
Posters and traveling
exhibits are used by
Poco das Antas
Reserve staff,
supported by World
Wildlife Fund, to
raise public
consciousness about
the Brazilian
ecosystem.
and schools to promote an
understanding of how basic ecological
concepts relate to local natural
resources. Educational projects can
stand alone or, as is more often the
case, serve as an integral component of
a larger effort to preserve an important
ecosystem or wildland area.
Building enthusiasm at this local
level has prompted leaders of
WWF-funded projects to call on a wide
array of innovative techniques. But
according to WWF Vice President
Diane Wood, the techniques are not
simple game playing. "What may
appear to an outsider to be isolated,
fun activities are actually
well-thought-out initiatives selected
because they are the best means to
communicate an environmental
message and get people to take action,"
she says.
Among these initiatives are video
and slide presentations of local flora
and fauna, guided visits to zoos and
museums, visitors' centers and
interpretive trails in national parks,
radio and television broadcasts, plays
and puppet shows, mobile teaching
units, youth conservation camps, and,
in at least one case, an ecology choir.
The choir is just one part of a
far-reaching program run by the
municipal zoo of Sorocaba, Brazil.
Other activities include a short course
that trains 11- and 12-year-olds to
serve as volunteer zoo guards,
explaining animal behavior to zoo
visitors, a "green protectors" club for
local teenagers, an ecology course for
primary school teachers, a
correspondence course that reaches
thousands of children, and a children's
bird watching club.
Golden lion tamarins, tiny primates
with big charisma, were the starting
point for a WWF-supported
conservation education project begun
in 1983 in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil.
Today, staff members at Poco das
Antas Reserve, supported by WWF,
engage the local community through
radio and television shows, lectures,
posters, T-shirts, and traveling
exhibits. In the process, they generate
enthusiasm not just for golden lion
tamarins but for an entire endangered
ecosystem: Brazil's Atlantic forest.
If the ultimate goal of environmental
education is empowering people to
take action, then a local group located
near the Gulf of Fonseca in Honduras
sets a high standard. Shrimp farming,
salt production, tannin extraction from
wood, indiscriminate fishing, and local
fuel-wood needs were putting
increasing pressure on the gulf's
mangrove ecosystem. In 1988, local
fishermen, concerned with the visible
deterioration of the mangroves, joined
together to educate the local populace
about their ecological value and to
promote their rational management.
The Caribbean Natural Resource
Institute (CANARI) has founded a
multifaceted project in St. Lucia that
helps local people find viable
alternatives to environmentally
destructive practices like dynamiting
coral reefs, collecting sea bird eggs,
overfishing, overharvesting wild sea
moss and white sea urchins, and
cutting mangroves to produce charcoal.
The project has not only set an
important ecosystem on the road to
recovery, it has also become a role
model for reconciling resource
management and economic
development.
Creative programs like this are
springing up in almost every country
where WWF is active; our field
workers rarely travel without
discovering a new education group or
project that wasn't there the year
before. Extrapolating general lessons
from this vast multiplicity of local
efforts is difficult. What we can say is
that education will continue to play a
vital role in addressing conservation
problems in the developing world
while at the same building for a
sustainable future, a
(Rosenthal served as a consultant with
World Wildlife Fund,}
56
EPA JOURNAL
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CROSS CURRENTS^
Resolving
Environmental
Conflicts
A Book Review by
Marcelle DuPraw and James Laue
uppose you find yourself living in a
neighborhood that relies on an
outmoded and contaminated water
supply system. You make phone
calls to all the right agencies, pen
inspired letters to the editor of your
local paper, and attend numerous town
council meetings—all with no tangible
results. A lawsuit is out of the
question: Even if you had the
necessary financial resources, you
firmly believe that you should not
have to pay out of pocket to get public
services other citizens get for free.
What other recourse do you have?
In the fall of 1979, a small group of
Fitchburg, Wisconsin, residents found
themselves asking just this question, as
recounted in one of the seven case
studies presented in Environmental
Disputes: Community Involvement in
Conflict Resolution by James E.
Crowfoot and Julia M. Wondolleck
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 1990;
Drtnvmg by Luc-indu
263 pp.). The answer they discovered:
mediation.
At the time, Fitchburg (population:
13,000), a suburb of Madison, had a
municipal water utility that serviced
the town's center. However, most of its
residential neighborhoods relied on
water from private wells sunk by
developers in the 1940s and 1950s.
Residents of the Greenfield
neighborhood—served mainly by
shallow, temporary well systems
constructed by developers who
counted on their being replaced in a
decade or so by municipal water
service—began experiencing water
quality problems in the late 1970s.
Residents reported low water pressure,
and subsequent monitoring by the
Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) found a seriously
high bacteria count in well water.
Early on in this case, a group of
residents formed the Greenfield
Neighborhood Association. By
withholding payments and applying
pressure on one developer through the
Wisconsin DNR, the group was able to
convince the developer to make
necessary well system repairs.
However, when problems associated
with another private well system
became apparent in 1978, the
development company—South Side
Development, owned by the Kowing
family—was not as responsive.
Direct appeals to the Kowing family
and initial complaints to the DNR
brought unsatisfactory results. It was
only after increasing numbers of
complaints that the DNR began a
regular water quality monitoring
program in the summer of 1978, found
excessive bacteria levels, and declared
the water flowing through the Kowing
system to be unfit for human
consumption.
Repairing the existing system was
found to be unfeasible, and the DNR
declared that the Kowing system must
be replaced. The trouble was, no one
was willing to foot the bill. Legal
uncertainties prevented the DNR from
pressing the Kowing family to take
care of the problem. Instead, the DNR
ordered the town of Fitchburg to
extend the municipal water supply
system to the Greenfield neighborhood.
But Fitchburg town officials balked,
believing that extending the water
supply system would disrupt their
land use plan and impose an
unprecedented financial burden on the
town. They contested the DNR's order
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
57
-------
in court, disputing the seriousness of
the water quality problem and arguing
that the Kowings ought to be held
accountable. Negotiations were
attempted. A tentative agreement was
reached but then fell through.
When the DNR suggested mediation
in November 1979, all parties
welcomed the idea. The neighborhood
saw the process as a potentially viable
way of getting the system replaced at
an acceptable cost to homeowners.
Fitchburg town officials were willing
to participate because they wanted to
appease the angry citizen activists and
because, during the mediation process,
the DNR was willing to suspend
temporarily its order for the town to
take action on the water quality
problem. And the Kowing family
agreed to participate because they
thought mediation might provide a
way to negotiate an end to their
responsibility for the water system.
With the blessing of all of the
parties, the DNR then arranged for
mediator Ed Krinsky of the Wisconsin
Center for Public Policy to manage the
process. Participants held four
meetings and many smaller
consultations over a one-year period.
All agreed that the water supply
system did need to be replaced, so
discussion focused on various ways of
replacing the system, means of
financing it, and design criteria.
The mediator's role included
maintaining order during discussions,
ensuring that all parties had a chance
to be heard, and keeping track of ideas
for solutions and agreements as they
emerged. With Krinsky's assistance,
participants came up with a fresh
option: drilling new wells in the
Greenfield neighborhood rather than
extending the existing municipal
system. This alleviated the city's
concerns about opening up new areas
to development, and consequently the
town was willing to assume
responsibility for the project. Under an
agreement signed in February 1981,
the Kowing family contributed $10,000
and three parcels of land for new wells
and expansion of Greenfield Park. The
DNR agreed not to insist on upgrades
to the existing system while the town
was installing the new one.
The Fitchburg case is a classic
success story for environmental
dispute resolution. Crowfoot and
Wondolleck highlight three key
characteristics that distinguish
environmental dispute settlement
processes from other means of dealing
with such conflicts: voluntary
participation of the parties, face-to-face
interaction, and consensus
decision-making on both process and
outcomes. Throughout the book, they
integrate case data with the conceptual
frameworks they develop and (in
Chapter 3) present a comparative
analysis of environmental dispute
settlement (EDS) processes used in
each case.
All the case studies are documented
in detail and presented in a clear and
helpful comparative framework. The
book offers impasse-breaking ideas for
environmental activists, policy makers,
and regulators on a broad spectrum of
environmental issues: water quality
(Fitchburg), natural areas preservation
versus development (the San Juan
National Forest mediation and the
Sand Lake Quiet area negotiation),
agriculture versus environmentalist
conflicts (the Common Ground
Consensus Project), urban renewal and
planning (the Maiden Negotiated
Investment Strategy), urban river
development (Pig's Eye), and ground
water (the Wisconsin legislation
negotiation).
The organization and typography of
the book may distract readers from its
useful case descriptions and analysis,
however. Case studies are intermingled
in a linear fashion with chapters, and
seven enumerated case studies
alternate with five numbered chapters
without graphic distinctions. In
addition, it may have been more
accurate to identify Crowfoot and
Wondolleck as editors rather than
authors of the book since they have
written only two of the chapters; five
colleagues shared in the creation of the
other 10 cases and chapters—Lisa
Bardwell, Sharon Edger, Nancy
Manring, Kristen Nelson, and Martha
Tableman.
The book will certainly reward the
reader's serious attention, however. By
closely examining and comparing a
rich range of cases, it reveals important
lessons and strategic questions
citizens' groups should ask when
contemplating strategies for resolving
environmental disputes. The seven
case studies presented range from clear
successes to partial settlements to
failed attempts at mediation. Even the
latter are illuminating. For example,
the "Pig's Eye" case, which involved
development along the Mississippi
River in St. Paul, Minnesota,
underscores the importance of parties
having a clear understanding of the
role of the mediator/facilitator and
compelling incentives to negotiate in
good faith if the effort invested in
mediation is to pay off. Other
hard-won lessons to be gleaned from
this book include:
• The importance of an effective
organizational framework to facilitate
communications within the citizens'
group and between the group and
other disputants, both before and
during negotiation and/or mediation
• The value of an effective working
relationship between a group of
concerned citizens and an agency that
can help advocate their interests
• The potential offered by mediation to
provide a forum in which disputants
can clear up misconceptions and
together generate solutions pre«iously
unimagined
• The contribution a mediator can
make to negotiations by attempting to
"level the playing field"
In addition, the book offers several
approaches citizen groups can use to
persuade local officials at least to try
mediation as an alternative to
litigation.
Dedicated broadly "to those
individuals and organizations working
for environmental change," this book
is clearly aimed at educating and
empowering citizen groups. The
authors end with a word of
encouragement "to you, the leaders
and members of today's citizen and
environmental groups" to "continue to
seek enhanced environmental quality
for all citizens [and to share] your
experiences and the lessons learned
with each other." Its formatting flaws
notwithstanding, this book will serve
as a valuable resource to groups
travelling that road, a
(DuPraw is an Associate at the
Conflict Clinic, Inc., and Laue is Lynch
Professor of Conflict Resolution, both
at George Mason University in Fairfax,
Virginia. DuPraw and Laue help
disputants resolve environmental and
other public policy disputes through
conflict analysis, design of conflict
resolution processes and systems,
facilitation, mediation, negotiation
training, and the development of
conflict resolution theories.]
58
EPA JOURNAL
-------
FEATURING ER
A Well Water Tale
by Ross Ettlin
hrough the backyards of America,
through the Alaskan tundra,
through blazing heat and freezing
cold, through Hurricane Hugo ...
sample collectors for EPA's National
Survey of Pesticides in Drinking Water
Wells (NPS) persevered under
sometimes arduous circumstances and
came home with stories to tell. These
were the front-line workers—some 300
specially trained federal, state, and
contract technicians—who did the
legwork for the NPS, the first survey of
its kind to be conducted on a
nationwide scale. The $12 million
survey was jointly sponsored by the
Office of Drinking Water and the
Office of Pesticide Programs.
NPS samplers spent two years in the
field, travelling roughly 180,000 miles
in a dedicated quest for drinking water
samples for laboratory analysis. In
their travels, they visited 1,349 wells
and gathered some 30,000 well water
samples to be lab-tested to determine
the frequency and concentration of
pesticide and/or nitrate residues. The
wells they sampled included both
rural domestic wells and community
water systems and ranged from
old-fashioned rope-and-bucket devices
to the latest high-tech systems. In
addition to collecting water samples,
NPS samplers administered
questionnaires in an effort to gather
information on pertinent factors that
relate to the contamination of ground
water (see box).
From the beginning, even at the pilot
stage of the survey, samplers
encountered unexpected adventures. In
the rural counties where the pilot
testing took place, the sight of a group
of young strangers driving around
town in a late-model American car,
occasionally stopping to scribble
something on a clipboard, made local
citizens very suspicious. The
technicians found themselves
frequently being interrogated by the
police, who had received numerous
calls from worried residents. Typically
the police officers asked for
credentials—and in one instance,
called then-director of the survey Jim
Boland to verify that there really was
During two years
in the field,
sample collectors
for EPA's
nationwide survey
of pesticides in
drinking water
wells gathered a
total of 30,000
samples.
such a thing as a National Pesticide
Survey and the samplers really were
who they said they were.
This experience provided a lesson in
public relations. The survey team
realized, says Boland, that "people
didn't trust us because they didn't
know us." As a result, the team
launched an extensive
communications effort, which became
one of the hallmarks of the survey.
After EPA held a town meeting to
explain to residents the nature and
intent of the survey, the reception
samplers received was dramatically
improved. Residents were eager to
have their wells tested, and most were
willing to fill out questionnaires.
Ironically, some of the local
skepticism about what was going on
turned out to be not entirely
unfounded, just misdirected. Certain
opportunistic and unscrupulous
people tried to take advantage of the
survey backdrop by using scare tactics:
telling people their water was
contaminated and trying to sell them
expensive devices to put on the end of
their faucets. EPA quickly enlisted the
cooperation of the regions and the
states to launch an outreach and
education program. Through this
program, people were informed that
their wells were not necessarily
contaminated just because EPA was
conducting a survey and warned
against devious salesmanship. As a
result, the faucet device scam quickly
came to an end.
Once the survey was fully
underway, samplers had day-today
logistical problems to contend with.
When water samples were sent to any
of the eight testing laboratories
involved in the NPS, they needed to be
packed in ice to keep them at precisely
4 degrees Celsius. If the samples
happened to get too warm or too cold,
their chemical composition would
change and they could not be used for
standardized analysis.
Continued on iiexf pug*,'
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
59
-------
Moreover, because of statistical
design requirements, samples had to
be collected throughout the year, not
just during convenient seasons. When
samplers traveled to Iowa in the dead
of winter, the temperature was minus
17—minus 47 with the wind chill
factored in. That's more than 80
degrees colder than it was when
samplers went to Alaska. It was
so cold that workers had to hold the
samples between their knees to keep
them from freezing during preparation
for shipment. "It's not easy trying to
label bottles with numb fingers," said
Jeff Dawson, a sampling team leader
who speaks from experience.
In California, field workers had just
the opposite problem. The air
temperature was'120; the water
temperature, 92. That sample required
the most ice—but still just a fraction of
the 27 tons of ice used in the study.
In Alaska, believe it or not, the
problem was a lack of ice. "There just
wasn't a Seven-Eleven nearby where
samplers could buy 20 pounds of ice,"
Boland said. The samplers had to carry
Goals and Findings of the National Pesticide Survey
The National Survey of Pesticides
in Drinking Water Wells had two
primary goals:
• Phase 1: To estimate the
frequency and concentration of the
presence of pesticides (126
chemicals and their breakdown
products detectable with
multi-residue methods of analysis)
and nitrates in drinking water
wells nationally.
• Phase 2: To improve EPA's
understanding of how the presence
of pesticides and nitrates in
drinking water wells may be
associated with patterns of
pesticide use and the vulnerability
of ground water to contamination.
For statistical analysis, information
on factors such as pesticide and
fertilizer usage and animal
husbandry activities in the vicinity
of wells, climate conditions such
as rainfall, local geologic
conditions, the age of wells, etc.
was obtained from a number of
data sources, including
questionnaires administered by
NPS samplers.
Based on the laboratory test
results analyzed in Phase 1 of the
survey, EPA estimated that 10
percent of community drinking
water wells and about 4 percent of
rural domestic drinking water
wells nationwide have detectable
residues of at least one pesticide.
However, fewer than 1 percent of
the wells had pesticide residues
above levels considered protective
of human health. The two most
frequently detected pesticides were
atrazine and degradates of dacthal
(DCPA); both pesticides are weed
killers.
EPA also estimated that more
than half of the nation's wells
contain nitrates: About 1.2 percent
of the community wells and 2.4
percent of the rural wells showed
a total of more than 250,000 nitrate
detections above 10 parts per
million, the maximum
contaminant level established to
protect human health.
The analyses performed in Phase
2 of the NPS showed that a wide
variety of factors influence the
contamination of drinking water
wells by pesticides or nitrates.
Among other factors, the value of
crops grown in a county, the
amount of nitrogen fertilizer sold,
the amount of fertilized
pastureland, amount of rainfall,
and well depth were associated
with detections of pesticides or
nitrates in the wells.
Although the NPS can not prove
that any of these factors cause well
contamination, many of its results
are consistent with the findings of
other studies. The survey results
contribute additional support
toward taking a pollution
prevention approach toward
protecting drinking water and
ground water.
ice along with the bulky sample kits
with them on the plane trip to the
sampling site. A moose carcass had to
be removed from the plane to make
room for all of the equipment and ice.
When samplers were working in
Chandler, Georgia, a small town near
Savannah, Hurricane Hugo hit. As
coastal residents evacuated their
homes, the team worked feverishly to
complete all of the samples scheduled
for the day. It was nearly impossible
for the team to keep the rain from
filling the sample bottles. "It was
pouring down in sheets like I've never
seen before," Dawson said. When
samplers traveled back to South
Carolina four weeks after the
hurricane, they were amazed by the
cooperative spirit of people. "Even
with the extensive damage, people
were still willing to stop cleaning up
and give up 60 minutes of their time
for the survey," said Bruce Rappaport,
data analysis and training manager for
the NPS.
So was the business of gathering
NPS samples really so important that it
was worth braving Hurricane Hugo,
not to mention 180,000 miles of
legwork? When you consider that half
the population of the United States
relies on ground water for its drinking
water supply, the value of surveying
the potential contamination of well
water by pesticides and nitrates is
obvious. Says Jeanne Briskin, the
present director of the survey: "The
survey results ... will help us to
identify and better regulate risky
pesticides and improve state pesticide
management plans. And the
procedures used in the survey will
provide a guide for state and local
ground water studies." Q
(Etth'n, a recent graduate of the
University of Maryland, was an intern
with EPA JournaJJ.
60
EPA JOURNAL
-------
TITANS IN CONSERVATIONS
Henry David
Thoreau
by Jack Lewis
Published with permission o/ the Concord.
Massachusetts, Free Public Library.
About This Feature ...
Since the earliest days of the
American republic, many great
men and women have laid the
foundation for the work EPA is
doing today. This feature about
Henry David Thoreau inaugurates
a new series about such
ground-breaking individuals; it
will appear from time to time in
the Journal. Incidentally, under the
new National Environmental
Education Act, the "Henry David
Thoreau Award" will be given in
recognition of outstanding
contributions to literature on the
environment. Other awards are
named for Theodore Roosevelt,
Rachel Carson, and Gilford
Pinchot.
He was condemned by many as a
misanthrope, a misfit, a hermit.
Certainly Thoreau did not suffer
fools gladly, but he did have a
heart. The two great loves of his life
were his brother John and the wonders
of nature. John died tragically of
lockjaw in January 1842, and Thoreau
was never quite the same again. It was
then that he turned to the
contemplative life, which he
associated with a state of oneness with
nature. Some thought he carried this
passion too far: For instance, it is
reported that Henry was inordinately
fond of wading naked through the
streams of Concord.
To many of his neighbors in
Concord, Thoreau was known not as
the Sage of Walden but as "the fool
who burned the woods down." In
1844, while cooking fish at a spot on
the perimeter of Concord woods,
Henry accidentally sparked a major
forest fire that for decades blighted one
of the most beautiful places in
America.
Thoreau's world-famous essay, Civil
Disobedience, grew out of a night in
July 1846 when he was detained in
Concord jail for nonpayment of the
poll tax. Henry had refused to pay the
tax because of its association with the
institution of slavery. His maiden Aunt
Maria, without asking Thoreau, paid
his tax and secured his release. Henry,
Provided courtesy of Ohnr/es Overly Studio. Sudbury, Mas
: If <-(**• :-£- '•"*
*o£ v/ •-,
'•j -VraiSf*.•-..'.
wanting to continue his protest, was
furious. Ralph Waldo Emerson is
reputed to have visited Thoreau in his
jail cell. "Why are you here?" Emerson
asked. "Why are you not here?"
Thoreau replied.
When asked by the alumni
association of Harvard, his alma mater,
to name his occupation, Thoreau
termed himself a schoolmaster,
surveyor, gardener, farmer, house
painter, carpenter, mason, day-laborer,
pencil-maker, and—last of all—"a
Writer, and sometimes a Poetaster."
Even after a century and a half,
Thoreau speaks best for himself:
From Walden
"I went to the woods because I wished
to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could
not learn what it had to teach, and not,
when I came to die, discover that I had
not lived .... I wanted to live deep and
suck out all the marrow of life, to live
so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put
to rout all that was not life, to cut a
broad swath and shave close, to drive
life into a corner, and reduce it to its
lowest terms, and, if it proved to be
mean, why then to get the whole and
genuine meanness of it, and publish its
meanness to the world ....
"Near the end of March, 1845, I
borrowed an axe and went down to the
woods by Walden Pond, nearest to
«yp£!£X
viS^^&V
m^mM^
.-fZ3^*\ **&
The cabin that Thoreau built at Walden Pond
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
-------
where I intended to build my house,
and began to cut down some tall,
arrowy white pines, still in their
youth, for timber. It is difficult to
begin without borrowing, but perhaps
it is the most generous course thus to
permit your fellow-men to have an
interest in your enterprise. The owner
of the axe, as he released his hold on
it, said that it was the apple of his eye;
but I returned it sharper than I
received it....
"The scenery of Walden is on a
humble scale, and, though very
beautiful, does not approach to
grandeur, nor can it very much
concern one who has not long
frequented it or lived by its shore; yet
this pond is so remarkable for its
depth and purity as to merit a
particular description. It is a clear and
deep green well, half a mile long and a
mile and three quarters in
circumference, and contains about
sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial
spring in the midst of pine and oak
woods, without any visible inlet or
outlet except by the clouds or
evaporation ....
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet
desperation. What is called resignation
is confirmed desperation ....
"It is an interesting question how far
men would retain their relative rank if
they were divested of their clothes
. ." D
Milestones
1817 Born in Concord,
Massachusetts, July 12.
1827 Earliest known essay, The
Seasons, is published.
1837 Graduates from Harvard
College.
1845 In March, begins building his
Walden cabin, located on land
owned by Emerson. Moves in on
Independence Day. Total cost of
the cabin: 28 dollars. 12 1/2 cents.
1846 Arrested and thrown in jail
overnight for nonpayment of taxes.
1847 Leaves Walden Pond in
September, having finished the
major part of Walden.
1849 Publishes A Week on the
Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
Only 218 copies are sold in four
years.
1854 Publishes a much revised
version of Walden in August. It
takes five years to sell off the first
edition of 2,000 copies. (In all
editions and all languages, Walden
has since sold millions of copies.)
1860 Contracts tuberculosis after
catching a severe cold while
surveying tree stumps.
1862 Dies in Concord on May 6, at
the age of 44.
Walden Pond. This
cairn has marked the
location of Thoreau's
cabin since 1872.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
ON THE MOVEl
William Matuszeski is the
new Director of the
Chesapeake Bay Program.
Matuszeski came to EPA in
1989 as a Special Assistant in
the Office of Water. He then
became the Associate
Assistant Administrator for
Water in 1990.
Prior to moving to EPA,
Matuszeski held several
positions, totaling 13 years of
service, at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) in
the Department of Commerce.
He was Executive Director of
the Department of National
Marine Fisheries Services
from 1988 to 1989, Director
of the Office of Private Sector
Initiatives from 1986 until
1988, Acting Deputy
Assistant Administrator for
Ocean Services and Coastal
Zone Management and
National Ocean Services from
1982 until 1986, and Director
of State Programs in the
Office of Coastal Zone
Management from 1976 to 1982.
From 1970 to 1976 he was
on the staff of the Council on
Environmental Quality. He
served as Special Assistant to
the Director at the U.S.
Information Agency in
Washington, DC, from 1969
until 1970. He was also a
volunteer for the Peace Corps
in Venezuela for three years.
Matuszeski recently
assisted the Government of
Ecuador in the design and
implementation of the first
comprehensive coastal
management programs in
Latin America. He also
developed a multi-year agency-
wide budget to implement the
new U.S.-Mexico Border
Environmental Plan.
Matuszeski has a Bronze
and a Silver Medal from the
Department of Commerce.
He is a 1963 graduate of
the University of Wisconsin
with a B.A. in government.
He received his law degree
from Harvard Law School in
1966.
Matuszeski
Abby J. Pirnie is the new
Director of the Office of
Cooperative Environmental
Management in the Office of
the Administrator.
Since joining EPA in 1978,
Pirnie has held several
positions—most recently in
the Office of Information
Resources Management.
Pirnie was the Director of the
Program Systems Division for
two years and Director of the
Information Management and
Services Division for three
years.
Her first EPA position was
as a regulatory impact analyst
in the Office of Policy,
Planning, and Evaluation
(OPPE) from 1978 to 1980.
From 1980 to 1984, she
served as a Special Assistant
to the Director of the Office
of Water Enforcement and
then as Special Assistant to
the Director of the Office of
Water. In 1984 she returned
to OPPE as a special assistant
to the Director of the Office
of Management Systems and
Evaluation; she then served
as the Chief of the
Environmental Results
Branch in that office until
her move to the Office of
Information Resources
Management in 1986.
Before coming to EPA,
Pirnie worked as a consultant
for Booz, Allen, & Hamilton
and as a market researcher
for MCI and Xerox's
Advanced Business Concepts
Group. She has taught in
both public and private
schools.
Pirnie, awarded two EPA
Ziegele
Harvev
Bronze Medals, received the
Lee J. Thomas Excellence in
Management Award in 1989.
She graduated from Smith
College in 1971 with a B.A.
in French Literature and
earned an M.A. in education
from Smith in 1972 and an
M.B.A. from the University of
Santa Clara in 1976.
David W. Ziegele has been
selected to assume the
position of Director of
Underground Storage Tanks
in the Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response.
Ziegele started at EPA in
1981 as a program analyst in
OPPE. During his five-year
tenure in the office,
he also served on a rotational
assignment as senior program
analyst in the Office of Air
and Radiation in Durham,
North Carolina.
In 1986 he was named
Chief of the Program
Planning Branch in the Office
of Policy, Planning, and
Evaluation. A year later, he
became Director of the
Program Evaluation Division
within the same office, a
position he held for three
years.
Ziegele moved in 1990 to
OSWER as Acting Deputy
Director of Underground
Storage Tanks; he became
Acting Director of the office
in 1991.
Before coming to EPA,
Ziegele served as a Peace
Corps volunteer in West
Africa and as a country desk
assistant. He also served as a
Special Services Officer at
Peace Corps Headquarters.
He is the recipient of an EPA
Gold Medal and two EPA
Bronze Medals.
Ziegele is a 1976 graduate
of the University of Iowa,
where he received his B.A. in
general studies. He also
received an M.A. in Public
Administration from the
University of Southern
California in 1984.
Terence Harvey is the new
Director of the Environmental
Criteria and Assessment
Office in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Before his recent move to
EPA, Harvey was the Director
of Public Issues Management
at the Monsanto Company in
St. Louis, responsible for
external contacts on issues
including environmental
safety of new and existing
products ranging from
pesticides to animal health
products. Before taking this
position in 1989, he was
Director of the company's
Regulatory Affairs Office for
six years.
Harvey had previously
worked in the Food and Drug
Administration, serving,
since 1969, in a variety of
offices within its Bureau of
Veterinary Medicine. He
served as a veterinary
medical officer from 1969 to
1976 and temporarily as
acting chief of the
Pharmacology/Toxicology
Branch between 1975 and
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1991
-------
Corn
Davidson
1976. He went on to become
the chief of the Non-Food
Producing Animal Branch
that same year, a special
assistant to the director in
1978, and an acting associate
director for surveillance and
compliance in 1981. Harvey
also acted as director of the
Division of Therapeutic
Drugs for Non-Food Animals
in the Office of Scientific
Evaluation from 1982 to
1984.
Harvey earned a B.S. in
veterinary medicine in 1966
and a D.V.M. degree in 1968,
both from the University of
Illinois.
Michael H. Gorn has been
selected for the new position
of Historian in the
Management and
Organization Division of the
Office of Administration and
Resources Management.
Gorn came to EPA from
Andrews Air Force Base,
where he was Command
Historian of the U.S. Air
Force Systems Command
since 1989. From 1985 until
1989 he worked in the Office
of Air Force History at the
Pentagon, and from 1981 to
1985 he served as a staff
historian in the Air force
Systems Command History
Office.
He began his career in
1978 as the Chief of Archives
at the New England
Genealogical Society in
Boston, Massachusetts, a
position he held until 1981.
He is the author of two
books and several articles
and has written many book
reviews for various historical
publications.
Gorn received several
awards from the Department
of the Air Force, most
notably the Meritorious
Civilian Service Medal.
He received both his B.A.
and M.A. degrees in history
from California State
University. In 1978, he
received his Ph.D. in history
at the University of Southern
California.
Gordon M. Davidson has
been named Director of the
Office of Federal Facilities
Enforcement within the
Office of Enforcement, a
position he has held in an
acting capacity since
September 1990.
Previously, Davidson was
Deputy Director of the Office
of Federal Facilities
Enforcement and its
predecessor organization, the
Federal Facilities Hazardous
Waste Compliance Office.
Davidson came to EPA from
International Technology
Corporation, where he
managed compliance and
regulatory programs from
1986 to 1987. Before that,
from 1984 to 1986, he was
Deputy Manager of the east
coast office of Geo/Resource
Consultants, where his duties
included managing EPA's
RCKA/CERCLA Hotline.
From 1980 to 1984,
Davidson consulted with
local governments and EPA
on hazardous waste issues.
He also served as a member
of EPA's Technical
Assistance Team in support
of the Superfund removal
program. Davidson teaches
part-time at Duke
University's School of the
Environment graduate
program in environmental
management.
He is a graduate of
Wittenberg University in
Ohio, where he earned his
B.A. in biology. He also
earned his M.A. in
Environmental Management
from Duke University in
North Carolina.
Michael J. Walker is the new
Enforcement Counsel for
Pesticides and Toxic
Substances in the Office of
Civil Enforcement.
Before coming to
Washington in 1985, Walker
served as a general attorney
in EPA's Region 5 office in
Chicago. In 1979, he began
work in the Legal Support
Section of the Water and
Hazardous Materials
Enforcement Branch there
and moved, in 1981, to the
Office of Regional Counsel.
Two years later, Walker
served in the Air, Water,
Toxics, and General Law
Branch.
Once in Washington, he
worked in the Pesticides and
Toxic Substances
Enforcement Division in the
Office of Enforcement and
Compliance. He served as a
general attorney-advisor from
1985 to 1987, then became a
supervisory attorney-advisor
in 1987 and later the acting
Associate Enforcement
Counsel.
Walker has a University of
Wisconsin B.A. degree in
biology/conservation and a
J.D. degree from the
University of Toledo. He has
received a dozen EPA-related
awards.
John H. Skinner, Deputy
Assistant Administrator of
the Office of Research and
Development (ORD), has
been appointed as
Chairperson of the Agency's
National Human Resources
Council.
Since joining the EPA in
1972, Skinner has held
positions of Branch Chief,
Division Director, and Office
Director for the Office of
Solid Waste. In 1985 he
became ORD's Director of the
Office of Environmental
Engineering and Technology
Demonstration. In 1990 he
was appointed as ORD's
Deputy Assistant
Administrator and will
continue in that capacity
while serving as chair of the
council, a
EPA JOURNAL
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Back Cover: On the Ecology
Trail: Students examine a deer's
skull and antlers at the Central
Wisconsin Environmental
Center. Photo by Mike Brisson.
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WEB OF LIFE
ECOLOGY TRAIL
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