POLITICAL HISTORY SYMPOSIUM
April 25, 2008

"The History of Environmentalism and Environmental Policy"

The Department of History, Political Science, Geography, and Paralegal Studies is pleased to announce a symposium to be held from 12:00 to 2:30pm on Friday, April 25, in Parkinson Hall on the MUW campus. This event brings together two experts from the field of environmental policy to discuss government and societal response to environmental crisis. The format is interactive, permitting attendees to contribute to a discourse on environmental policy action in case studies to be explored in two breakout sessions. Background information and preparation guide for the breakout sessions may be found below.

The Department is grateful that this program is supported by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council and other funding from the College of Arts & Sciences and the Office of Academic Affairs at MUW.

For more information, please contact the symposium director, Dr. Brian Anderson at banderson@as.muw.edu or 662-329-7386.
 

Guests

Dr. Gerald Emison

Associate Professor of Political Science at Mississippi State University; former administrator with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Ms. Stephanie Showalter

Director of the Sea Grant Law Center, affiliated with the University of Mississippi Law School

Schedule

12:00pm -- Opening remarks (Nissan Auditorium, Parkinson Hall, MUW)

12:45pm -- Breakout sessions I (Parkinson classrooms TBA)

1:15pm -- Breakout sessions II (Parkinson classrooms TBA)

1:45pm -- Convergence session/open Q&A (Nissan Auditorium)

Background Information and Preparation Materials

Reviewing the information and answering the questions below is not required for attendance at this symposium. However, the Department wishes to create a focused learning environment, especially in the breakout sessions. With that end in mind, we encourage you, if possible, to become somewhat familiar with the cases before the program.

Group I

Guest: Dr. Gerald Emison

Case: Toxic Clean-Up in New Bedford Harbor (Massachusetts)

1. New Bedford Harbor is one of over 2,000 Superfund sites in the U.S. What is the Superfund? It is money approved by Congress through the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 to be used by the EPA and other agencies to clean up the country’s most serious hazardous and toxic waste sites. A Superfund site is usually an abandoned industrial facility that has enough hazardous/toxic material judged by experts to pose a serious risk to human, animal and plant health and otherwise threaten environmental soundness.

Check out the EPA’s Superfund program. The agency has established a National Priorities List (NPL) for these sites. The map of sites on the NPL may be helpful--for one, you can figure out what is the closest Superfund site to your home!

2. Next, read the New Bedford Harbor case study.

Let’s start with basic facts. The New Bedford Harbor site is contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

A. Where did the PCBs come from? Specifically where are they concentrated in the site, and why?

B. Identify the known hazards of PCBs to human health and the greater environment.

The argument over how to address this crisis became fierce and presented EPA experts with barriers to action.

C. What were the chief potential options for the clean-up process?

D. Which option did the EPA pursue, and why did it discount the other paths?

Community involvement and reaction is expected in such a large clean-up operation. Citizen input affirms EPA decisions but also secures the approval of local governing bodies, namely the mayor and city council of New Bedford. In this case, the EPA was also presented with citizen input from two organized sources: the Greater New Bedford Community Work Group (CWG) and the Hands Across the River Coalition (HARC).

E. Compare the CWG and the HARC in their composition, motivation, connection to other forces of influence in this matter, and their ultimate ability to help or hinder EPA action.

F. Faced with separate pressures of scientific warnings if there is no action and political opposition to proposed action, how do you think the EPA should proceed in this case?

You may want to go back to the NPL map and click on the link to New Bedford Harbor (Massachusetts) to see what has been done by the EPA since the period covered in the case study.
 

Group II

Guest: Ms. Stephanie Showalter

Case: Changes in priorities for coastal development after Hurricane Katrina

1. You need no introduction to Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf coast on August 29, 2005 and became America’s costliest natural disaster in terms of property damage, and one of its deadliest.

You may already have used certain web sites to collect Katrina-related information and statistics (e.g., CNN and MSNBC have special reports on Katrina and its aftermath). The Biloxi Sun Herald web site also has a Hurricane Katrina page–see especially the Before & After feature. Reacquaint yourself with some of the specifics of how this storm was so costly.

2. The most-publicized “lessons of Katrina” are the faulty preparations for a storm of this magnitude (e.g., breached levees in New Orleans) and the incoherent and incompetent government response to the disaster (from the City of New Orleans up through the State of Louisiana to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)). Less appreciated are the lessons relating to environmental impact and the need to re-conceptualize our “use” of the coast (in terms of residential and commercial development) as a result of the storm.

In the web resources you use, find what information you can that relates to the following aspects of Katrina impact and recovery.

A. Storm damage to the coastal environment: animal habitats destroyed or altered; changes in water flow/drainage from rivers, etc.

B. Storm damage to human development potential: is agricultural land lost; may residential and commercial development proceed in same locations as before the storm?

C. Evidence that prevailing patterns of human development made the storm damage worse: pollution patterns becomes toxic clean-up challenge; development hastened erosion.

D. The post-storm steps taken to prevent extensive damage to both human development and the coastal environment in the future: changes in zoning codes and insurance policies; introduction of creative engineering and environmental priorities (e.g., wetlands restoration) to development decisions.