Recently I had the privilege of attending a conference, “Chornobyl +20,” in Kyiv, Ukraine.2 This event commemorated the horrendous events of April 26, 1986, when reactor number 4 at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered a catastrophic explosion and fire. The reactor core burned for the next eight days and spread a cloud of radioactive debris across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and virtually all of central and Western Europe. One report estimates that over 40% of Europe is contaminated with cesium-137.3

The following statement appeared on the Web site of the US House of Representatives, Committee on Resources. The committee was repeating comments from an article printed by the Los Angeles Times.

Conditions in today's environmental site assessment industry dictate the necessity of a new type of licensing program designed to cover environmental professionals originating from a wide variety of academic backgrounds. The subject is not a new one, but there are new developments, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) recently promulgated definition of an environmental professional, making this an opportune time to revisit the issue.

On May 4, 2006, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the operating license of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, units 1, 2, and 3. The Tennessee Valley Authority can now operate the plant for 20 more years, as well as increase power by an additional 20% above the originally licensed level. The NRC completed a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) supplement in June 2005, finding that potential impacts would be of small significance, whereas alternatives such as taking no action by shutting down the plant would have moderate to large impacts on local land use and socioeconomics. This article provides the background and context for the recent resurgence of the industry, along with discussion of federal regulations and site-specific environmental issues, using this latest license renewal as an example.

Tribal restoration planning, based on indigenous ideas and practices, evolved with the self-determination and self-governance initiatives of tribal governments in the United States. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementation was roughly concurrent with the return of management authority over Indian trust lands to tribes in the 1970s and 1980s. Many, but not all, of the 556 federally recognized tribal governments have assumed responsibility for NEPA planning processes. Other planning processes pursued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Indian trust lands and those of the State of Washington for educational trust lands offer significant contrasts; to further delineate these contrasts, the author overlays tribal planning activities with a four-point methodological framework. The tribal restoration planning approach begs the question of how to maintain a dynamic range where human and natural environments are connected in past, present, and future. Tribal resource planning supports ecosystem processes and maintains tribal values at the same time. Today, federal devolution and the effects of previous intervention combine with accelerated processes of decline resulting from global warming and species extinction. The future of Indian trust lands as natural and cultural homelands may depend in large part on the ability of tribes to implement planning strategies that assure continuous restoration. The case of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (hereinafter referred to as “Salish Kootenai”) in Montana offers hope through landscape-level planning strategies applied to restore that cultural and natural landscape.

Low-income, minority residents of the Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP) community in San Francisco, California, face considerable environmental hazards. There are strong beliefs within the community that BVHP is a victim of environmental injustice, based on perceived political neglect concerning potential links between environmental hazards and disproportionately high rates of cancer and asthma. The Yosemite Watershed Restoration Project seeks to apply the well-demonstrated benefits of community-based monitoring to a struggle for environmental justice in BVHP. Community members participated in a water quality assessment at Yosemite Slough, gathering a baseline data set to be used as a reference for watershed restoration and identifying potential pollutant sources and health hazards that had otherwise been ignored. The effort highlighted key opportunities for inspiring action among disaffected community members as well as key obstacles in engaging the broader community. It has laid a foundation for future efforts that will continue to build the community's capacity to play an active role in achieving environmental justice in BVHP.

During September and October of 2002, we collected and moved more than 2,000 endangered fat pocketbook pearly mussels, Potamilus capax, from a 5.7-km reach of a drainage ditch in eastern Arkansas. The translocation was to protect mussels from planned maintenance dredging and was required by the Biological Opinion prepared by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The project did not proceed as planned, and we removed only about 80% of the P. capax. In this article we examine mistakes made, lessons learned, and discuss procedures that might have led to a more favorable outcome. We identified three key decisions that should have been thoroughly discussed prior to initiating the work: percentage of mussels to be removed, choice of recipient sites, and number of mussels to be marked and measured. Two other issues were important: the status of P. capax in Arkansas and the likelihood of future dredging needs at recipient sites. Initially, we felt that decision-analysis tools, used during planning, would have facilitated a better understanding of complex issues. Although such tools would have encouraged better discussion, it is now apparent that communication was hampered largely by the different perspectives of participants.

Recent literature on the diffusion of innovations concentrates either specifically on public adoption of policy, where social or environmental conditions are the dependent variables for adoption, or on private adoption of an innovation, where emphasis is placed on the characteristics of the innovation itself. This article uses both the policy diffusion literature and the diffusion of innovation literature to assess watershed management councils' decisions to adopt, or not adopt, scientific models. Watershed management councils are a relevant case study because they possess both public and private attributes. We report on a survey of councils in the United States that was conducted to determine the criteria used when selecting scientific models for studying watershed conditions. We found that specific variables from each body of literature play a role in explaining the choice to adopt scientific models by these quasi-public organizations. The diffusion of innovation literature contributes to an understanding of how organizations select models by confirming the importance of a model's ability to provide better data. Variables from the policy diffusion literature showed that watershed management councils that employ consultants are more likely to use scientific models. We found a gap between those who create scientific models and those who use these models. We recommend shrinking this gap through more communication between these actors and advancing the need for developers to provide more technical assistance.

The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. Robyn Eckersley. 2004. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 347 pp. $25 paperback.

Green political theorists often express deeply antagonistic attitudes toward the modern nation-state. The nation-state is denounced by many such thinkers for contributing to ecological destruction through the encouragement of unsustainable economic growth and the facilitation of natural resource extraction, among other practices. Another frequent criticism is that the finite territorial sovereignty of nation-states renders them inadequate to deal with environmental problems that are inherently transnational in scope. While recognizing the legitimacy of such critiques, Robyn Eckersley comes to the defense of the beleaguered nation-state in her provocative new work, The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. Throughout its pages, Eckersley argues that because the nation-state is still the primary locus of social and political power in the world, the most realistic and effective strategy for addressing environmental problems is to work toward transforming individual states into greener institutions, rather than seeking elusive supranational solutions.

Collaborative Environmental Management: What Roles for Government? T. M. Koontz, T. A. Steelman, J. Carmin, K. S. Korfmacher, C. Moseley, and C. W. Thomas. 2004. RFF Press, Washington, DC. 200 pp. $50 cloth, $23.95 paperback.

The concepts and practices surrounding institutionalized public participation in the United States have evolved over the past six decades, resulting in increased attention toward collaboration. Koontz et al. open their book with a thorough, but succinct, review of this evolution, providing excellent context for this book's focus on the role that government plays in collaborative natural resource management. Following the introductory chapter, the authors document six case studies organized around government roles as follower, encourager, and leader in collaborative activities. This is an effective organizing principle that provides the reader with valuable insight into the direct and indirect roles that government plays in any environmental management effort. The case studies are geographically diverse and cover both land and water management projects. The cases highlighting government as follower and as leader document details of specific collaborative processes, while the two cases featuring government as an encourager place more emphasis on how to establish a collaborative process. The case studies include efforts that were largely successful, as well as those that did not achieve their goals. A summary chapter provides a solid overview, with helpful tables documenting the governmental roles of actor and institution in the case studies. The final chapter offers a thoughtful discussion about what role government might play in collaborative efforts in light of the findings from the research presented. The authors describe the limitations of the present work and provide ample ideas for future research to better understand the dynamics inherent in collaboration. They also provide citations to allow the reader to review research that is critical of the collaborative approach.

Strategic Environmental Assessment in Action. Riki Therivel. 2004. Earthscan/James & James, London. 288 pp. $110 hardcover, $39.95 paperback.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) of policies, plans, and programs is required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and implementing regulations, but it is not recognized as a specialty subset of NEPA practice by any specific guidelines. NEPA practitioners in the United States call it “programmatic review.” Programmatic documents are recognized by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) in the weekly list of Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) received, published in the Federal Register on Fridays.

Site Plan and Development Review: A Guide for Northern New England. Robert M. Sanford and Dana H. Farley. 2004. Putney Press, Newfane, VT. 258 pp. $34.95 paperback.

The challenge of Environmental Planning is both the complexity of the process and the myriad backgrounds of the individuals involved in the process. Sanford and Farley's book attempts to put everyone on the same page, at least in regard to understanding the components of the planning process and bringing a semblance of clarity and organization to the review of site plans. With developing communities bucking strong private property proponents and the “powers that be” hurrying to make the most out of those hot development areas, the planning professional and the affected citizen can best be served by a document that is in-depth and yet easily understood. Sketches of planning solutions and engineering drawings of the more technical aspects of design are frequently used to show the reader just how a planning outcome might be implemented.

Turning the Corner? A Reader in Contemporary Transport Policy. Francis Terry, ed. 2004. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK. 209 pp. $34.95 paperback.

According to the Associated Press, a poll commissioned recently by a non-profit organization found that 20% of all Americans think the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees them the right to drive a car.1 While this finding may make us chuckle, it should also give us pause, because it points out the magnitude of the problem faced by transportation planners in their efforts to ease congestion. And each year, even as commute times increase and traffic gets worse, vehicle ownership and vehicle-miles traveled continue to spiral upward.

Social Assessment: Theory, Process and Techniques, 3rd Edition. C. Nicholas Taylor, C. Hobson Bryan, and Colin G. Goodrich. 2004. Social Ecology Press, Middleton, WI. 194 pp. $16.95 paperback.

The authors of Social Assessment: Theory, Process and Techniques have done a remarkable job with a very complicated topic, crafting a fine book with potential for use as a text in an academic setting or as a guidebook in an applied setting. With but a few exceptions, the text is well organized. Beginning with the first chapter, the authors carefully define the topic and present it in a contemporary context where social assessment is most commonly used as a means to assess the impacts or effects a proposed project may have on people, community, and culture. As the authors point out, these assessments are often part of a formal Environmental Impact Assessment or are undertaken to fulfill a requirement similar to those common to the United States' National Environmental Policy Act. The first chapter moves quickly from a basic definition into a critical appraisal of the process and its use as a tool for understanding the impact of change on people, community, and society. This chapter has immediate appeal for the academic and the practitioner alike.

Environmental Instrumentation and Analysis Handbook. R. D. Down and J. H. Lehr. 2005. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ. 1,068 pp. $150 cloth.

This compendium of information, containing 1,013 pages of text and 53 pages of index, is a comprehensive and authoritative reference work. In its six sections and 44 chapters, virtually all aspects of the field are covered, including Waste Water Monitoring, Air Monitoring, Flow Monitoring, and Ground Water Monitoring. The preface reads, “More than three dozen talented environmental professionals who are experienced and adept at extracting the most telling and accurate data from the ‘field’ have come together in this book to catalog nearly all the equipment and techniques that are available to modern scientists, engineers, and technicians.” This is perhaps the most appropriate description of the text.

The Western Confluence: A Guide to Governing Natural Resources. M. McKinney and W. Harmon. 2004. Island Press, Washington, DC. 297 pp. $60 cloth, $30 paperback.

Matthew McKinney and William Harmon have separated Western Confluence into nine chapters, each heavily footnoted/referenced. The nine chapters are preceded by a foreword, a preface, and an introduction explaining the duplicity of the collaborative but contentious evolution of processes for resource management in the western United States over the last 150 years.

Adaptive Governance: Integrating Science, Policy, and Decision Making. Ronald D. Brunner, Toddi A. Steelman, Lindy Coe-Juell, Chistina M. Cromley, Christine M. Edwards, and Donna W. Tucker. 2005. Columbia University Press, New York. 368 pp. $79.50 cloth, $29.50 paperback.

In Adaptive Governance: Integrating Science, Policy, and Decision Making, Ronald D. Brunner et al. have outlined some illustrations of progress toward improved public policy. This is documented through five case studies of public lands management and administration. The authors define adaptive governance as a process that integrates scientific and other types of knowledge into policies through a context of open decision-making structures; the goal is to advance the common interest. The purpose of the volume is to clarify how to expedite a transition to adaptive governance for people concerned about the problems of gridlock in natural resource policy and who are in a position to make a difference.

Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor. S. Lerner. 2005. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 344 pp. $27.95 cloth.

In his 2005 text, Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor, Steven Lerner brings to light strident issues of environmental racism, environmental injustice, and chemical trespass, which he claims occurred as part of Royal Dutch Shell's chemical plant operations in the Louisiana community of Norco. The story of Diamond develops much further, however, providing a chronicle of the residents' successful efforts to focus local, national, and, ultimately, global attention to their situation. What emerges is a primer of sorts for similarly situated communities the world over.

Contributors.