In a 5-year period only 12% of the projected coal-fired power plant capacity was actually installed. Among the explanations cited for the decline was the absence of a regulatory structure related to greenhouse gases and climate change. Executive resistance to regulating one of those greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, and judicial insistence that the executive make a clear determination as to why it would or would not use its authority to issue those regulations created a climate of uncertainty affecting at least one segment of the nation’s energy sector. The concept of regulatory certainty is frequently presented as a positive means to promote business and industrial development because a clear pattern of regulations provides the consistency upon which organizations can base future operations. Its opposite, regulatory uncertainty can paralyze the planning process because there is no way to predict the outcome of project necessities, such as permit applications concerning air quality, water use, construction, and land use. Regulatory uncertainty can stem from confusing or conflicting regulations or the absence of regulations. The damaging impact of the absence of a national regulatory structure—or the uncertainty caused by the possibility of future regulation—on future planning and development may seem counterintuitive, especially in a generally antiregulatory business climate. Regulations are often perceived as being, and sometimes are, too restrictive and as having the effect of inhibiting rather than promoting growth.
This article presents the results of an investigation program, consisting of laboratory tests, carried out to determine the short-term effects of leachate contamination on the geotechnical and chemical properties of clean silty sandstone soil locally known as Gatch. Leachate is released due to the decay, oxidation, and corrosion of waste discarded carelessly in old abandoned pits of opencast mining or quarries with minimal use of manual waste separation techniques and no use of liners. In some cases, this results in the percolation of contaminated leachate causing severe risk to the surrounding soil, groundwater, and community health. An extensive laboratory-testing program was carried out to determine the properties of the clean weakly cemented calcareous/gypsiferous silty sandstone material obtained from Al-Jahra city, located 37 Km northwest of Kuwait City. Real municipal solid waste leachate obtained from a waste disposal site, known as Al-Qurain landfill, was used in this study to prepare the soil-leachate mixtures. Contaminated specimens were prepared by mixing the natural soil with the real leachate in the increments of 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% by weight of soil to vary the degree of contamination. The chemical characteristics of the leachate used were also determined. A general deterioration of soil properties attributed to the chemistry of the leachate formed is noted. *This work was supported by Kuwait University, Research Grant No. [EV02/09]. The author expresses her appreciation to Kuwait Environmental Public Authority (KUEPA) for their fruitful corporation in providing real leachate samples. Special thanks are also due to Eng. Ziad Abdulsalam for his help with leachate sample collection.
Biochemical characteristics of chemical secondary effluent in tertiary treatment were studied with a piloted system of biological contact aerators to meet national discharge limits. The results showed that biochemical characteristics of the secondary effluent had higher concentrations of residual COD and NH3-N, as well as lower residual concentrations of BOD5 and alkalinity. Residual COD in the effluent consisted mainly of three parts including the non-biodegradable COD presented by organic matter of toxicity, the soluble COD presented by BOD5, and the particulate COD presented by SS. Under conditions of non-biodegradable COD concentration of 132.70 mg/L and less alkalinity, NH3-N effluent concentrations were decreased from 30.44 mg/L to 14.79 mg/L, and a scientific basis of reference was provided for reforming the pulse flocculated clarifier system which can be a new dimension for wastewater treatment. *This project was supported by a grant number 2009-13 from the Environmental Protection Bureau of Jilin Province and wastewater treatment plant of Jilin Chemical Industrial Corporation.
Epidermological studies suggest that there may be an association between environmental exposure to waste dumpsites and malaria. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that residential proximity to waste dumpsites results in increased rates of hospitalization for malaria in children between the ages of 1 and 5 years in New Market Neighborhood in Owerri. After analysis with statistical tools, it was found that there was a significant increase in the incidence and rate of hospitalization among children living in proximity to the waste dumpsite.
An intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) is a generalization of a fuzzy set characterized by a truth membership function and a false membership function. The former is a lower bound on the grade of membership of the evidence in favor of a particular element belonging to the set and the latter is a lower bound on the negation of that element belonging to the set, derived from evidence against that element belonging to the set. A similar concept is a vague set, though vague sets have been shown to be identical to IFSs. In the context of project evaluation, an IFS may be used to represent the degree to which a project satisfies a criterion or factor and the degree to which it does not. Aggregation of such IFSs has been considered in recent years to identify a best project in terms of several factors. A particular desirable way to aggregate IFSs is in terms of an ordered weighted average (OWA) which can be expressed in different forms, such as arithmetic and geometric. In an OWA, weights are applied to the position of an element in the aggregation. In addition, hybrid OWA operators may be developed to not only weight the position of elements in the aggregation but the element itself. A simple example based on a hypothetical but realistic example by Horsak and Damico [4] is given which involves the location of a hazardous waste disposal facility (PCB-contaminated transformer fluids) at one of three sites based on 10 factors.
Many people visit zoos each year to be entertained, restored, and educated.While the spotlight is usually on animals and habitats, zoos are increasmgly focusing on humans and their role in environmental stewardship.The primate exhibit at Brookfield Zoo in Illinois was designed to address this new focus.The exhibit includes a multi-stage educational experience at its exit that highlights what visitors can do to incorporate conservation behavior into their lives.A feature of such an experience is the short time one spends in it.This article examines the effect of this brief educational exposure.
Students arriving on campus for the academic year often bring their personal automobiles. This then leads to an increase in traffic, which has many health implications. To understand students’ driving and parking behaviors on campus, traffic and parking lot counts were performed and a parking survey was administered to randomly selected undergraduate students (N = 1120). Results of these methods revealed primarily single occupancy vehicles in use, almost 70% of participants made multiple trips to campus and drove alone, and parking lots were not equally utilized. Convenience and safety were reasons given for driving. Efforts to improve traffic and parking are underway. INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE College campuses impact the communities in which they reside through ebb and flow of students and changing patterns of traffic and congestion. As students arrive on campus for the beginning of the school year, they often bring their personal automobiles as well. In a community of less than 50,000 and with a university of over 18,000, this increase in automobile traffic can be up to an additional 10,600 cars, which can have many health implications. The purpose of this article is to describe how students commute to campus and their decisionmaking processes surrounding their commute. Health implications of these behaviors are discussed.
Studying the uncertainty in computationally expensive models has required the development of specialized methods, including alternative sampling techniques and response surface approaches. However, existing techniques for response surface development break down when the model being studied exhibits discontinuities or bifurcations. One uncertain variable that exhibits this behavior is the thermohaline circulation (THC) as modeled in three dimensional general circulation models. This is a critical uncertainty for climate change policy studies. We investigate the development of a response surface for studying uncertainty in THC using the Deterministic Equivalent Modeling Method, a stochastic technique using expansions in orthogonal polynomials. We show that this approach is unable to reasonably approximate the model response. We demonstrate an alternative representation that accurately simulates the model’s response, using a basis function with properties similar to the model’s response over the uncertain parameter space. This indicates useful directions for future methodological improvements.
An important issue examined in this article is that the chain model (which solves for the optimal sitting problem of regional wastewater treatment plants) cannot be implemented if the dischargers do not have fair cost sharing. The article finds that the total treatment cost of the optimal regional treatment plant is fairly assigned to each discharger by the N-cooperative game-MCRS approach. Therefore, the economies of scale are implemented by cooperative game in the chain model case.
The Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) of a mixture of glucose and glutamic acid is a standard test solution which provides a reasonably repeatable value of the 5-day BOD. The objective of this study was to evaluate the reaction order from respirometer data of BOD of glucose and glutamic acid mixtures. The mixtures ranged in increments of 10% from 10% strength (90% dilution) to 100% strength (no dilution). There were 10 replications of each strength of sample, so that the BOD of 100 samples measured at daily intervals for 5 days were available. The data were tested for goodness-of-fit to three BOD reaction models: a first-order model, a half-order model, and an order-n model. The root mean squared error measured the goodness-of-fit. Twenty-six percent of the samples fit the first-order model best, 63% fit the half-order model best, and 11% fit the order-n model best.
The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology was introduced by Thomas Saaty and has had numerous applications in a wide range of contexts. In a common three-level hierarchy, AHP involves the aggregation of criterion importance weights (or priorities) and the performance scores (or priorities) of alternatives as the sum of the products of weights and scores for each alternative. The multiplicative AHP (MAHP) involves the multiplicative aggregation of performance scores raised to the power of the criterion weights and has been seen by many individuals (notably, Freerk Lootsma and John Barzilai) as an alternative more desirable structure. It is suggested that alternative forms of aggregation of performance scores and criterion weights might be more useful, in particular the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator introduced by Ronald Yager. The choice of weights in an OWA operator may be guided by a linguistic quantifier involving the importance weights associated with each criterion. The geometric ordered weighted averaging (GOWA) operator is also considered as a possibility for aggregation in the MAHP. An example is given relating to the location of a Green Bridge Link (for public transport and non-motorized modes of transport) in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The four approaches (alternatives) to the identified site of the Green Bridge (Dutton Park) are a Full Busway, Boggo Road, Cornwall Street, and Kent Street.
Tailings dams using the upstream hydraulic fill method may present deficiencies related to construction and safety. It is difficult to evaluate the variability of real deposits based on the field process. Therefore, a mathematical model was developed to describe and simulate the mechanism of formation of granular tailings dams based on equilibrium and continuity equations of the fluid and the heterogeneous sediments (quartz and iron). The model accounts for the main external variables (slurry concentration and flow rate) and internal variables related to the slurry mixture, such as particles sizes, grain density, and relative percentage of iron and quartz. Analytical and numerical results using the model were compared with real deposition profiles obtained in laboratory simulations and a good agreement was found. The model was also applied to predict the height and slope of a real tailings dam and the results matched very closely the observed ones. *The authors would like to acknowledge University of Brasilia (UnB), Brazilian Research Council (CNPq), Brazilian Post-Graduate Agency (CAPES), and Vale Co. for funding this research and for the support during this article preparation.
There is no question that science plays a profound role in American public policymaking and that scientists are critical actors in the environmental policymaking process, serving as entrepreneurs, introducing, popularizing, and elevating environmental ideas onto national and international agendas. This article uses interviews with scientists to investigate the complexities of linking science to environmental policy, with special attention given to how scientists view the concepts of advocacy, objectivity, and the separation of science and policy. Because of the importance of scientists to the environmental policymaking process, it is worth exploring what they have to say about linking science to policy. Interviews of scientists in 1997 and again in 2009 illustrate the fact that scientists remain committed to the ideal of objectivity, struggle with the trend toward advocacy by scientists, and are distrustful of the way science is used in the environmental policymaking process.
Changes in species composition and distribution of macrobiota were studied during 1985-2004 in the Niger Delta system, Southern Nigeria. Two creeks were selected per estuary, two transects per creek, and two stations per transect for regular sampling of macrobiota. A total of 14 taxa of macrofauna comprising over 60 species were found in the region. Decapod brachyurans tended to decrease in mean densities from 35 individuals m–2 in 1985 to 21 and 18 individuals m–2 in 2000 and 2004 respectively. Phytoplankton and zooplankton decreased in species diversity, specie richness, and abundance in estuaries, notably Bonny, Qua Iboe, Brass, and Escravos where the THC contents of water were > 12 ppm emanating from minor oil spills. With the exception of Nypa palms, mangrove vegetation types displayed a general deterioration in numerical abundance and Nypa-rich vegetation were frequent in the more disturbed estuaries, replacing the indigenous mangroves as a type “A” invader.
Soils and river sediments sampled around the vicinity of the Nigeria Research Reactor-1 (NIRR-1) were investigated for their physical properties, morphology, and trace element levels as part of a the reactor pre-operational environmental monitoring campaign. Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), was chosen as the analytical technique of interest via the k0-Standardization method. We identified Fe, Zn, Co, Na, K, Rb, Sc, Cs, Sb, Br, Ba, La, Hf, W, Yb, Cr, U, Th, Lu, Ce, Nd, Ta, and Tb as elements at different concentrations in both matrices. Gold and Zirconium foils were used as the single comparator and thermal neutron flux monitor respectively during the reactor irradiations. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Soil-7 was used for the quality control of the measurements to ensure precision of the analytical process, which was found to be better than 5% within the confidence interval specified for each of the elements. *This project was initially funded by the Centre for Energy Research and Training Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria, is equally acknowledged for an IAEA Fellowship (NIR 99002) to one of us (I. O. B. Ewa) at the Institute of Nuclear Techniques (INT), Technical University of Budapest, Hungary, where the analytical part of the work on k0-Standardization was done. We also appreciate the use of the INT facilities for the Monte Carlo evaluation. 17 2010, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: 10.2190/ES.32.1.c http://baywood.com INTRODUCTION The Nigeria Research Reactor-1 (NIRR-1), installed at the Centre for Energy Research and Training, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, is the first nuclear reactor in the country. This reactor which was critical on February 3, 2004, is one of the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) type, small, compact, safe with a power output of 30 kW, and neutron flux of about 1.0 × 1012 cm–2 s–1 (SAR, 1999). NIRR-1 is equally a low-hazard research reactor of the tank-in-pool type. The core is immersed in water to a depth of 5.7 m and during normal operations the release of radioactivity to the environment is considered very low below the limits that could cause any radiological impact either to the workers or the environment. NIRR-1 is a low power research reactor when compared with the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island reactors whose high power-ratings make them capable of supplying sufficient thermal energy output for the generation of electricity. By its design therefore, it is anticipated that NIRR-1 will not pose any serious problems if operated strictly in compliance with internationally accepted regulations and procedures. However, being a nuclear facility, its pre-installation requirements necessitated an investigation of several site characteristics including base-line radiological levels, meteorology, physical properties of the soil, geological survey of the area, seismic state of the region, and levels of trace elements within the reactor environs. The investigation on the trace element levels became necessary in order to allay fears of any environmental degradation in trace element levels while the reactor is in operation. It is for this reason that a pre-operational campaign of the trace element levels for both terrestrial an aquatic environment surrounding the reactor was undertaken. Soil and sediment samples from the study site were subjected to Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) using the k0-Standardization method. STUDY SITE The study site is the location of the research reactor within the Samaru savannah plains which could be referred to in the Nigeria Geological Topographic Map Sheet No. 102 SW Zaria, bounded by latitudes 110° 8 N and 11° 10 N as well as longitudes 7° 41 E and 7° 42 E. EXPERIMENTAL Sampling Soil samples were taken around marked points within the vicinity of the reactor building and toward the flood plains where the run-off surface water drains into the Kubanni river. This river drains the entire Samaru plains including the 18 / EWA, OLADIPO AND UMAR
