The Hudson River Basin. Environmental Problems and Institutional Response PDF
Preview The Hudson River Basin. Environmental Problems and Institutional Response
Edited by RALPH W. RICHARDSON, JR. GILBERT TAUBER Natural and Environmental Sciences Division The Rockefeller Foundation New York, New York THE HUDSON RIVER BASIN Environmental Problems and Institutional Response VOLUME 1 1979 ® ACADEMIC PRESS A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace ßovanovich, Publishers New York London Toronto Sydney San Francisco COPYRIGHT © 1979, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING, OR ANY INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER. ACADEMIC PRESS, INC 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003 United Kingdom Edition published by ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD. 24/28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DX Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: The Hudson River Basin. Includes index. 1. Regional planning—New York metropolitan area. 2. Regional planning—Hudson River Valley. 3. Environmental policy—New York metropolitan area. 4. Environmental policy—Hudson River Valley. I. Richardson, Ralph W. II. Tauber, Gilbert. HT394.N5H83 309.2'5'097473 78-19999 ISBN 0-12-588401-X PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 79 80 81 82 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Foreword The Hudson Basin displays a wide array of environmental problems that are sufficiently serious or complex to have become public issues. That so many of these problems have escalated to the level of issues is not so much an indication of the poor state of the environment itself as it is a reflection of the inadequacy of existing institutions. Most of the environmental problems in the Hudson Basin today are the result, direct or indirect, of the tremendous population and economic growth in the 25 years following World War II. The physical development required to accommodate that growth was often poorly planned and placed tremendous stress on environmental resources. During the same 25-year period, there also were major movements in population and shifts in indus- trial location. These eroded the fiscal base of the region's older cities and placed a great strain on the governmental and social institutions of both the central cities and the developing suburban areas. In the 1970s there has been increasing recognition of the environmental problems generated in the two previous decades. But because the region's economy has also slackened in this decade, the money needed to repair existing environmental damage is not currently available. Therefore, present efforts must focus on preventing further damage. Natural systems in the Hudson Basin have been heavily impacted by man, not only since World War II but also over several generations. When, how- ever, one considers the region's huge concentrations of population and economic activity, its natural systems are still quite productive. Neverthe- less, we have no grounds for complacency. Relatively little is known about the underlying dynamics, and therefore the carrying capacity, of the basin's ix X Foreword natural systems, including their ability to assimilate pollutants and to recover from other types of stress caused by human activity. The Project's ten task groups presented numerous case studies of en- vironmental controversies or "problem situations" in the Hudson Basin. Most of these problem situations illustrate one or more of the following: • Multiple effects of siting large-scale energy-producing facilities • The lack of land use control above the local level • The lack of local capacity to control the effects of large-scale initia- tives that induce development or otherwise influence land use • Inadequate legislation leading to court battles in which diffuse en- vironmental interests are pitted against highly focused economic interests • The "taking issue," i.e., the lack of clarity and consensus on how far the public can assert an interest in private land before it becomes a "taking" which must be compensated • The neglect of existing rail freight facilities while public investment encourages increased reliance on truck transportation • The inadequacy of scientific and institutional capacity to allocate water resources among competing uses in the Hudson Basin • The difficulty of controlling pressures that are accelerating the with- drawal of land from agricultural use • The distorting effects of the property-tax system on land use • The inadequacy of existing procedures for assessing the costs and benefits of environmental decisions The environment management needs of the Hudson Basin are manifold. Based on the work of the Project's task groups, the following appear to need the most attention: • The rehabilitation of the inner-city environment and the control of urban sprawl • The reduction of health hazards in the work and home environments • The improvement of institutional capacity for regional water man- agement • The filling of the gaps in land use planning and regulation • The moderation of solid-waste generation and the improvement of disposal techniques • The protection of ecologically significant land and water resources • The integrated planning of transportation modes and land use • The moderation of energy demand and the augmentation of supply • The improvement of the management of interstate air quality Foreword xi • The optimization of public and private investment policies affecting the environment States and many of their constituent units of local government have as- signed most of their functions to single-purpose agencies and departments. The most fundamental weakness of the single-purpose unit is the limited scope of its mandate, mission, authority, expertise, and funding, which re- sults in the inability to manage the consequence of its actions. The need to strengthen environmental management institutions has been identified by the Hudson Basin Project as the most important underlying problem in the study area. The measures needed to correct present deficiencies can be summed up as follows: Improve information management. Broaden assess- ment processes. Increase and strengthen arenas for conflict resolution. Im- prove the substance and explicitness of policy. Strengthen institutional capacity to formulate and execute policy. The above steps, if pursued over time by all affected interests, would strengthen the public's perception and its will to act on the primary need to improve institutional capacity for environmental decision-making. As a next step, it is proposed that a new organization be created to involve environ- mental research producers, funders, and users in the pursuit of the recom- mendations outlined in Volumes Ί and 2. The organization's primary task would be to develop and execute projects and programs that lead to more effective decisions about specific environmental problems in the basin. Concurrent tasks would include basic research, the development of a re- gional research agenda, and information transfer. Chapter 1, originally published as the Project's final report, is the product of a collaborative effort of a staff and consultant team consisting of Leonard B. Dworsky, Chadborne Gilpatric, Caroline F. Raymond, Gilbert Tauber, Anthony Wolff, and the undersigned. A complete list of Project participants and a brief history of the Project are included in the appendixes to Volume 2. Although the analysis, conclusions, and recommendations presented here represent the sense of what can be fairly drawn from the Project's work, it does not necessarily reflect a consensus of all participants. Therefore, re- sponsibility for the final form, substance, and emphasis of this report must rest with the undersigned. For the contributions and assistance so unstintingly tendered by all—The Rockefeller Foundation, the Advisory Panel, task group members, consul- tants, and Project staff—deepest appreciation is extended. C. David Loeks Preface These two volumes are drawn from the work of the Hudson Basin Project, a three-year study of environmental problems and issues and of the institu- tions that are attempting to manage them. The Project, initiated in 1973, was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and carried out by Mid-Hudson Pat- tern, Inc., a nonprofit regional planning organization, under the direction of C. David Loeks. Some of the environmental issues analyzed in the Project have been resolved; others are still being debated. However, the Project's contribution to environmental policy analysis goes beyond specific issues or the bound- aries of a specific region. The Project's innovative approach begins with the delineation of its study area, which comprises the New York metropolitan region plus that portion of its hinterland within the Hudson River watershed. It is an area large enough to reveal the interrelationships of environmental problems, yet small enough to be comprehended in concrete terms. Within this area, the Project was able to examine the very broad range of issues resulting from long-term interaction between human settlement and its surrounding natural resource base. Another distinctive feature of the Project was the division of "the envi- ronment" into ten "policy sectors." An interdisciplinary task group was asked to view the basin's environment from the standpoint of a given policy sector and to examine the interactions between its sector and each of the other nine. At the outset, the participants were asked to suspend temporarily their preconceptions about what constitutes "the environment." As the reader will soon note, the definition that emerged was very broad indeed. XIII xiv Preface Approximately 125 people contributed to the Hudson Basin Project. They produced over 4000 pages of memoranda, working documents, and reports. The Project's final report and the ten task group reports were published in "working paper" format by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1976 and 1977. Early in 1978, Academic Press proposed that the report series be edited for publication as a book, thereby making the material available to a larger audience and in a more permanent form. Chapter 1 of the present work is a summation of the entire Project as presented in the final report. Chapters 2 through 11 are drawn from the work of the individual task groups concerned with the ten policy sectors. In editing the earlier report series for publication in these two volumes, it was necessary to condense some of the reports and to omit several detailed background papers prepared by individual task group members. We hope we have succeeded in retaining essentially all of the material of long-term interest to students of environmental management and policy analysis, and hope also that we have done justice to the many people who gave so generously of their time and talents. If any errors of commission or omission have been made in editing the present volumes, the responsibility lies with the undersigned, rather than with the task group members or with the Project's director. Ralph W. Richardson, Jr. Gilbert Tauber Contents of Volume 2 Chapter 7 Water Resources Chapter 8 Air Resources Chapter 9 Biological Communities Chapter 10 Human Health Chapter 11 Leisure Time and Recreation Appendix A Project History and Process Appendix B Hudson Basin Project Participants Appendix C Research Needs Appendix D United States Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs) with Populations over One Million in 1970 Appendix E Population and Employment Data, Hudson Basin Subregions Appendix F Extract from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis- St. Paul) Metropolitan Development Guide Appendix G Response of Suburban Action Institute References Index XV Chapter 1 ANATOMY OF AN ENVIRONMENT 1.1 Introduction Environment, in its broadest sense, denotes the totality of things, forces, or conditions that act upon or influence an organism or a group of organisms. However, when we speak of an environment, we are necessarily referring to the array of influences on a particular organism or group of organisms. The operative phrase in our definition is "act upon or influence." We are con- cerned with the environment not just because it is there, but because it acts upon and influences the people of a region. To a greater extent than most other species, man lives in an environment of his own making. Some of the changes that man makes in his environment are deliberate; others are unintended (but predictable) consequences of pur- poseful action. Still other changes are inadvertent—i.e., neither intended nor predictable—but even these are nearly always the consequences of some purposeful action. This comment brings us to the concept of management, which can be defined as the activity—more or less skillful—of controlling or handling something. As a species, man is unique in the degree to which he is able to manage his environment. Most environmental management is collective in the sense that it is governed by institutions. In our society we tend to think of institutions in terms of formal organizations, but the term can refer to any 1
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