InSites is a quarterly newsletter that highlights the personalities and projects of the Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI) of The University of Tennessee. WMREI is an affiliate of the EERC.
WMREI was created in 1985 as a state-funded Center of Excellence. Research areas include solid-, hazardous-, and nuclear-waste management; waste minimization; and pollution prevention.
Biotechnology is the focal point of the institute's technical research, while issues involving public attitudes and federal/state policies related to waste-management issues are the primary concerns of the institute's policy research.
For additional information about InSites, or to be added to our mailing list, please write InSites, WMREI, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, call 865-974-1156, or fax 865-974-1838. Or, if you prefer, e-mail Constance Griffith cbgriffith@utk.edu.
Conference Targets Communication and Process-Building by Ned O’Gorman Sick World,
Sick People: A WMREI graduate student focuses her research on the point at which human and
environmental health converge. by Laurie Varma From Half-Life To Second
Life: A
University of Tennessee co-sponsored conference seeks beneficial ways to recycle and reuse
the U.S. stockpile of radioactive materials. by Laurie Varma The Native Language of Streams by Laurie Varma Streams of Consciousness: WRRC staff join forces with other Knoxville organizations to fight degraded urban
waterways and improve residents’ quality of life. by Laurie Varma Tools of the Trade: WRRC’s
toolbox is full of techniques meant to help nature help itself. by
Laurie Varma Diversionary
Tactics: CEB applies biotechnology to reduce pollution and divert waste
products from disposal to productive use, all in the interest of sustainability. by
Laurie Varma China Harnesses Market
Power To Curb Pollution, Improve Air. By Elise LeQuire
Conference Targets Communication and Process-Building
National center seeks to narrow the gulf separating scientists and the decision makers who shape environmental policy.
By Ned O’Gorman
Today’s local and state decision makers face a host of environmental concerns, including urban sprawl, air pollution, and declining water quality, yet many feel poorly equipped to implement decision processes and shape effective responses.
Meanwhile, scientists are gaining a grasp of the processes policymakers might follow in rendering sound environmental decisions. But researchers often struggle to communicate this information to front-line decision makers, and decision makers find much of the research irrelevant to their daily needs.
Organizers of a national conference hoped to bridge the gap between these two groups by assembling researchers and decision makers in one setting to discuss strategies, processes, and tools for shaping effective environmental choices for the 21st century.
The first annual National Conference on Environmental Decision Making, held in Knoxville May 3-6, brought together nearly 200 national, state, and local officials, scientists, environmental managers, planners, regulators, public administrators, and others who play a role in environmental decisions. The conference was organized and hosted by the National Center for Environmental Decision-making Research (NCEDR), an institute established in 1995 by the National Science Foundation and housed at the University of Tennessee.
Participants gathered to listen to speakers, presentations, and discussions that addressed numerous environmental themes. For instance, Terry Keating and Alex Farrell of Harvard University led a workshop that evaluated the decision-making process used by the multistate, multiagency Ozone Transport Assessment Group, which assesses interstate transport of ozone and its precursors.
A session on community values and land-use decision making explored communities’ choices between environmental and commercial interests, methods for assessing community perspectives on environmental issues, and growth management.
Other conference topics included sustainability, risk assessment, Native American issues, urban brownfields, air quality, recycling, environmental justice, environmental legislation, and technological tools for environmental decision making.
According to Robert Turner, NCEDR’s interim director, the conference sought to facilitate interaction among people with traditionally divergent perspectives on environmental issues.
"In the simplest terms, the goal of this conference was to provide a meeting place to help narrow the gulf between academics and practitioners," Turner says.
To help participants interact, NCEDR provided conferees with frequent half-hour breaks and round-table lunches during which they could discuss their specific challenges and potential solutions.
"The discussions at lunch were loud and ongoing," Turner says. "In fact, we sometimes had trouble getting people back to the conference sessions."
Speakers Robert Theobald, a futurist and author and editor of more than 12 books, and Chris Maser, an environmental writer and consultant, criticized what they regard as the destructive bent of the modern industrial approach to managing rivers, land, and air and challenged conferees to devise a new paradigm for environmental decision making.
Theobald compared our culture to the ill-fated Titanic, saying a radical shift in our thinking is needed to save our culture from catastrophe.
"If you believe we can get to environmental and ecological integrity within the current set of cultural norms, you’re kidding yourself," he said. "So long as you operate within those norms, you are only moving deck chairs around on the Titanic."
Though Maser’s and Theobald’s messages were controversial, Turner maintains that they sparked useful discussion.
"We hoped Theobald and Maser would be controversial," Turner says. "We hoped they would inspire conference participants to consider current environmental issues and formulate responses by projecting into the future."
While most of the conference took place in Knoxville, field trips led conferees to the Ocoee River/Copperhill area and Chattanooga, where they discussed recreation planning and ecological restoration in the context of sustainability.
Turner hopes participants left the conference recognizing that environmental decision making is closely linked to decision making in general and that science can go only so far in guiding those who must formulate policy.
"There are very few decisions that don’t have an environmental component," he says. "Theobald and Maser are saying that environmental decisions are not just a product of using science.
Science alone cannot answer these questions. Science is part of the answer, but clearly, the issues we addressed at the conference are all part of a much bigger picture."
>Contact Robb Turner, NCEDR, 314 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4138, call 865-974-3939, or visit the NCEDR Web site (http://www.ncedr.org).
Sick World, Sick People
A WMREI graduate student focuses her research on the point at which human and environmental health converge.
As a high school student, Anna Bearden loved biology and imagined that she might like to spend her life healing the sick. With that in mind, she earned an undergraduate degree on the subject from Clemson University. But along the way, Bearden, now a doctoral student in the University of Tennessee’s (UT) department of ecology and evolutionary biology, found herself increasingly more captivated by pathogens afflicting the environment than those affecting humans.
Then she discovered the field of environmental toxicology, and recognized an opportunity for merging her interests in both human and environmental health. Indeed, Bearden was drawn to environmental toxicology because she recognized that so much of what makes our environment sick makes us sick as well.
This past year, Bearden was awarded a fellowship through UT’s Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI) to support her dissertation research, which examines the toxicity of such chemicals as benzene, ethanol, and toluene. These chemicals are easily absorbed into the environment because of their organic base, and about 70 percent of the industrial chemicals used in the United States share this characteristic.
Bearden’s research has also allowed her to work with Terry Schultz, a professor in UT’s College of Veterinary Medicine and coordinator of the university’s graduate program in environmental toxicology. In Schultz’ lab, Bearden’s interest in human health and environmental toxins have converged. Indeed, in her work with Schultz she focuses on a variety of toxic substances and their effects on the human body.
For instance, Bearden and her colleagues are investigating environmental estrogen, endocrine disrupters, and respiratory uncouplers. These and other substances in the environment pose potentially serious human health effects. Environmental estrogens, for instance, are substances found in pesticides and industrial pollutants that mimic the female reproductive hormone and are increasingly being found to affect the hormonal balances in wildlife and humans. Some scientists suspect that environmental estrogens may reduce sperm counts in men and increase breast cancer and reproductive diseases in women.
Meanwhile, endocrine disrupters inhibit proper hormonal balance, which affects everything from reproduction and the sleep-wake cycle to brain function. Respiratory uncouplers interact with the mitochondria—which act as cellular "food processors," converting food to energy—and thus affect the body’s energy systems.
Bearden insists that the opportunity to work with Schultz has proven indispensable in making key contacts and getting her work published. According to Schultz, the arrangement is mutually beneficial. Indeed, Schultz contends that the participation of graduate students like Bearden significantly enhances his environmental toxicology program.
"UT research can only be improved when strong students like Anna get involved," he says. "Their assistance allows scientists like me to extend our current research and explore new areas of investigation."
Wherever Bearden’s career leads her from Schultz’s lab—whether toward a position in government, academia, or industry—it’s likely that she’ll settle at the point where human and environmental health converge.
—Laurie Varma
For more information: contact Anna Bearden, A-229 York Veterinary Teaching Hospital, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-4500 or call 865-974-5836.
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From Half-Life To Second Life
A University of Tennessee co-sponsored conference seeks beneficial ways to
By Laurie Varma
In August, representatives from industry, national laboratories, universities, trade associations, and federal and state agencies will gather at the University of Tennessee (UT) to examine opportunities for recycling and reusing radioactive metals, equipment, and facilities.
Beneficial Reuse ‘98 is being sponsored by UT’s Energy, Environment, and Resources Center (EERC); Beneficial Reuse Symposia LLC, the conference organizers; and the Trade Association of Radioactive Metal Recyclers (ARMR). EERC will manage the event, scheduled for August 3-6,1998, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
As nuclear facilities become decommissioned, their waste can create either a monumental burden for U.S. waste managers or a significant financial opportunity. Industry specialists, including engineers, who plan and design dismantling activities; metal processors, who clean the radioactive metals to prepare them for reuse; and consultants all have a stake in advancing the concept of transforming leftover materials and facilities into useful products.
"Thinking about materials as resources that we once regarded as waste products is an innovative concept," says Val Loiselle, conference organizer. Loiselle, who also serves as ARMR chairman, is co-owner of Beneficial Reuse Symposia LLC with Dr. Michael Gresalfi, an ARMR board member. Loiselle says drawing attention to the possibility of making radioactive metals useful and profitable demonstrates that we have viable alternatives.
Nukes and NORMS
Each year the conference provides participants with up-to-date information on new policies and regulations. In addition, Beneficial Reuse ‘98 will cover new contracting strategies, materials recovery and reuse, business applications for radioactive materials and facilities, decontamination and decommissioning, and recycling opportunities within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Emerging topics that have drawn industry attention during the year are chosen for in-depth workshops that follow the conference. Beneficial Reuse ‘98 will take a close look at naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) and UF6 (uranium hexafluoride).
NORMs are produced as waste by the oil, natural gas, and phosphate fertilizer industries. Though they are naturally found in the environment, NORMs can become concentrated in nature through such human activities as oil and natural-gas extraction.
UF6 is created when uranium is processed to make nuclear-reactor fuel for the commercial and defense sectors. Loiselle says the material represents a great opportunity for reuse. "We’ve just begun to look at UF6 as a resource, but already four product possibilities have been recognized," he says.
For example, UF6 can be used to derive uranium oxide or metal, which can be used to protect staff who transport radioactive materials or work at nuclear facilities. And the chemical components of UF6—fluorine, hydrofluoric acid, and calcium fluoride—can be extracted for use in treating water and making fertilizers and steel.
Expanded Focus
This year marks the sixth annual Beneficial Reuse conference. The conferences began in 1993 with a focus on metal recycling and risk assessment. The conferences have since expanded to include recycling and reuse of metals, equipment, and facilities. The event’s focus has also been broadened to examine cleanup at commercial as well as federal sites.
According to Loiselle, conference activities have helped inspire several federal-level policies regarding reuse of radioactive metals. In 1996, DOE published its Policy on Recycling Radioactively Contaminated Carbon Steel, which aims to minimize disposal of radioactive metals as waste. Also that year, DOE established the National Center for Metal Recycle to conduct research on turning radioactive metal waste into useful products.
Beneficial Reuse conferences have also prompted ongoing efforts at the Environmental Protection Agency to develop radiation-protection standards for scrap metal, as well as a DOE policy on a standard size for containers manufactured to hold radioactive materials.
"The Beneficial Reuse conferences’ most significant accomplishment throughout the years has been bringing together all the parties interested in resolving radioactive material stockpile issues," says Loiselle. "These gatherings get industry, researchers, nonprofit organizations, and the government working together on creative solutions."
The Native Language of Streams
In March, the University of Tennessee’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) and Knoxville’s Water Quality Forum held their first hands-on workshop. Their goal: to school Knoxville-area parks and recreation personnel, greenways coordinators, and engineers in the native language of rivers. The workshop also sought to supplant use of "hard-engineering" techniques with more natural remedies for restoring damaged streambeds.
Tim Gangaware, WRRC assistant director, defines hard-engineering techniques—which include construction of artificial channels to divert streams from their natural course—as an attempt to change nature to suit our own needs.
"Natural methods, by contrast, work with nature by recreating buffer areas of native trees and other vegetation along waterways to anchor soils and provide shade and habitat," he says. "Through use of natural methods, we recognize that nature has a power and plan all its own."
The two-day event was part of a demonstration project aimed at improving water quality on Knoxville’s Goose Creek, an urban stream damaged by years of development and run-off pollution (see "Streams of Consciousness," this page).
During the workshop’s first day, experts presented the "natural-methods" toolbox of restoration techniques, which includes coconut rolls, fascines, live stakes, brush mattressing, and erosion blankets. (For individual descriptions of these techniques, see "Tools of the Trade," page 5). They also compared the costs and benefits of hard-engineering and alternative techniques.
Like many participants, Knox County engineer Chris Granju valued workshop organizers’ efforts to guide him to the bottom line in evaluating the relative benefits of various restoration techniques.
"I know what conventional methods take in terms of materials, staff, and cost," he says. "But I didn’t know what alternative methods require. The workshop provided me with that information, so I can begin to think about fitting those methods in."
Alternative methods can cost up to 50-percent less than conventional methods, are less invasive, and are more effective for improving water quality because natural materials blend into the environment and are geared toward re-establishing habitat.
Participants spent the second day in the field, practicing methods discussed the previous day. They rotated among four worksites throughout the day, each showcasing a different restoration technique.
"Trying out methods on an actual site was really important," says Laura Sineff, a conservationist with Blount County’s Soil Conservation District. "I see a lot about alternative methods in books, but actually practicing them helped me more than any book-learning could."
Even as they reinforced sagging stream beds, the WRRC and the other Water Quality Forum members themselves became the target of some vital reinforcement. They discovered that people are deeply interested in earth-friendly methods for protecting streams and riparian corridors, but they often lack familiarity with these techniques.
"The interest is very encouraging," says Gangaware. "It shows there’s a real need to provide this kind of information." Gangaware hopes to expand future hands-on workshops to include participants from East Tennessee and the state.
—Laurie Varma
Streams of Consciousness
WRRC staff join forces with other Knoxville organizations to fight degraded urban waterways and improve residents’ quality of life.
By Laurie Varma
Where others see barren, eroded land and contaminated, sediment-choked streams, the University of Tennessee’s (UT) Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) sees opportunities to recreate a healthy urban watershed—one "green spot" at a time.
WRRC conducts demonstration projects aimed at showing local authorities that inexpensive, earth-friendly methods can be used to improve water quality throughout Knoxville’s urban watershed (see "Tools of the Trade," page 5).
WRRC is an affiliate of UT’s Waste Management Research and Education Institute. Tim Gangaware, Ruth Anne Hanahan, Belinda Woodiel, Liz Upchurch, and Jeff Duncan head up WRRC’s stream-restoration efforts. They are partnered with other members of Knoxville’s Water Quality Forum, including CAC AmeriCorps volunteers, Ijams Nature Center, and the city of Knoxville. The forum brings together government agencies, businesses, nonprofit groups, and other organizations striving to improve water quality in the Knoxville area.
"These projects are helping diverse organizations achieve diverse goals by working together, and we’re improving the environment and people’s lives at the same time," says Gangaware, WRRC assistant director.
Banking on Stability
Since last fall, WRRC has been working to reduce the impacts of erosion and surface runoff on Goose Creek, located in south Knoxville. In one project, the team has been stabilizing Goose Creek’s eroded streambanks, and in another, enlarging natural "buffer zones" of trees, grasses, and other plants that lie between pollution sources and waterways.
Work sites include a section of Mary Vestal Park, close to UT, as well as a buffer zone on apartment property bordering the park. Goose Creek runs through both sites.
WRRC is creating a "mini-park" at the back of Flenniken Square Apartments, complete with bird feeders, benches, and a wooded walkway connecting the apartments to the Boys and Girls Club facility across the creek.
"This is an effort to encourage Flenniken Square owners to create a riparian buffer using native trees and plants," says Hanahan. "And it will provide an ideal place for residents to come and sit in the shade and for kids to play."
Park on the Creek
This past winter, the AmeriCorps team began the project by clearing out some of the exotic plants at the site. In December, WRRC and AmeriCorps volunteers helped children build bird’s nests and plant wildflowers in the mini-park. Late this spring, the partners removed additional exotic plants, laid down topsoil, and planted native trees and shrubs. They also plan to add benches and erect educational signs about the site’s part in maintaining water quality in Knoxville.
Woodiel says the project is proving that rejuvenating the environment can improve the quality of human life. "At Flenniken Square, WRRC is trying to protect the water quality—that’s our main focus—but in the process we’re also creating a neighborhood asset," she says.
In Mary Vestal Park, WRRC and other Water Quality Forum partners are working to restore the streambank, stop erosion, and improve water quality and habitat. Work is being sponsored by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s Nonpoint Source Program.
Back to Nature
The partners are helping the stream—which was rerouted and channelized about 50 years ago to make way for neighborhood development—get back to nature. Streams naturally want to meander, but this stretch of Goose Creek had been straightened. As a result, the area has become highly eroded.
To help stop erosion, the forum partners have applied "soil bioengineering" techniques to the banks. These techniques use living and dead plant materials in combination with basic environmental engineering concepts to create a living system that protects streambanks from erosion.
The partners have also planted willow trees and other native plants by the water’s edge in an attempt to recreate a "whole" ecosystem.
"We want to reestablish a habitat that will bring aquatic life back into the area," Upchurch says. "Areas along a streambank where roots overhang are a wonderful place for insects to flourish, but they previously couldn’t live in this section of the park because there was too little vegetation around the water."
Fishing Lures
In turn, fish may be more likely to set up home if there are insects to eat and new plant life to bring shade and cool the creek waters.
These projects improve Knoxville’s water quality, but Gangaware points out that they’re effective only when other degraded areas of the watershed are improved. "Eroded streambanks and limited stream buffers are only part of the problem. Poor construction practices, leaking sewer lines, and illegal dumping in a watershed are also primary contributors to poor water quality," he says.
The two projects also prove that cooperative efforts can work when they draw on the talents of staff at government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and UT.
WRRC has begun work on a third project, on First Creek in Knoxville’s Fourth and Gill neighborhood. The site is situated along city property that will become part of the First Creek greenway.
WRRC is using the demonstration sites to introduce local decision makers to alternative methods for improving water quality. WRRC recently held a hands-on workshop for parks and recreation staff, greenway coordinators, and city and county engineers (see "The Native Language of Streams," page 4). The center has scheduled its second workshop for next fall.
Contact Tim Gangaware, WRRC, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-4777.
Tools of the Trade
WRRC’s toolbox is full of techniques meant to help nature help itself.
Staffers at the University of Tennessee’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) see themselves as Earth’s assistants. The tools and techniques they choose for stopping erosion and preventing surface runoff from entering streams—two of the main causes of poor water quality in the Knoxville urban watershed—are based on a belief in nature’s ability to help itself.
Today, most agencies still use riprap to stabilize land and stop erosion—a process that involves piling rocks on top of the degraded land. WRRC’s work helps the Earth reestablish its own natural barriers to decay.
For example, WRRC uses coconut rolls to stabilize a streambank and restore a gentle slope. Made of coconut fiber, the rolls are approximately 20 feet long and 12 to 20 inches in diameter. They usually are stacked in stair-step fashion from the edge of a streambed to the top of a bank. Willow and dogwood branches, which root easily, are tucked between the rolls to provide new growth along the water’s edge.
WRRC also uses brush mattressing and cedar-tree revetments. For brush mattressing, dogwood and willow branches are wired together and staked to a bank in mat-like fashion to stop erosion. Revetments anchor together cedar trees laid trunk to treetop along the edge of a streambank. New vegetation grows as the cedars drop seeds.
For fascines, branches are bundled, laid in a trench at the edge of a streambed, and covered with soil. Fascines protect banks from washout and seepage, and the branches eventually sprout. Live stakes are made out of live branches and usually are two to three inches in diameter. They can be hammered directly into a streambed or bank to stop erosion and provide new growth.
WRRC considers site-specific characteristics when choosing techniques. Stream flow rate, extent of degradation, and potential impact from human and natural forces are all factored in. For example, a high-impact area, such as might be found in a neighborhood park, would require the sturdiness of coconut rolls over cedar tree revetments. Staff learn about new tools and techniques at hands-on workshops provided by state departments of environment and private organizations around the region.
—Laurie Varma
Diversionary Tactics
CEB applies biotechnology to reduce pollution and divert waste products from disposal to productive use, all in the interest of sustainability.
By Laurie Varma
Like its counterparts within the Energy, Environment, and Resources Center, the Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB), the technological wing of the University of Tennessee’s Waste Management Research and Education Institute, has been examining how it can contribute to sustainable development (see "Center Targets Sustainable Development," InSites, Spring 1998).
CEB has traditionally focused on environmental contamination—dealing with waste after it’s been released to the environment. But because of the increasing costs of waste treatment and the decline in natural-resource quality, many industries are turning to biotechnology to reduce treatment costs, recycle waste, and develop cleaner production processes. And CEB is perfectly positioned to help.
"For a number of years we have exploited our expertise in molecular and engineering aspects of environmental biotechnology to strategically support industry in its long-term quest for environmental sustainability," says CEB director Gary Sayler. "By strengthening this line of research, we are putting ourselves at the forefront of scientific investigation."
Targeting Waste
By expanding its research base to encompass prevention, CEB expects to help industries and municipalities reduce waste-treatment costs in two ways. First, researchers are exploring ways to reduce operating costs and the rate at which pollution enters the environment by changing manufacturing processes. And second, CEB scientists are exploring ways to transform waste into useful products.
Christine Kelly, a senior research specialist with CEB, says chemical steps in a manufacturing process can be expensive because the solvents and other substances involved are costly and can generate large amounts of waste.
"By contrast, biological processes can lower overall production costs and reduce waste—and ultimately pollution—because they replace expensive, wasteful chemical steps," she says. Kelly also points out that using renewable resources—including those derived through biotechnology—allows us to preserve natural resources.
For example, scientists producing a pharmaceutical product might use a number of high-pressure, high-temperature chemical reactions with potentially harmful solvents such as acetone. However, a biological process may be used to deliver the same end product but with less waste and less toxicity to the environment.
Farms and Pharmaceuticals
Some of the same technologies that work in pharmaceuticals can also be applied in manufacturing plastics. "Currently, making plastic requires fossil fuels—a problem because fossil fuels are nonrenewable—and the wastes produced in processing are expensive to treat," she says. "We’re looking at whether something other than fossil fuels can be used to make plastics or its precursors."
Kelly suggests that renewable biological substances such as corn or sludge might be used to produce new, more natural, materials that will serve as the raw materials—or "feedstock"—for industrial processes.
The notion of using sludge or other wastes to create useful products is also driving current CEB research. In fact, according to John Sanseverino, CEB senior research associate, much of what is currently contributing to the nation’s waste stream may be transformed into useful, "value-added" products through biological processes.
For example, says Sanseverino, CEB is targeting cheese whey, a major waste product of the dairy industry, for use in producing biological feedstock for manufacturing. "Millions of pounds of cheese whey per year are directed toward U.S. waste-treatment plants," he says.
Leading the Whey
CEB researchers hope to examine the feasibility of using cheese whey to make acrylic acid, a feedstock used by plastic manufacturers. "There are strains of bacteria that can act on a substance and produce this kind of acid as a metabolic intermediate," says Sanseverino. "We want to develop a biological reaction process that produces acrylic acid as a major end product rather than as a minor one, so that cheese whey can be used to make plastic."
Sanseverino says that CEB’s work to remove fossil fuels from the manufacturing process has the potential for making many industries more sustainable.
According to Sanseverino, undertaking this kind of research—and contributing to the world’s stock of sustainable-development resources—is a natural extension of CEB work in removing wastes and pollutants from the environment. "We’re still looking at waste disposal practices," he says. "But now we’re asking ‘can we do something with waste? Can we make something out of it instead of dumping it somewhere?’"
Many questions concerning the need for optimized strains, monitoring and sensing, and unique reactors and operating conditions require answers if we are to develop sustainable, economically viable processes.
Sayler says CEB can help answer those questions. "We want to take our expertise in microbiology, molecular biology, chemical engineering, and modeling and apply it to waste prevention and bioconversion," he says. "Waste treatment will continue to be necessary until every individual and every industry limits environmental discharges to the bare minimum; developing new technologies for waste reduction and prevention may help us get to that point sooner.
Contact Christine Kelly, CEB, The University of Tennessee, 676 Dabney Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-1605, or call 865-974-8080.
China Harnesses Market Power To Curb Pollution, Improve Air
Despite its socialist underpinnings, China has turned to the market to bolster its environmental performance.
Should the United States take note?
By Elise LeQuire
Increased prosperity in the People’s Republic of China has been both a blessing and a curse. The nation’s economy has been growing at a rate of 10 percent annually since economic reforms were initiated two decades ago. Unfortunately, increases in factory output have shrouded its industrial regions in soot, dumped acid rain on neighboring countries, and raised concerns about global warming in the international community.
But now, thanks to an international effort, the Chinese government is putting more muscle into its environmental laws. In November 1997, a reformed pollution-levy system was presented to government officials in Beijing. The plan, which levies a tax on quantifiable emissions from polluting industries, was announced at the conclusion of a two-day workshop attended by an international group of researchers, policymakers, and environmental experts.
Targeting Soot
In January, China launched a pilot project intended to force polluters to pay a heavier price for harmful emissions, especially particulate matter—or soot—from coal-powered plants, says Robert A. Bohm, a research professor with the University of Tennessee’s (UT) Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI).
Bohm also holds a professorship in UT’s economics department. His research has focused on the use of environmental taxes as an instrument of environmental policy as well as on economic issues involving the valuation of human life and environmental degradation.
Bohm participated in the pollution-levy workshop convened to bolster China’s environmental efforts. At least 40 people, including seven foreign experts, attended the workshop, which was funded by the World Bank. They presented their recommendations, based on more than five years of research, to representatives of China’s State Council.
While an earlier levy system has been in place since the early 1980s, the fines were not harsh enough to deter polluters or provide them with an economic incentive to install cleaner technologies, Bohm says.
The workshop participants concurred that economic incentives in China’s evolving economy will lead to pollution abatement in the private sector. In fact, China is poised to bypass the strict regulatory, command-and-control climate that until recently has dominated environmental policy in developed nations.
Polluters Pay
Under provisions of the new plan, only about 20 to 30 percent of funds collected will be spent on administrative costs. The remainder will be held in a revolving-loan fund to directly support pollution prevention, with 95 percent of the money remaining at the provincial level. A revolving-loan fund works like a banking system, Bohm explains. Polluters pay according to the measurable levels of emissions they produce. They can then borrow money from the fund to make improvements aimed at reducing emissions.
The new scheme puts a price on a nonmarket good: pollution. "Pollution levies become a cost of production, like hiring labor," Bohm says. In addition, levies are simpler and more cost-effective than strict regulations, which require large numbers of inspectors to ensure compliance.
China has launched its pilot project in three targeted metropolitan areas. Eventually, the plan will be expanded to include about 80 such regions. "The program will be assessed by measuring the level of targeted pollutants in future emissions to determine if reductions take place and whether the levies are actually collected," Bohm says.
Grand Experiment
China has embarked on a grand experiment almost without precedent. Though Australia has also imposed pollution levies on its industries, Bohm contends that China’s approach to pollution abatement is unique for such a heavily populated country. China boasts a population of 1.2 billion people.
Ironically, China has adopted a market mechanism in a socialist economy, while the United States, with a free-market economy, largely relies on command-and-control regulatory policy to effect change.
China’s coal-powered plants have traditionally been located near large cities, and the particulate pollution these dirty plants emit threatens the health of urban residents, who suffer from high rates of lung disease. Bohm says during his November visit to Beijing, the smog was as dense as fog.
"It’s not possible to compute the number of human lives that would be saved by cleaning up the environment, but it is clear the benefits would outweigh any cost," Bohm says.
Contact Robert Bohm,WMREI, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-4251.