Law Commons^™

Stigmatized Sites And Urban Brownfield Redevelopment, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This chapter addresses the "stigmatized sites" located in urban areas in the United States and Europe and the "brownfields" redevelopment programs aimed at removing the stigma and promoting remediation and reuse of these sites. Although the European Union has put regulatory frameworks in place, the United States has led the global effort to address brown fields redevelopment, and the discussion in this chapter will focus on American models for brown fields remediation and reuse.

Time To Upgrade Drinking Water Protections, Noah M. Sachs

Law Faculty Publications

A year ago, residents of Charleston, W.Va., learned that their entire drinking water supply had become contaminated by MCHM, a toxic chemical used to wash coal. Ten thousand gallons of MCHM had spilled from a corroding storage tank by the Elk River, located a mile upstream of the city’s drinking water intake pipes. As a result of the chemical spill, 300,000 citizens lost their water for more than a week, and hundreds sought emergency care.

That accident alone should have been a wake-up call for Virginians about the need to protect our water supply from chemical spills. But a year …

Did We Miss The Boat? The Clean Water Act And Sustainability, Ryan P. Murphy

Law Student Publications

This comment argues for more political accountability and more scientific consideration when addressing water quality. It begins, in Section I, with an overview of the Clean Water Act, its distinction between point and nonpoint sources, and the connection between nonpoint source pollution, water use, and land use. Section II considers the tension between beneficial uses and environmental degradation by taking a look at a dramatic example of hydrologic modification. 5 Section III considers an effluent dominated waterbody-the Los Angeles River-and the difficulties that regulating point sources to the river presents. Finally, Section IV suggests a different approach-one that is modeled …

Energy And Environmental Law, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This chapter covers energy law, which focuses on the production, distribution, conservation, and development of energy resources. State and federal energy laws and regulations are designed to keep prices to consumers down (particularly in certain energy industries which state and federal governments monitor to keep markets as competitive as possible) and to address economic, environmental, and national security issues.

Offshore Windfall: What Approval Of The United States' First Offshore Wind Project Means For The Offshore Wind Energy Industry, Michael P. Giordano

Law Student Publications

This comment explores the Cape Wind project with an emphasis on its role as the first United States offshore wind energy project. Part II of this comment explains the potential energy resource that offshore wind provides and examines some of the economic, technological, and regulatory challenges facing the development of offshore wind projects in United States waters. Part III of this comment introduces the Cape Wind project as a case study by briefly describing the particular political struggles and permitting challenges faced by its developers. Part IV of this comment analyzes how DOI approval and the eventual construction of Cape …

Brownfields Development: From Individual Sites To Smart Growth, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

Remediation and reuse ofbrownfields is a hallmark of sustainable land use because the societal and economic benefits of remediating and rehabilitating an underused urban parcel are often greater than those of comparable development taking place at greenfields locations. These benefits are mentioned frequently in the large (and growing) body of brownfields literature, where brown fields redevelopment is seen as especially desirable because it meshes with the goals of the smart growth movement. However, not all brown fields redevelopment activity is "smart," for development of individual sites continues to be parcel-specific and state brownfields programs do not fully integrate well-known benchmarks …

Adr At The Environmental Protection Agency, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This chapter examines how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods to help resolve complex environmental disputes. In recent years, the EPA's use of ADR has increased dramatically in a wide variety of settings. The EPA has made ADR a central feature of its environmental enforcement strategy, encouraged its use in Title VI and environmental justice conflict settings, and turned to negotiated rulemaking as an alternative to the cumbersome notice-and-comment process for development of new federal regulations. Other EPA programs, such as the Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative, promote nonadversarial methods for tackling complex environmental problems. …