Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Climate Change In Metropolitan Boston, Paul Kirshen, Matthias Ruth, William Anderson

New England Journal of Public Policy

Even though urban infrastructure systems are important and are designed according to socioeconomic and environmental conditions that are very sensitive to climate, there have been few major integrated assessments of the impacts of climate change on metropolitan infrastructure systems and services and possible adaptations. An analysis of the Boston metro area found that adaptation actions taken before full climate-change impacts occur will result in fewer expected negative impacts to the region than waiting for major impacts to occur. Adaptation of infrastructure to climate change must also consider land use management, environmental and socioeconomic impacts, equity, and adaptation actors and institutions. …

The Tide Is High For The Boston Beaches, Marissa Glowac

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1993, Massachusetts Governor William Weld and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino approved the “Back to the Beaches” project, a seven-year, $30.5 million public project to restore nineteen Boston Harbor beaches. Today, these sites have new, cleaner sand, improved access, and new amenities and facilities now ready to offer additional opportunities for recreation. People are coming back to the Boston Harbor beaches in numbers significantly higher than a decade ago. This study concludes that the implementation and success of the “Back to the Beaches” project can be attributed to several factors — an increased public awareness of the value of open …

Burning And Burying In Connecticut: Are Regional Solutions To Solid Waste Disposal Equitable?, Timothy Black, John A. Stewart

New England Journal of Public Policy

To comply with federal legislation, states throughout the country are replacing old town dumps with a regional system for municipal solid waste disposal.This system includes trash-to-energy incinerators and ash landfills as well as recycling and reduction facilities. While these new types of facilities are expected to be environmentally safer, they have concentrated the disposal process of waste generated throughout the state in fewer locations. State leaders champion the use of newer, cleaner disposal methods, while local community groups complain that they have become the dumping grounds for the state. This is the first environmental equity study to examine whether these …

Managing Sprawl In The Land Of Unintended Consequences, Robert S. Bucci

New England Journal of Public Policy

Americans witnessing the bulldozing of their country’s pastures, farmlands, and sensitive habitats to erect suburban housing tracts and commercial centers have come to realize that the remaining open land may be too precious to waste. Residential and commercial development is no longer quickly embraced to stimulate economic progress and prosperity. Municipalities are learning that development often extracts a price — sometimes the loss of community character and local charm, sometimes tax revenues that fall short of increased expenditures, and sometimes just plain ugliness. Responding to the new reality, many community officials have initiated unilateral ordinances regulating the development of open …

The Boston Harbor Cleanup, Paul F. Levy, Michael S. Connor

New England Journal of Public Policy

Boston Harbor earned a widespread reputation as "the dirtiest harbor in the nation" during the 1988 presidential campaign. Well before that campaign began, though, efforts were under way to reduce the amount of pollution entering the harbor. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority was created in 1985 to undertake a massive public works program — including construction of a 1.3 billion-gallon-per-day sewage treatment plant and a sludge fertilizer processing plant — to end the decades-old practice of dumping sewage wastes into the ocean. The program will also cause water and sewer charges to rise dramatically during a fifteen-year period.

The project …

The Reclamation Of Boston Harbor: A Scientist's Perspective, Gordon T. Wallace Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

A major effort, costing in the neighborhood of $2 billion, is under way to restore the environmental quality of Boston Harbor. While Boston Harbor is unquestionably one of the most polluted urban estuaries in the world, it is also one of the least understood with respect to the basic physics, chemistry, and biology involved. This information is essential for the purpose of identifying processes that control the transport, effect, and fate of contaminants entering the estuary. Failure to obtain this information may lead to continued inappropriate and unnecessarily expensive solutions to a complex environmental problem. An effective solution will require …