The Environmental Pendulum: A Quest for the Truth about Toxic Chemicals, Human Health, and Environmental Protection

R. Allan Freeze

University of California Press, Apr 12, 2000 - Medical - 323 pages

The pendulum of environmental policy swings from one extreme to the other, depending on which camp is in power and who has the ear of the media. Underkill is followed by overkill. Concern breeds action; disillusion breeds reaction. The Environmental Pendulum provides a thoughtful and evenhanded assessment of this conflict.

Tens of thousands of sites across the country are contaminated with toxic chemicals. Environmentalists warn us that this legacy of carelessness is seriously affecting both human health and the ecological balance of nature. They point out that even improved industrial practices will not eliminate future chemical releases to the environment. Their demand for regulatory control has received wide public support and led to the passage of the Superfund legislation in 1980. Now, after twenty years, the value of the Superfund program is being challenged by corporate America, which argues that excessive cleanup costs have the potential to bankrupt the nation.

R. Allan Freeze outlines the difficulties associated with the management of hazardous waste and offers a balanced account of the controversy over the role of environmental contamination in human health. Freeze clarifies what matters and what doesn't with respect to chemical contaminants in the environment, arguing that environmental policies should be based on an accurate appraisal of the risks associated with these toxins. He concludes the book with a brilliant summation of the good news and the bad news of environmental pollution, describing what can and can't be done to bring the situation under control.

Contents

• Prologue A Day at Smithville Chapter 1 The Polarization of the Environment: 7
• Tables: 12
• The Environmental Consequences of Our Engineered Way of Life: 48
• What Matters and What Doesnt: 94
• O Cost per life saved for a selection of riskreducing: 138
• Impacts of contaminated sites: 144
• The Unpleasant Truths about Waste Management: 147
• Disposal instructions for solvents on Chemical Safety: 151
• Recyclable wastes from certain industrial processes: 159
• Fate and transport of selected chemicals: 170
• The Unpleasant Truths about Remediation: 197
• Remedial options at Prices Landfill: 200
• Solubilities and regulatory standards for some representative organic chemicals: 207
• Status of emerging technologies for insitu site cleanup: 210
• The Regulatory Quagmire: 221
• The Environmental Game: 253
• Players in the environmental game: 255
• Some sources of technical uncertainty: 262
• Examples of social bias: 266
• Solutions: 282
• Sources: 291
• Index: 311

About the author

R. Allan Freeze is former Professor and Director in the Geological Engineering Program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He is the coauthor of Groundwater (1979) and Groundwater Contamination: Optimal Capture and Containment (1993), and the coeditor of Physical Hydrogeology (1983).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Environmental Pendulum: A Quest for the Truth about Toxic Chemicals, Human Health, and Environmental Protection; The Environmental Pendulum: A Quest for the Truth about Toxic Chemicals, Human Health, and Environmental Protection, R. Allan Freeze
• Author: R. Allan Freeze
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of California Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0520220471, 9780520220478
• Length: 323 pages
• Subjects: Medical / Health Care Delivery; Nature / Environmental Conservation & Protection; Science / Environmental Science