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In this paper, the first part of our three-part study on the development of brownfields policy in Wisconsin, we examine the regulatory history of the brownfields policy. We start with the 1978 Hazardous Substance Spill Law, the antecedent to the brownfields regulatory reform of the 1990s, and examine the interaction of policy entrepreneurs in both the public and the private sectors that has led to innovation. We follow this by exploring the response of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to reform efforts, looking at both how it anticipated and led some of the efforts and how it addressed demands placed on it by the state legislature and executive. We then discuss the central role that the state’s Brownfields Study Group has played in moving brownfields cleanup and redevelopment objectives into legislation and the field. We base our work on interviews with nearly 70 individuals from public, private for-profit, private nonprofit, and tribal organizations.

In this paper, the second installment of our three-part study on the development of brownfields policy in the state of Wisconsin, we use case studies to explore the implementation of the policy at three scales: 1) two statewide initiatives, the Voluntary Party Liability Exemption process and the Sustainable Urban Development Zone program; 2) the efforts of two Wisconsin cities, West Allis and Wausau, to promote brownfields redevelopment across their neighborhoods; and 3) project-specific uses of institutional, regulatory, and financial innovations to encourage the revitalization of specific areas. Throughout the paper, we focus on the role of economic incentives, regulatory flexibility, regulatory structure, and the behavioral culture of brownfields stakeholders. We base our work on interviews of nearly 70 individuals from public, private-for-profit, private-nonprofit, and tribal organizations.

As the third paper in our three-part series on Wisconsin brownfields, this paper reports the results of a survey on the objectives of brownfields redevelopment, constraints to the redevelopment, the role of the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and institutional controls. The 260 survey respondents include elected officials, staff from economic development and planning agencies, attorneys, private sector representatives, and professionals at nonprofit organizations. We find that: 1) respondents value both economic and environmental gains associated with brownfields redevelopment; 2) the high costs of cleanup are the principal barrier to brownfields redevelopment; 3) no single factor stands out as constraining DNR’s ability to oversee cleanups; 4) owners are more likely to be aware of institutional controls implemented through deed restrictions than through an electronic registry; and 5) attitudes regarding changes in DNR behavior along dimensions of flexibility, fairness, knowledge, and willingness to negotiate are more rather than less positive.

In this paper, the first part of our three-part study on the development of brownfields policy in Wisconsin, we examine the regulatory history of the brownfields policy. We start with the 1978 Hazardous Substance Spill Law, the antecedent to the brownfields regulatory reform of the 1990s, and examine the interaction of policy entrepreneurs in both the public and the private sectors that has led to innovation. We follow this by exploring the response of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to reform efforts, looking at both how it anticipated and led some of the efforts and how it addressed demands placed on it by the state legislature and executive. We then discuss the central role that the state's Brownfields Study Group has played in moving brownfields cleanup and redevelopment objectives into legislation and the field. We base our work on interviews with nearly 70 individuals from public, private for-profit, private nonprofit, and tribal organizations.

We examine the use of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecasts for flood planning in the Pacific Northwest. Using theories of resource mobilization as a conceptual foundation, the paper relies on: 1) case studies of three communities vulnerable to flooding that have had access to long-term forecasts of ENSO conditions; and 2) analysis of data collected from a survey of nearly 60 local emergency managers, planners, and public works staff. We find that understanding the regulatory machinery and other institutions involved in using climate forecasts is critical to more effective use of these forecasts. Forecast use could be promoted by: 1) an extension service to broker climate information; 2) the identification or creation of federal authorities to fund activities to mitigate ENSO impacts; and 3) the proactive use of ENSO signals to identify areas most likely to be influenced by climate anomalies.

Recent scientific and technical advances have increased the potential use of longterm seasonal climate forecasts for improving water resource management. This paper examines the role that forecasts, in particular those based on the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, can play in flood planning in the Pacific Northwest. While strong evidence of an association between ENSO signals and flooding in the region exists, this association is open to more than one interpretation depending on: a) the metric used to test the strength of the association; b) the definition of critical flood events; c) site-specific features of watersheds; and d) the characteristics of flood management institutions. A better understanding and appreciation of such ambiguities, both institutional and statistical, is needed to facilitate the use of climate forecast information for flood planning and response.

Water utilities that rely on surface water may be vulnerable to future droughts and floods, a vulnerability that may be magnified by climate perturbations as well as shorter-term and, in some cases, ongoing changes in the political and regulatory environment in which utilities operate.. Unfortunately, day-to-day responsibilities currently occupy most utility operators, leaving little time to plan for inherently uncertain effects. The record of actual responses to past droughts and floods can be illuminating, however, particularly when placed in the context of plausible hydrologic and institutional disruptions. This paper draws on interviews of water utility operators in the northwestern U.S. to highlight opportunities and constraints that water utilities may face vis-à-vis such disruptions. Key considerations affecting vulnerabilities include water rights, institutional barriers to efficient utility operations, hazards management policy, and the fiscal status of utilities.

Water utilities that rely on surface water may be vulnerable to future droughts and floods, a vulnerability that may be magnified by climate perturbations as well as shorter-term and, in some cases, ongoing changes in the political and regulatory environment in which utilities operate. Unfortunately, day-to-day responsibilities currently occupy most utility operators, leaving little time to plan for inherently uncertain effects. The record of actual responses to past droughts and floods can be illuminating, however, particularly when placed in the context of plausible hydrologic and institutional disruptions. This paper draws on interviews of water utility operators in the northwestern U.S. to highlight opportunities and constraints that water utilities may face vis-à-vis such disruptions. Key considerations affecting vulnerabilities include water rights, institutional barriers to efficient utility operations, hazards management policy, and the fiscal status of utilities.

Supporters of the effort to link cleanups at hazardous waste sites to the sites' expected land uses claim that amending language in the federal Superfund statute to allow this may yield a number of benefits. These include rationalizing the cleanup process and decreasing cleanup costs, promoting economic development in the local communities that host Superfund sites, and helping such communities exercise more control over the cleanups. However, interviews with Superfund stakeholders and a detailed case study call into question these arguments. The current role of land use in cleanup, uncertainties about whether economic development is likely at the bulk of Superfund sites, the long-run viability of institutional controls, the willingness of communities to accept cleanups that leave contamination on-site, and the nature of public involvement all suggest-that the benefits of tying land use to remedy selection may not be so straightforward.

In September of 1994, the Army closed the Fort Ord Military Reservation, a Superfund site of some 28,000 acres located in Monterey County, California. Under the Base Closure and Realignment Act, nearly all of this land will be transferred to federal and state entities and to a number of cities of the Monterey peninsula that border the base. A good deal of this property is valuable real estate — coastal dunes, golf courses, and barracks that can be converted to apartments or dormitories. For the beneficiaries of these property transfers the Fort Ord cleanup is a modern day gold rush that is taking place as part of a Superfund cleanup. What effect have economic development pressures had on the cleanup process and on decisions about cleanup standards? This case study addresses this question by examining: (i) how the legal requirements regulating cleanup, community involvement and reuse have been implemented by the Army and the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency; and (ii) the effectiveness of two groups created by legislation to integrate reuse planning and cleanup — the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, an economic planning authority representing the area’s local governments, and the Fort Ord Restoration Advisory Board, a citizens group mandated to advise the Army about the cleanup process.

As the United States Congress debates revisions to the federal Superfund law, one of the most important topics of discussion is the degree to which cleanups at Superfund sites should be based on their expected future land use. This discussion has engaged the Superfund community for several years. Despite this apparent interest in linking cleanup with land use, however, surprisingly little analysis has been done on what role land use already plays in selecting remedies. RFF researchers have addressed the shortfall with case studies at three Superfund sites—Abex Corporation in Portsmouth, Virginia, Industri-Plex in Woburn, Massachusetts, and Fort Ord near Monterey, California—where land use has played a prominent role in the remedy selection process. Each of the case studies includes a description of: the contamination at the site; the different stakeholders involved in the remedy selection process; and the influence that land use considerations have had on this process. The three case studies are part of a larger RFF research project on land use and remedy selection that was funded in part under a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Supporters of the effort to link cleanups at hazardous waste sites to the sites' expected land uses claim that amending language in the federal Superfund statute to allow this may yield a number of benefits. These include rationalizing the cleanup process and decreasing cleanup costs, promoting economic development in the local communities that host Superfund sites, and helping such communities exercise more control over the cleanups. However, interviews with Superfund stakeholders and a detailed case study call into question these arguments. The current role of land use in cleanup, uncertainties about whether economic development is likely at the bulk of Superfund sites, the long-run viability of institutional controls, the willingness of communities to accept cleanups that leave contamination on-site, and the nature of public involvement all suggest that the benefits of tying land use to remedy selection may not be so straight forward.

As the United States Congress debates revisions to the federal Superfund law, one of the most important topics of discussion is the degree to which cleanups at Superfund sites should be based on their expected future land use. This discussion has engaged the Superfund community for several years. Despite this apparent interest in linking cleanup with land use, however, surprisingly little analysis has been done on what role land use already plays in selecting remedies. RFF researchers have addressed the shortfall with case studies at three Superfund sites--Abex Corporation in Portsmouth, Virginia, Industri-Plex in Woburn, Massachusetts, and Fort Ord near Monterey, California--where land use has played a prominent role in the remedy selection process. Each of the case studies includes a description of: the contamination at the site; the different stakeholders involved in the remedy selection process; and the influence that land use considerations have had on this process.

This report describes the reasons why integrated pollution control (IPC) became accepted as a necessary part of the environmental regulatory systems of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Sweden and examines the experience these countries have had with unified environmental statutes, alternative compliance approaches, cross-media permitting, and other aspects of IPC that are under consideration in this country. The report is organized into five chapters. In the first chapter we provide a brief overview of the intellectual pedigree of integrated pollution control and discuss arguments that have been put forward by advocates of IPC as well as the counter-arguments of those who have taken a more skeptical view of the technical and political feasibility of implementing IPC measures. Chapter two details how the United Kingdom, long considered the dirty man of Europe, is developing an integrated system of industrial pollution control based on its 1990 Environmental Protection Act. The Act introduced new controls to limit and prevent pollution from a wide range of industries and has created a unified pollution inspectorate to ensure that the best practical environmental option (BPEO) for all media is achieved. We consider both the progress the UK Environmental Agency has made in IPC as well as the barriers it has encountered. In chapter three, we examine how the Dutch Environmental Ministry (VROM) was able to forge a consensus among diverse groups for the need to embrace innovative, integrated policies and then examine in detail the Dutch experience with alternative compliance efforts, notably their covenant system. The long-standing success of Sweden’s industrial permitting system is analyzed in chapter 4 and in the fifth and final chapter we consider the development and implications of the European Union’s recently adopted Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control, a document which is likely to have a profound influence on environmental management in Europe and elsewhere.