This case study focuses on laws and policies used in Baraboo, Wisconsin land redevelopment projects, including the state laws that regulate cleanup of environmentally contaminated properties, the authorizing laws behind the projects, and the policies incorporated into the projects. It does this by highlighting two successful land reuse projects in the City of Baraboo, Wisconsin: the Veolia Property and the Alliant Property. During the redevelopment of these brownfield sites, Baraboo sought remedy to environmental contamination and maintain the community’s health. Two grant programs assisted Baraboo in achieving these goals: the Wisconsin Department of Commerce Grant and the Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Grant. The Brownfields Grant provided Baraboo the ability to conduct health monitoring with assistance from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. These redevelopment projects in Baraboo demonstrate successful interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as the role of law and policy in removing environmental hazards to reuse properties and promote human health by reducing exposure to environmental contaminants. Baraboo used these laws and policies to revitalize brownfields and account for community health in the process. Other localities and states can use Baraboo’s experience as a model to redevelop their own contaminated properties and promote environmental health through the use of their jurisdiction’s laws and policies.

Despite the dominant trends toward farm consolidation and cheap food policies in California, there are many examples of producers who are adopting regenerative on-farm practices and supporting organizations that assist small, beginning, and sustainability-focused farmers to thrive in a challenging environment. Sustainability innovations profiled in this case study are variously related to the three broader concepts of socioecological systems, integrated landscape management, and rural-urban interface. After reviewing these concepts, this case study presents the main barriers to sustainable farming and sustainable food systems, which are identified in interviews with producers. This case study then profiles illustrative examples of economic, social, and environmental innovations at the farm and institutional levels, which have achieved success at overcoming these barriers and are sufficiently documented for sharing and scaling-up impact. Producer innovations to reduce climate and market risks are then classified on a scale continuum. Finally, this case study presents the diverse types and qualities of support available to sustainability-focused farmers and ranchers in California, with clear policy implications for broadening and deepening this support.

Agricultural production in the United States provides numerous economic contributions from the national scale to the local, providing farmworker and laborer jobs for hundreds of thousands of people [ 1 ]. Unfortunately, conventional agricultural operations are often associated with pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, which can cause environmental degradation and health problems. Large-scale conventional agriculture is often using pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer intensive, and these chemicals may contaminate natural environments, harming wildlife, and degrading water quality. When contamination incidents occur, government agencies and non-profit organizations respond in various ways, including environmental remediation. These efforts can be successful in restoring water quality and improving biodiversity. But, what happens when clean-up efforts are able to improve the physical environment but do not address human health? We use the case of Lake Apopka, Florida, to analyze a case of agricultural contamination that resulted in damage to the environment and the health of the farmworkers who were exposed to these harmful chemicals. Our analysis explores how government agencies and non-profit organizations were successful in their conservation efforts, but failed to help the farmworkers and other people who were sick as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals. We conclude with recommendations for policy makers and environmentalists to better address and include marginalized or vulnerable communities in environmental remediation projects.

Many scientific research projects carried out in developing countries gather data and fail to return any summary of the findings to the community that provided the data. Residents from communities experiencing water issues are therefore deprived of effective participation in the use of findings, since communities might be seen as only a source of data. Indigenous writers have revealed the injustice of this reality and have suggested that this is typical of colonial or ‘colonising’ research methods. It is concerning because accessing research knowledge encourages communities to examine their issues and empowers them to formulate solutions. Inspired by decolonising methodologies, we explored different ‘decolonising’ approaches to returning research findings to participant communities using the results of a recent water research project conducted in Ndola, Copperbelt Province, Zambia. In this case study, we describe participant communities experience regarding access to research findings and conclude that face-to-face discussion is the preferred approach to returning water research findings in Ndola.

High-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling has “revolutionized” the United States’ oil and gas industry by allowing extraction of previously inaccessible oil and gas trapped in shale rock [ 1 ]. Although the United States has extracted shale gas in different states for several decades, the United Kingdom is in the early stages of developing its domestic shale gas resources, in the hopes of replicating the United States’ commercial success with the technologies [ 2 , 3 ]. However, the extraction of shale gas using hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling poses potential risks to the environment and natural resources, human health, and communities and local livelihoods. Risks include contamination of water resources, air pollution, and induced seismic activity near shale gas operation sites. This paper examines the regulation of potential induced seismic activity in Oklahoma, USA, and Lancashire, UK, and concludes with recommendations for strengthening these protections.

Globally, mosquitoes have the propensity to severely impact public health by transmitting infectious agents that can lead to diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya, Zika fever, and West Nile fever. To develop appropriate control and mitigation measures for controlling the spread of mosquito-borne disease, we need to better understand ecological influences on mosquitoes, including competition, predation, and interactions with the environment. Building novel and environmentally conscious strategies has become increasingly important under the threat of potential range expansion with climate change and increased global connectivity. As a result of this case study and answering the corresponding questions, readers will be able to identify modern approaches to mosquito control based on an ecological understanding of these disease vectors. Readers will actively engage in scenarios where they will balance trade-offs between public health and environmental health, while considering the breadth of factors involved in global mosquito control efforts.

More efficient agricultural water use sounds uncontroversial. Due to increased agricultural efficiency, about 300,000 acre-feet 1 of water per year is made available and is being reallocated from the Imperial Irrigation District to Los Angeles, San Diego and Coachella. This increase in efficiency and transfer of conserved water, however, is predicted to cause a suite of environmental and public health harms as the region’s agricultural sump (the Salton Sea) shrinks. Southern Californian water politics are famously messy, contentious and high stakes. The State struggles with the need to increase its use efficiency and decrease its overall use of its allocation of Colorado River water that supplies Californian south coast cities and inland agriculture. Local, State and federal parties involved in these water allocation decisions conflict over how to mitigate the externalities as there is no clear assignment of liabilities. This case study uses historical documents and recent policy elite interviews to construct a broad understanding of the nature of the dilemma. By engaging with this case, readers will better understand the relative positions of the rural water supplier and the urban water users in the largest water transfer in US history, and understand that increasing use efficiency in one arena—agriculture—does not always work out best for the environment.

Energy poses challenges to environmental studies because of climate change and other effects, and field trips are indispensable aids to learning. They enable students to see situations first-hand, and many are joyous and fun, such as field trips to forests, wetlands, wildlife reserves, or communities exhibiting positive contributions to safeguarding the natural world. Field trips to the built environment, especially those illustrating sites with raging controversies or past catastrophes are equally important in helping students turn theory into understanding of real situations. Chernobyl, one of the two worst nuclear power plant disasters, provided the venue for a field trip examining the strengths and weaknesses of nuclear power. Students had 3 weeks of preparatory classwork before departing for Kyiv, Ukraine. They spent 2 weeks there, with 1 day touring the Exclusion Zone surrounding the Chernobyl plant. Background work included basic concepts and units for measuring radiation and their biological and medical effects, types of nuclear power plants, disaster planning and response, Ukrainian history, and details of the Chernobyl accident and its effects. Participants heard from a wide variety of speakers, who presented details of the accident, its lingering consequences, efforts of the Ukrainian government and various NGOs to deal with the consequences, and Ukrainian plans for new nuclear power plants. Participants also heard both strong pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear proponents. At the end, students prepared a paper on the lessons about nuclear power from Chernobyl. Evaluations of the experience indicated the trip’s objectives were achieved. For some, the expedition proved life-altering.

On 16 October 1996, a malfunction at the Swan Hills Special Waste Treatment Center (SHSWTC) in Alberta, Canada, released an undetermined quantity of persistent organic pollutants to the atmosphere. An ecologically based, staged health risk assessment was conducted to evaluate the human health risk, the findings of which are presented in Part 2, on Ecotoxicology and Human Health Risk. The incident resulted in the largest fine for an environmental infraction in Alberta history up to that time. Despite the incident, the province of Alberta has continued to subsidize the facility and has kept it in operation, with changes in management. The policy rationale is that if the facility were not available, accumulation and possible diversion of hazardous waste into illegal disposal alternatives would threaten the environment much more than operation of the plant. This case study illustrates an ecological approach to risk assessment and an attempted culturally sensitive approach to risk management. Incidents in which people are exposed to toxic substances do not occur in a social vacuum. Risk management strategies must be adapted to groups with different cultural values and expectations. Community and individual responses to such incidents, and the development of health advisory messages, may depend on presenting information on exposure and risk in terms consistent with cultural patterns among subpopulations in the community.

This case study demonstrates how water scientists can shift standard methods for water sampling to include marginalized communities as partners in ethical research. This case argues that water inequities are magnified when participation in scientific inquiry limits the participation of certain groups of people. It used hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) testing as part of a larger project tracking water purity practice patterns, responses, and research recommendations of the hydro-socially marginalized people—the people who face not only physical, but also political barriers to water. The methodological innovation draws from engaged ethnography to enable Delhi’s water-poor to sample their own water. In doing so, community members become active partners who can better direct scientific inquiry. Their participation as active partners further empowers them as water stakeholders. It reveals how everyday small-scale cooperative projects became catalysts to inclusive governance.

On 16 October 1996, a malfunction at the Swan Hills Special Waste Treatment Center (SHSWTC) in Alberta, Canada, released an undetermined quantity of persistent organic pollutants to the atmosphere, including PCBs, PCDDs and PCDFs. The circumstances of exposure are detailed in Part 1, Background and Policy Issues. An ecologically based, staged health risk assessment was conducted in two parts with two levels of government as sponsors. The first, called the Swan Hills Study, is described in this part, which was conducted by the Government of Alberta to evaluate the human health risks, primarily by determining contaminant levels in wild game and fish and in serum of residents of the area to reflect body burden. A diet and activity survey was conducted by telephone to determine and to inform an initial advisory on consumption of country foods. A subsequent evaluation, called the Lesser Slave Lake Study, focused exclusively on Aboriginal residents in the area and is presented in Part 3 of this case study. Because this is a case study and not a research report, the findings are presented as they became available at the time of the study.

On 16 October 1996, a malfunction at the Swan Hills Special Waste Treatment Center (SHSWTC) in Alberta, Canada, released an undetermined quantity of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into the atmosphere, including polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, and furans. The circumstances of exposure are detailed in Part 1, Background and Policy Issues. An ecologically based, staged health risk assessment was conducted in two parts with two levels of government as sponsors. The first, called the Swan Hills Study, is described in Part 2. A subsequent evaluation, described here in Part 3, was undertaken by Health Canada and focused exclusively on Aboriginal residents in three communities living near the lake, downwind, and downstream of the SHSWTC of the area. It was designed to isolate effects on members living a more traditional Aboriginal lifestyle. Aboriginal communities place great cultural emphasis on access to traditional lands and derive both cultural and health benefits from “country foods” such as venison (deer meat) and local fish. The suspicion of contamination of traditional lands and the food supply made risk management exceptionally difficult in this situation. The conclusion of both the Swan Hills and Lesser Slave Lake studies was that although POPs had entered the ecosystem, no effect could be demonstrated on human exposure or health outcome attributable to the incident. However, the value of this case study is in the detail of the process, not the ultimate dimensions of risk. The findings of the Lesser Slave Lake Study have not been published previously and are incomplete.

Although the United States has been stimulating well production with hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) 1 since the 1940s [ 1 ], high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) combined with horizontal drilling is a relatively recent [ 2 , 3 ] development with potential to adversely impact human health [ 4 ], environment [ 5 ], and water resources [ 6 ], with uncertainty about impacts and gaps in the data on HVHF compared to conventional drilling techniques [ 7 ]. Part of protecting environmental and public health is identifying potential risks before licenses are issued and drilling operations proceed. To this end, two case studies, focusing on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedures of California and New York, are analyzed in this paper. Both states have histories of strong environmental protection law and policy [ 8 – 10 ] and legally require an EIA to be conducted before development of HVHF sites [ 11 , 12 ], an outgrowth of the 1969 federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). New York State conducted what appears to be a thorough EIA [ 13 ] and concluded that as there were too many gaps in the data on HVHF, fracking could not proceed. California’s EIA, which was less extensive, and did not consider health impacts [ 14 ], concluded that HVHF could proceed , relatively unabated. A comparison of these cases illustrates that the processes designed to ensure adequate identification, monitoring, and assessment of environmental impacts are prone to differences [ 15 ]—an outcome of the fact that laws governing HVHF in the US are not consistent across, nor controlled at, the federal level [ 16 , 17 ].

In April 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC agreed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to delay indefinitely a lawsuit over the Agency’s regulation governing mercury pollution from power plants. Lawyers for the EPA argued that they needed time to evaluate the status of the lawsuit, due to “the recent change in Administration.” The case, Murray v. EPA , centers on the Agency’s analysis of the benefits of reducing mercury pollution. Key to that litigation is the EPA’s treatment of co-benefits—the incidental reductions to pollutants aside from mercury. As of this writing, the Agency has still not decided how to proceed. This case summarizes the EPA’s 2011 Regulatory Impact Analysis at the heart of the legal dispute. 1

The government of Kenya has been trying to expand the electricity grid for decades, with little success—80% of Kenyans are still living without access to the grid. An alternative solution, off-grid solar lighting products, such as solar lanterns and solar home systems, increasingly provide Kenyans with decentralized clean energy. Kenya’s private sector market for off-grid solar lighting products has been developing since the 1980s, yet the key to rapid market growth was the introduction of a pioneering pay-as-you-go business model in 2011 that made solar products affordable for poor rural customers. Today, with almost 30% of all off-grid households using some type of off-grid solar lighting products, Kenya is a market leader. Other factors that have encouraged market growth include the massive need for power in areas where grid electricity is not available, the high cost and unreliability of grid power where it is available, a value-added tax exemption on solar products, numerous education and awareness campaigns, and expensive kerosene. However, poor quality products present a major challenge. This challenge will have to be overcome for the market to reach its full potential and to ensure that these products represent an effective and lasting lighting solution.

The natural gas industry is a boon to the economy of the United States and will continue to expand in the following decades. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking), however, produces much waste and it must be determined how to dispose of unwanted byproducts of natural gas drilling, such as produced wastewater, solid scale, and oil. Radionuclides such as uranium were deposited in the Marcellus Shale millions of years ago and are now being returned to the surface in produced water from fracking. The presence of radionuclides creates a policy conflict between laws that protect public health and the economics of disposing of produced water. This case study will help readers understand how geologic history, hydrology, and present policy are intricately related in Pennsylvania. It will address possible methods for handling wastewater—storage, reuse, treatment, injection wells, and transport—and the degree to which state and federal policies protect drinking water from produced water. In addition, the Radium Girls factory case from California helps readers consider how the mode of exposure matters for the effects of human contact with radionuclides. Students of environmental policy will be better able to understand the linkages between policy and the physical sciences.

In this case, we map the issues that arise across the life cycle in “green” technologies such as wind turbines, electric cars, and electronics that are often hidden from the designers, manufacturers, and users of these technologies. We do this by focusing on some life cycle issues of using rare earth elements (REEs) in these technologies. We attend to the geopolitical issues of sourcing these rare earth materials, as well as the environmental and health effects of extracting them from the earth through mining and smelting and disposing or recycling them at life’s end. Our goal is to begin unpacking the difficult choices that manufacturers (and governments) must think through as they endeavor to improve both the design of sustainable technologies and the production of materials used in these products.

This pedagogical project examined how embedding an interdisciplinary case study in an undergraduate ecology course impacted student learning outcomes. Specifically, we examined learning outcomes following participation in a group-based case study project, which asked students to adopt the role of an expert phycologist, microbiologist, agronomist, or limnologist in order to jointly investigate the problem of eutrophication in Lake Erie. We examined student learning outcomes on exam questions that tested students’ knowledge of eutrophication compared to their performance on exam questions that tested knowledge of course content taught using traditional lecture-based methods. We also examined how students’ recognition of the value of interdisciplinary approaches to solving science problems changed across the semester, as well as changes in students’ views of the ways in which the skills and knowledge of their major could contribute to solving eutrophication problems and the complex problem of climate change. Results indicated significant increases in student understanding of eutrophication through comparisons of pre- and posttest scores, and dramatic twofold increases in student learning on the eutrophication exam questions relative to the content taught using traditional instructional methods. Interestingly, at the end of the course, the non-science majors in the course were more likely to endorse interdisciplinary approaches for solving complex science problems than were the science majors in the course. Implications for educational practices for both major and nonmajor science courses are discussed.

On January 9, 2014, 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM), a chemical used to process coal, spilled into West Virginia’s Elk River and contaminated the drinking water of over 300,000 people. In the following weeks, the public uncovered a series of institutional failures—among the private sector, local utilities, and government agencies—preceding and following the spill. This case study introduces students to the institutional complexities and ecological vulnerabilities that slowed and confounded response to the disaster due to an unclear chain of responsibility across sectors. This case study also assesses how West Virginia residents and agencies perceived the environmental risk and the responsibility of different institutional agencies and how these perceptions added to the complexity and uncertainty surrounding response to the spill. This case study aims to teach students how risk assessment and perception interact with environmental governance.

In 2014, volunteers in Santa Barbara County, California, collected over 20,000 signatures in three weeks to qualify an anti-fracking initiative for the November election. The initiative, Measure P, met over six million dollars in opposition from oil corporations. Despite mobilizing 1,000 volunteers, the proponents of the measure failed to garner enough votes for success. Drawing on 43 in-depth interviews and participant observation with environmental groups before, during, and after the campaign, this article examines the strengths and weaknesses of grassroots organizing behind Measure P. Organizers, especially during the signature drive, successfully garnered broad-based support in the southern part of the county, an affluent and tourist-dependent area with no onshore oil drilling. Messages based on water, made more salient by California's historic drought, resonated with many residents. Yet, after qualifying for the ballot, proponents of the campaign allied with the local Democratic Party, changing their organizing practices and forestalling bipartisan support. Outreach to Latinos in all areas of the county, and particularly in the northern part, where onshore drilling takes place, was limited. Finally, the overwhelming inequality between the financial power of proponents and the oil industry influenced the outcome. Based on this case, I argue that coalition building and groundwork to develop support within all sectors of communities, especially those most dependent on fossil fuel extraction, is critical to strengthening grassroots efforts that challenge the energy status quo.