A Real "Super" Conference

The Seventeenth Annual Texas Environmental SuperConference has advance and gone - and greatest in quantity of the 525-plus registrants can hardly wait to acquire back and eat more ice cream - er listen to more great prelections as they gain continuing legal education credits, laugh hysterically at the skits, be delighted with the Four Seasons atmosphere and provisions and get ready for August vacations.

Seriously, there was a great deal of to be learned at this year's occurrence which featured a keynote articulate utterance from EPA General Counsel (and Texan) Ann Klee Klee who doubted her ability to recreate the character of awe Woman, nevertheless was quite astounding as she explained her mission as bringing clear communication (rather than the traditional obfuscation) to her office to explain EPA's rationale for taking specific actions as well as to demonstrate by what means those decisions were based upon science and what uncertainties remained.

above the past four years, Klee said, EPA has made extraordinary gains from one side innovation, flexibility, and collaboration with state agencies, regulated entities, and public interest and environmental assemblages Her vision is bringing EPA staffers together to reach on the outside broadly to those affected through the agency's policies and practices. A major obstacle to EPA's continued succes (though others would diocese this as a great opportunity) is that a whopping 40% of EPA staffers are eligible to retire within the nearest four years, many of whom have worked for EPA since its early days in the 1970's.

Klee is excited about accelerating environmental protection end technology partnerships that can bring certainty and flexibility to the regulatory proces She is hopeful that Congres will enact the President's Clear Skies Initiative into law and self-conscious of EPA's methane to markets initiative that is spreading worldwide. A wise regulatory scheme will be a catalyst for technological advancement, bringing of the like kind benefits as clean energy sources, improvements in water infrastructure, and potency development.

Klee says EPA and state agencies should expand voluntary initiatives in the way that that landowners, for example, can better participate in wetlands protection (and wildlife protection as well). Voluntary initiatives are 20 times more effective as the command and ascendency Section 404 regulations, she observ Klee also pointed to a higher horizontal of corporate responsibility as a harbinger of a cleaner world to draw near Automakers, for example, are working to displace mercury switches from vehicles (and to encourage cherry picking of these switches from vehicles being junked) to lower hermes limits in landfills.

Klee also noted that litigation is holding up implementation of the Clean Air hermes Rule and parts of the Clean Air Interstate lordship both of which will dramatically bring emissions of harmful air pollutants to historic depresseds EPA is also hard at work implementing of recent origin federal standards for fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone and for stormwater runoff. She also discussed ongoing fights above EPA's decision not to regulate carbon dioxide as a criteria pollutant and the debate over ballast water regulation.

Harris shire Attorney's Office pollution czarina Cathy Sisk (who attorney John Riley teasingly said began her legal practice in 1940 - before she was born) spoke glowingly about local conduct enforcement of environmental regulations. The impact of her talk was brought residence to this reporter as he lunched with newly appointed environmental law specialists for the couple Willacy and Cameron Counties.

Sisk took her audience back to the 1950's, when Dr Walter Quebedeaux created Harris County's first environmental enforcement team. Dr Quebedeaux in 1953 she noted, wrote a paper about health consequences of pollution stating that industrial facilities wanted to raise the height of their emission stacks to bring pollution impacts locally. In those days, for the use of all law nuisance actions were used quite effectively against polluters

Today, Harris shire partners with the Office of the Attorney General to bring civil suits against polluter (while the Harris shire District Attorney's Office pursues environmental criminal actions) in which TCEQ is through necessity a participant. Sisk's office includes four attorneys and 28 investigators; the DA's office has three attorneys focusing upon the environment.

In fiscal 2004 Sisk noted, her office replyed to 1,950 complaints (of which 750 were odor and nuisance complaints) and issued 942 notices of violation. She sent 21 cases to the Attorney General, while the District Attorney referr 14 cases for prosecution. Violators in 2004 were assessed a total of $1730500 in civil penalties, with just $2500 of that amount going to Supplemental Environmental Projects

individual of the most interesting presentations at the conversation was on the use of 3D and 4D (adds time lapse) mapping, as explained by dint of Gavin Hudgeons, President of Austin-based e60 Vision, LLC Hudgeon explained that the traditional two-dimensional contour maps, graphs, and charts within huge paper documents often make it difficult for laymen to become knowledgeable enough upon the geological, chemical, and distributive complexities of contentious sites to become active participants in technical decision making processe Many conventional reports fail to communicate a realistic understanding of environmental conditions at of the like kind sites because people cannot diocese the problems.