Blog

My plan for Water Quality Standards (WQS) regulatory reform in 1981 was to re-promulgate reformed WQS and Water Quality Management (WQM) regulations first, then issue a stand-alone Federal Register notice proposing the use of whole effluent toxicity testing. Both were...

Here, I analyze the fundamental flaws of EPA’s Superfund Program, how it was carried out and the enormous transaction costs and time it took to get to actual cleanup of a toxic waste disposal site. Also, how to fix Superfund. Superfund promoted a 100% solution where...

Photo source: National Archives   Administrator Gorsuch was the fourth administrator of the EPA. During her administration, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was signed into effect; schools began to be tested for the presence of asbestos; the Valley of the Drums...

Photo source: https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/biography-william-d-ruckelshaus-first-term.html   Insights into the reign of William D. Ruckelhaus, the first Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 1970 to 1973 under President...

Here are a few backstories on environmental elitism and lobbying efforts in the Reagan era.   Book excerpts:   By the time of the Reagan Administration, the political forces around the environment had crystallized into two decidedly different philosophies....

Below I chronologize EPA’s first Administrator’s imprint on EPA’s command-and-control enforcement.   Book excerpts:   At EPA’s inception, William Ruckelshaus took steps to meet the most imperative issue “which was establishing the credibility of the agency...

In many ways, pollution control was a political football.   Book excerpts:   We were being hoisted on our own petard by a bunch of unaccountable White House bureaucrats assigned to OMB. There was no meaningful standard operating procedures and information...

Photo description: London Dumping Convention January 1983 What was the blowback from the regulated community resulting from the 1980 presidential election?   Book Excerpts:   By the time of the Reagan Administration, EPA had earned a reputation with many...

Here's a closer look behind the organization — the mindset and rationale of the agency.   Book excerpts:   Jack Ravan (my boss and regional administrator in Region 4, Atlanta) was one political patronage appointee with no background or training whatsoever...

In Eric’s office that overlooked the Capitol dome with Dr. Tudor Davies Here I share insights into the top-down EPA hierarchy of the early 1980s...   Book excerpts:   Little did I realize at the time that organization and key management decisions, including...

Here's a peek behind the scenes in the heady days of the Reagan years.   Book excerpts:   Hubris is the bane of all new political appointees who feel they have all the answers and their predecessors did everything wrong. Having all the answers but not...

Here I share snippets of opinion and interesting viewpoints from the book. Enjoy!   Book excerpts:   My father always joked, “You pull the chain, we do the rest.” As the son of a sanitary engineer who cast a big shadow, I had to define myself, what kind of a...

Photo credit and permission © George Dow, courtesy of Bradford Washburn Family Collection. All rights reserved. The Washburns In 1959, my parents shipped me off to New England to escape the racism of the Deep South and to get a “real education.” Through my mother’s...

  A Personal Note In a three-year period, I replaced the gas-fired heating system in my residence, my daughter’s residence, and two income properties. My guilt as an environmental engineer is that I could not find an alternative electric powered heating system. I...

Here I engage in my own vanity by explaining my journey as an adult spanning more than 58 years. I referred to it earlier in my book as a “sheer strake,” a nautical term describing the arc of the lines of a ship from stem to stern. The shape and configuration of a...