Environmental

Article Critique

This paper is a critic of two articles that are “Clean and social risks: Defensive National Environmental Policy Act in the US Forest Service” and “Hydraulic Fracturing and Safe Drinking Water Act Issues”. The first article that is “Clean and social risks: Defensive National Environmental Policy Act in the US Forest Service” is well written, organizes and addresses it issues in a proper way. The arrangement of topics in the article is systematic and adequately gets researched for the target audience. The article clearly describes the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) legislation and the issues arising from the NEPA documentation. The second article of the paper “Hydraulic Fracturing and Safe Drinking Water Act Issues” is also well researched and documented. The research covers the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of the United States, the hydraulic fracturing method used in initiating oil and gas production and the potential concerns arising on groundwater and drinking water supplies.

NEPA legislation is a wide national framework that aims at protecting the environment and requires federal government agencies to evaluate the environmental effects resulting from any of their proposed actions before decision-making or implementing decisions. The proposal actions that lead to invoking of the provisions of NEPA include buildings, highways, military complexes, airports and other federal actions. The NEPA requirements cover making decisions on permit applications and the adoption of federal land management actions. The article covers these regulations that offer a spectrum of alternative analytical pathways for federal departments that propose activities affecting the human environment. NEPA comprises of Title 1 and Title II. Title I of NEPA requires the involved department to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as well as an Environmental Assessment (EA) of the proposed action. It ensures that the implementation of the activity will ensure that man and nature co-exist in productive harmony. Title II of NEPA creates the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) which serves as an oversight agency for the NEPA provision.

SDWA legislation aims at protecting and monitoring the public drinking water resources throughout the United States. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for setting the standards for drinking water quality. It also gets involved in executing different technical and financial programs that enhance drinking water safety throughout the nation. Most of these drinking water systems and supplies and nearly all rural residents, obtain drinking water from underground sources. Therefore, SDWA requires the EPA to regulate all underground injection of fluids so as to protect the underground sources of water.

The first article recognizes that the President’s Council on Environmental Quality recommends that the decision to create an EIS that entails massive analysis should get founded on the potentially significant impacts. The findings from an Internet survey with US Forest Service Project, however, state that the decision should get based on process-related risks such as the threat of litigation, perceived defensibility in court and the level interest from the public and political arena towards the activity. A research of judicial decisions in NEPA-related litigation indicates that EISs are not more defensible than EAs in lawsuits (Mortimer, Stern, Malmsheimer, Blahna, Cerveny & Seesholtz, 2011). The article ““Hydraulic Fracturing and Safe Drinking Water Act Issues” gets concerned with hydraulic fracturing technique and its effects on underground water resources. Hydraulic fracturing gets used to stimulate oil production from wells in declining oil reservoirs. It gets done by digging a well and then injecting large volumes of water, sand and specialized chemicals under sufficient pressure o fracture the formations enclosing oil and gas. The enhanced use of this method has raised concerns about the potential effects of groundwater and drinking water supplies, thus necessitating for enhanced state and federal oversight of this actions. From the enactment of this SDWA law, hydraulic fracturing did not get regulated by EPA hence triggering debate and lawsuit over the regulation of the method under SDWA. The court rejected EPA’s claim that SDWA allowed it to control only those wells whose principal function was the injection of fluids into the ground. The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2011 (FRAC) amended the SDWA in which underground injection would include hydraulic fracturing. Fracturing Regulations are Effective in State Hands Act (FRESH Act) got amended that the state had the sole authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing on federal lands within boundaries of the state (Tiemann & Vann, 2012

The present day decision making regarding NEPA documentation got misguided resulting in unnecessary project expenditures and project delays. In most proposed actions, EIS does not accomplish the NEPA provisions to safeguard the environment. Also, the regulation of hydraulic fracturing under the SDWA would likely have implications concerning environmental benefits and impact on oil and gas producers as well as state and federal regulators. It would also lead to improved public health and improved quality of drinking water. Allowing the states to regulate hydraulic fracturing and excluding it from SDWA is significant in ensuring safe drinking water. These regulations have affected the number of hydraulic fracturing wells that have got dug in different states.

References

Mortimer, M. J., Stern, M. J., Malmsheimer, R. W., Blahna, D. J., Cerveny, L. K., & Seesholtz, D. N. (2011): Environmental and social risks: Defensive National Environmental Policy Act in the US Forest Service. Journal of Forestry, 109(1), 27-33.

Tiemann, M., & Vann, A. (2012, July): Hydraulic Fracturing and Safe Drinking Water Act Issues. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in research paper company if you need a similar paper you can place your order for pre written essays.