ENVIRON IMPACT ASSES REV 1986:6:323--325 323

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This issue's guest editorial by Norman Marcus of Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey argues that the environmental review process, as it functions in New York, has hindered rational planning at the city-wide level. Marcus, who was for 22 years General Counsel to the New York City Department of City Planning and City Planning Commission, argues that government planning initiatives, designed to improve or replace obsolete rules, should not be subjected to the same level of analysis required for site- specific projects. As it exists, the environmental review process for such city or area-wide zoning amendments creates unnecessary delays prior to public re- view and precipitates unpredictable, ad hoc negotiating maneuvers prior to final approvals.

In the feature article, Paul Schaffman focuses on the ability of courts to deal with the complex technical issues raised by risk assessments. He suggests the use of formal guidelines to aid judges called upon to review safety decisions made by agencies. Schaffman uses a case study involving the transport of ra- dioactive materials to show the inability of an agency in one instance to separate the estimation from the evaluation of risk, and the problems encountered by the courts reviewing the assessment. The author, a Connecticut-based consultant, recently returned from a year spent working for the Environmental Negotiation Protection Service of Israel.

AGENDA for Environmental Negotiation for this issue features a discussion of a specific methodology developed to quantify water flows. Mary G. Cavendish, a water resources analyst with the Instream Flow Group of the US Fish and Wildlife Service's National Ecology Center at Fort Collins, Colorado and Mar- garet I. Duncan, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University, also in Fort Collins, demonstrate that the instream flow incremental methodology (IFIM) may be used to aid negotiation between proponents of conflicting water uses by illustrating areas of agreement. In tracing the 15-month process leading to a successful permit application, the authors conclude that the application of IFIM, and the cooperative stance of the parties were the key ingredients to the negotiation.

Also in AGENDA, Gardner Cox, Executive Director of the Environmental

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324 NOTES ON CONTENTS

Improvement Committee of the PENJERDEL Council and its sister organization, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, shares his fascinating discovery of an ancient Roman environmental impact document from 165 nc. The structure and language are strikingly comparable to those in the EIAs of today, though, notes Cox, the project, the elevated portion of the aqueduct Aqua Marcia, was completed despite attention to environmental issues (cf. Marcus in this volume).

The Social Impact Assessment department for this issue includes two articles addressing aspects of SIA directed toward the needs of Native Americans. Ed- ward W. Gondolf and Stephen R. Wells report on a non-NEPA SIA initiated by the residents of Hydaburg, Alaska. The SIA, ostensibly designed to review the impacts of a highway construction, also enabled the citizens to consider the future of their community in a broader sense. The Hydaburg SIA incorporated community-based research, cultural assessment, and advocacy mitigation. The authors believe that such modified SIAs may be developed and used as tools of self-determination by Native communities. Edward Gondolf is an associate pro- fessor of sociology at Indiana University and of research at the IUP Center for Community Affairs. Stephen Wells is a partner of CASA (Community And Systems Analysis), a consulting firm in community planning and computer analysis.

A darker picture of the adequacy of SIA for Native American communities is presented by Patrick C. Jobes, a Professor in the Depamnent of Sociology at Montana State University in Bozeman. His paper discusses the failure of SIA performed in cases of energy development near the Northern Cheyenne Reser- vation in Montana. In documenting SIA work done on the reservation, Jobes points out the ways in which standard methodologies may fail to uncover critical data. He suggests some elements essential to conducting acceptable research in the Indian community.

The findings of Jobes and of Gondolf and Wells are consistent in emphasizing the need for research methods designed to capture the uniqueness of these com- munities. Together, the two pieces demonstrate the striking difference between SIA initiated by the affected community, and by outside interests. The population studied by Jobes might consider initiating a community-based SIA, as outlined by Gondolf and Wells.

In the book review, Cheryl K. Contant reviews Ecology, Impact Assessment, and Environmental Planning, by Walter E. Westman. The reviewer concludes that Westman's text provides clear and useable summaries of currently applied concepts in environmental planning, impact assessment, and applied ecology. Westman concentrates on his own area of expertise, ecological impact assess- ment, and highlights the major legal, political and economic mechanisms in environmental decision making for ecological issues.

Readers should note the upcoming special issue on risk assessment, an in- creasingly important component in the solution of complex problems in envi-

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ronmental impact assessment. The special issue, Volume 7, Number 1, will be available in March 1987.

Teresa Hill December 1986