ENVIRON IMPACT ASSESS REV 1989;9:1-2 1

NOTES ON THE AUTHORS

The Viewpoint in this issue is by H. Patricia Hynes, Director of the Institute on Women and Technology and the author of a recently published book, The Re- curring Silent Spring (Pergamon Press, 1989). Hynes reveals the underlying feminist impetus behind Rachel Carson's 1962 book which was pivotal in the development of environmental consciousness worldwide. Carson wrote as a scientific insider who criticized the impact of science and technology which she saw as increasingly hostile to nature. Hynes argues that technologies developed in recent years, particularly biotechnology and the new reproductive technolo- gies, should be subject to the same standards of safety and regulation that have come to be applied to the type of intrusions in the natural cycle that Carson described.

Two feature articles are included in this issue. In the first, Nancy Stark Hasan and James R. Simmons discuss the Bloomington PCB Consent Decree, the largest hazardous waste settlement ever reached in EPA history. Under its terms, the Westinghouse Corporation must clean up four Superfund sites, five streams, a sewage treatment plant, and a county landfill. Hasan and Simmons detail many aspects of the agreement, but focus on assessing why public opposition continues by focusing on the policy process over 12 years---the eight years of out-of-court negotiations (1976-1984) and the years since the settlement was reached (1984- present). Dr. Hasan is at the Department of Political Science, the University of Washington at Seattle, and Dr. Simmons is at Iowa State University.

In the second feature article, Judith S. Weis and Leonard A. Cole discuss the rapid response of US government agencies to the dangers of tributyltin (TBT) used in the antifouling paint applied to boat hulls to inhibit the attachment of barnacles and other sea organisms. Several European countries restricted its use in the early 1980s. The warnings of US scientists prompted Congress to pass restrictive legislation in 1988, over the opposition of industry, the US Navy, and the EPA. The authors suggest that the unusually rapid action of Congress, circumventing ordinary regulatory procedures, may reflect growing impatience with environmental degradation and increased governmental action to forestall it. Dr. Weis is Professor of Zoology at Rutgers University and coordinator of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society, a joint program of Rutgers and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Leonard A. Cole is a political

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2 NOTES ON THE AUTHORS

scientist with a particular interest in science and public policy. His most recent books are Politics and the Restraint of Science (1983) and Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ Warfare Tests over Populated Areas (1988).

This issue's AGENDA for Environmental Negotiation features an article by Melissa Shapiro and Daphne de J. Gemmill reporting on a pilot project on dispute resolution for Superfund sites. They note that active community involvement in Superfund programs is integral to the EPA's overall hazardous waste cleanup program. They discuss the role of the community at several Superfund cleanup sites, and detail steps to be used to facilitate EPA and community involvement in attempting those cleanups. The authors wrote this article while researchers at the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The International Perspectives for this issue comes from Sue J. Lin Lewis, presently a visiting scholar at the Energy and Environmental Policy Center, Harvard University, on leave from her post as Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Chen Kung University. She reports on the current status and future of EIA in Taiwan. She points out that while EIAs are legally required for large-scale projects, the system needs con- siderable refinement to make it more effective. She draws special attention to the establishment of standards, to decision making, both administratively and in terms of public involvement, and to developing an adequate environmental data base and the means to communicate it.

Teresa Hill