NEPA AND A STATE'S ROLE IN WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT¹

Abstract

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, has been called a revolutionary piece of legislation. It has changed, and is still changing the traditional ways of governmental decision‐making. NEPA has strongly influenced the field of water resources management. An environmental statement can now be seen not as a document to support or justify a plan, but an objective assessment of what environmental costs and benefits are involved. New York State has seized upon NEPA as an important feature of its environmental quality management programs and has used the opportunity to comment upon draft environmental statements under NEPA to increase its influences upon Federal decision‐making. The Department of Environmental Conservation coordinates and synthesizes all comments and provides one unified State response on a statement. At the State level, lacking a comprehensive “little NEPA”, an extensive environmental analysis program has been built by utilizing a wide spectrum of Federal and State Laws and administrative regulations.

Assessment of water security using conceptual, deterministic and stochastic frameworks

“…In the mid to late 18th Century, developers of American governance and US Constitution were heavily influenced by 'The Enlightenment Age', wherein science and political philosophy were combined so that the construction of government was perceived as an experiment (Ferris, 2010;Doyle, 2012). In this approach, experiments are often used as "pilots" in order to sell new policies and have the capacity to change as needed to reflect changes in the priorities of society (Huitema, 2009;Doyle, 2012 (Curran and King, 1974;Cardwell et al, 2006).…”