Environmental Quality Management: An Application to the Lower Delaware Valley, by Walter O. Spofford, Jr., Clifford S. Russell, and Robert A. Kelly, describes the results of a three-year attempt to apply a residuals management model to this region. In their preface, which is excerpted here, the authors survey the history and methodological development of this project.
The first quarter of the twentieth century witnessed major improvements in the ambient environmental quality of the urban areas in this country. Air and water quality and wastewater and solid wastes disposal problems were beginning to be attacked both scientifically and extensively, primarily under the impetus of the major health-related impacts of the degraded environment. State and local public health departments played major roles in these efforts. Major technical advances occurred in the provision and treatment of water for potable and related uses and in the treatment of municipal wastewaters. Approaches to waste disposal problems were systematic, effective, and certainly native residuals management strategies that would reflect the linkages and tradeoffs among the three environmental media. It was intended from the start that the approach would be quantitative and comprehensive.
About ten years ago, explicit recognition of, and concern with, the linkages and interrelationships among forms of residuals (wastes) and among the environmental media—air, water, and land—began to grow. It had become obvious that measures taken to improve air quality sometimes exacerbated water quality problems, and vice versa, and that measures taken to improve air or water quality usually resulted in the generation of increased quantities of solid residuals that had to be handled and disposed of. In some situations, these quantities were becoming large enough, and the disposal problems difficult enough, so that increased attention was directed toward reuse and recycling.
Among the first social scientists to become concerned with the intermedia linkages were Allen Kneese and Blair Bower, director and associate director, respectively, of the Quality of the Environment Program at Resources for the Future. Both had made explicit attempts to incorporate these linkages in their analyses. Allen Kneese modified and extended general equilibrium economic models by introducing a materials balance approach, and Blair Bower organized and directed an empirical study of the New York City region that featured the importance of these linkages in residuals management. Based on the results of these two studies, as well as on earlier industry studies conducted at RFF, work began in 1968 to develop a set of quantitative techniques and methodologies for analyzing alter native residuals management strategies that would reflect the linkages and tradeoffs among the three environmental media. It was intended from the start that the approach would be quantitative and comprehensive.
In the beginning of the effort there were no bounds placed on the methodologies to be used or on the spatial and time dimensions of the analysis. However, it soon became evident during the methodological development phase that a quantitative analysis of the intermedia linkages would require us to focus on a single region. To incorporate information on the environmental impacts of various management strategies, we decided that the regional model should be designed to allow the use of both linear and nonlinear air and water quality models, including aquatic ecosystem models. Finally, we decided that the regional model should be structured as an optimization management model rather than a simulation management model because of the ability of the former to provide directly the least cost solution for any given set of conditions. Thus, in the beginning, our two major research objectives were: (1) an investigation of the importance of including the linkages among forms of residuals, and among the three environmental media, in the analysis of alternative residuals management strategies for a given region; and (2) an investigation of the potential benefits and the problems of including nonlinear ecosystem models within an optimizing type management model.
A third major research objective was to investigate ways of providing, and constraining, cost distributional information in the analysis of alternative regional residuals management strategies.
All this didactic model development was fine, but the usefulness of the approach for policy decision had not yet been demonstrated. An application in the real world was necessary, and the eleven-county Lower Delaware Valley region of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware was selected for the illustrative case study. The regional application got under way in the spring of 1972.
Previous to the empirical application phase, a number of spinoffs of the regional modeling research effort had emerged. Lack of information on important industrial dischargers in the region, such as petroleum refineries and steel mills, had proved to be a major obstacle. Therefore, in conjunction with an ongoing program of studies of water use and residuals management in industry, a major effort was undertaken at RFF to study the alternative production processes and residuals generation and discharge characteristics of these two industries. Analyses of thermal power generation had already been completed at RFF, and a study of the pulp and paper industry was well under way. The interaction between the industry studies and the regional studies at RFF stimulated increased attention to the economics for reuse and recycling, leading to four subsequent RFF studies: two dealing with the more conceptual aspects of reuse and recycling of materials, and two empirical studies—one on steel scrap and the other on used newspapers and used corrugated containers.
The Lower Delaware Valley regional modeling application took about three years, from 1972 to 1975. A major effort in the first year was placed on the development and calibration of an ecosystem model of the Delaware Estuary and on the continuation of the development of a nonlinear programming algorithm and computer "software" package for application to large-scale regional residuals management problems. In addition, a substantial amount of time was spent during the first year in locating data sources and usable data. The second year was spent primarily on the construction of production and consumption activity models. During the final year, most of the time was spent on modifications and additions to the regional model, on making production runs of the model, and on the analysis of the huge quantity of output available from the regional model.
The forthcoming report contains the results of the first set of production runs using the regional model with the RFF nonlinear aquatic ecosystem model of the Delaware Estuary.
A version of this article appeared in print in the October 1976 issue of Resources magazine.
