Three Environmental Lessons

Robert Verchick is Gauthier-St. Martin Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University and has a new book, Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World (2010).  In the book, he argues for a new perspective on disaster law that is based on the principles of environmental protection.

Regardless of where the next "Big One" might be - - provided below is a brief outline of the three simple commands according to Verchick that can guide policy-makers in preparing for future catastrophes, whether in the U.S. or the rest of the world:

1. Go Green - - "Going green" means minimizing physical exposure to geographic hazards by preserving natural buffers against them and integrating those buffers into artificial systems like levees or seawalls.  Coastal wetlands, for instance, dampen storm surge and can increase the effectiveness of levees and seawalls.  Healthy first-growth forests help contain the spread of wildfires and protect against floods and landslides.  Going green also means respecting the limits of natural geography by discouraging new development in areas that expose people and assets to unreasonable risk.
2. Be Fair - - "Being Fair" means looking after the public health, safety, and environmental in ways that promote distributed fairness and that do not increase personal and social vulnerabilities.  In nearly every disaster, it is the poor and other vulnerable groups who suffer most.  Disaster response polices must pay particular attention to the needs of the poor, racial minorities, women, children, the elderly, and the infirm.  Most generally, reforms in health care, housing, employment, and education are needed to reduce the preexisting vulnerabilities of these struggling groups.
3. Keep Safe - - "Keeping safe" means assessing and managing risk in ways that capture the full spectrum of values at stake in the context of preparing for catastrophic harm.  Too often, important environmental or engineering decisions are made according to economic models that emphasize cost savings or commercial development but downplay public safety.  In designing the New Orleans levee system, for instance, the Army Corps regulations allowed engineers to consider the "benefit" to real estate developers of opening new land for development but not estimates of avoided fatalities.  Had the latter been considered,  a higher standard of safety (and higher government expenditures) could have been justified.  The levees that protect thousands of people in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California share the same design limitations.  Stronger precautionary ideas should be applied to many areas of disaster preparation, including storm modeling, municipal building codes, and land use planning.