Power, Pollution and Public Policy: Issues in Electric Power Production, Shoreline Recreation and Air and Water Pollution Facing New England and the Nation

This book responds in a concrete way to some of the most pressing problem areas facing contemporary society-electric power generation, environmental pollution, and land use management. An outgrowth of an interdisciplinary research project at M.I.T., it addresses specific conflicts that arise as population and industrialization continue to increase within the finite physical environment. The book takes a comprehensive view of the resulting difficulties and approaches their analysis from a wide range of interacting economic, political, technical, social, and legal perspectives. Beyond the analysis, a series of proposals are set forth that are aimed at making a substantive contribution to the fight against continuing degradation of the overall human environment. Chosen as focal points for this study were: power-plant siting, sulfur oxide air pollution, water pollution from municipal sewage, and coastal land use for recreation. The book is organized into six chapters, the first of which describes the generalized economic and political framework governing allocative decisions with regard to air, land, and water resources. The second chapter explores a new technological development-the offshore concept-that promises to alleviate many of the short-term problems associated with power-plant siting. Chapter three deals with the impending crisis in shoreline recreation, outlining a new political framework within which valuable coastal land can be managed. The fourth chapter examines in depth the sulfur oxide air-pollution situation, analyzing alternative control schemes and proposing a dynamic methodology for control at the national and local levels. The serious water-pollution problem in Boston Harbor is investigated in the fifth chapter, which focuses on the degrading effects of untreated sludge discharged from municipal treatment facilities. The final chapter outlines a hypothetical regional government for the New England area designed to deal with the emerging class of problems-such as the ones discussed in the preceding chapters-that transcend state and local jurisdictional boundaries.Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Interdepartmental Student Project in Systems Engineering Staff is the author of 'Power, Pollution and Public Policy: Issues in Electric Power Production, Shoreline Recreation and Air and Water Pollution Facing New England and the Nation', published 1971 under ISBN 9780262040365 and ISBN 0262040360.