Geologic, Hydrologic, and Urban Hazards for Design in Desert Environments - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 105

environmental laws on development activities by private sector. In practice, the fragmen-
tation of government oversight of environmental regulations is not resulted in a seamless
operation, and an uneven application and enforcement of environmental standards occurs
in certain districts. In addition, conflicts within the government agencies over enforcement
activities may lead to inaction in some instances.
Contaminants of water, air, and land are divided into two major categories based on how
they are released into the environment and thus how they are regulated. The first category
is called point source pollutants, which are those pollutants that have a fixed location and
known type and quantity of release into the environment. Point source locations can be
power plants, factories, or industrial sites; construction sites with high off-site production
of dust or sediment can also be considered as point sources. They are often required to
apply for a permit to the EPA or other regulatory agencies and have stringent reporting
requirements to quantify the amount of pollutants released into the environment.
The second category of release is called non-point source pollution, where releases are
either from a mobile source or are otherwise widely dispersed into the air, land, or water.
These releases are harder to regulate because the location or operator that released the
pollutant cannot be directly identified from the point of contamination. An example is the
dust production from dirt roads maintained by several jurisdictions or private parties in
a county. Cases of nonpoint source pollution have resulted in lengthy legal challenges to
hold private parties accountable for diffuse releases of pollutants that have proven to be
difficult to litigate and require establishing a burden of proof on an operator to prosecute
this type of violation.
The federal government plays a large role in the regulation of environmental laws in
the United States through agencies such as the EPA, the Department of Transportation,
the Department of Homeland Security, and others. Of the numerous federal laws that
deal with definitions, descriptions, and cleanup of pollution and contamination, we
believe that the most important are the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA)*; the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA);
the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act; the Clean Water Act
(CWA); the Clean Air Act; Toxic Substance Control Act; and the Hazardous Material
Transportation Act. † In addition, state, county, and local laws and ordinances that attempt
to address and manage environmental contamination and pollution issues are too numer-
ous to list in a brief overview. In the following section, each environmental concern is
discussed in general terms, and we stress that whole volumes have been written on each
of these subjects. Our goal is to provide basic information that some planners or designers
may find useful for discussion or consideration.
5.7.2 Mining Pollution
In the arid and semiarid parts of the United States, particularly in Arizona, parts of
California, Nevada, and New Mexico, mining has been a vital and essential part of the
economy since settlement. Mining can be subdivided by substrate into hard-rock and soft-
rock sources and by technique: strip mining, surface mining, and subsurface mining. The
impacts vary according to the quality of the material that is extracted, whether it is pro-
cessed onsite or transported to a processing facility, and the type of processing that is
* http://www.epa.gov/waste/inforesources/online/index.htm (accessed June 28, 2010).
† http://ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/briefingbooks/laws/e.cfm(accessed June 25, 2010). Another excellent
source of information is Environmental Law Handbook . 49