Offshore wind decommissioning regulations and workflows in the Outer Continental Shelf United States

Decommissioning regulations for offshore renewable energy facilities require that all facilities be removed and the seafloor cleared of all obstructions at the end of the life of the lease. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the expected workflows and stages of decommissioning that are likely to arise for offshore wind farms, to describe the exposure and liability of the parties involved and to compare offshore wind and oil and gas decommissioning. An alternative method for turbine removal is proposed which, if feasible, will reduce decommissioning cost. The objectives of a bonding program are motivated and discussed.     

Ecosystem response to regulatory and management actions: The southern California experience in long-term monitoring

Billions of dollars have been invested over the past 35 years in reducing pollutant emissions to coastal environments. Evaluation of the effectiveness of this investment is hampered by the lack of long-term consistent data. A rare opportunity exists in southern California to evaluate the effectiveness of management actions by analyzing long-term monitoring of effluent, sediment, benthos, and fish and comparing this trend data to periodic regional surveys of environmental condition. In this paper, we ask the question “have improvements in effluent quality in response to environmental regulation translated into improvements in the receiving environment?” Results indicate that management actions directed at reducing mass emissions from wastewater treatment plants (POTWs) have resulted in substantial improvement in aquatic communities. However, the magnitude and timing of response varies by indicator suggesting that use of multiple assessment endpoints is necessary to adequately interpret trends. Reductions in the effect of POTW effluent have allowed managers to shift resources to address other contaminant sources such as stormwater and resuspension of legacy pollutants.     

Undermining the Integrated Maritime Policy

The European Union’s Integrated Maritime Policy is intended in part to co-ordinate sectoral policies, to achieve joined-up thinking and action and overcome the inconsistency between policy approaches that has led to the degradation of European seas. An integrated governance would be relatively straight-forward if the different interests and actors were operating on the basis of shared values, but they are not. While the fisheries sector, whether large or small-scale, is driven by a commercial imperative which tends towards the greatest extraction of the resource possible, environmentalists would champion the removal of all human impacts, other than redress activity, as the optimum state for the ecosystem. However, the greatest impediment to an integrated approach is the failure to subject the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy to the objectives of the Integrated Maritime Policy. Instead, all decisions concerning fisheries will continue to be made in accordance with the Fisheries Regulation which demands exploitation of the fragile resource. Attention needs to be given to how EU fisheries policy is to acquire values beyond that of commercial extraction for immediate economic benefit so that it may cohere with objectives of the Integrated Maritime Policy and aid the regeneration of the seas.     

A comfortable night out? Alcohol, drunkenness and inclusive town centres

The Licensing Act (2003) was enacted in England and Wales against the backdrop of media concern about 'binge Britain' and violent town centres avoided by 'social drinkers'. This paper responds to these concerns by asking how to create more inclusive urban centres at night. Findings from focus groups found it was not alcohol consumption or a reluctance to partake in urban life that was detracting residents. Using the notion of 'comfort', the paper instead reveals a strong desire for varied late-night experiences ranging from quiet local venues, to active streets and live venues.     

Out of administrative control: Absentee owners, resident elk and the shifting nature of wildlife management in southwestern Montana

This paper describes the historical roots of an ongoing wildlife management dilemma involving decreasing opportunities for elk management via public hunting on private land in the context of an expanding elk presence on private land in southwest Montana. Our main focus is on the role of private ranchland in elk ecology, and the ability of land owners to set elk migration in new directions through cumulative decisions about hunting and tolerating elk. This takes elk management, traditionally the purview of the state, out of administrative control. We document connections between the region’s historical and emerging land tenure patterns, and analyze associated changes in hunter access. Elk numbers expanded rapidly in the Upper Yellowstone Valley at a moment of significant transition in ranchland tenure. New owners more interested in natural amenities than in livestock production encouraged the elk and discouraged hunting. This reinforced the spread of elk, and further weakened the ability of the state and other ranchers to manage elk (which interfere with livestock production in numerous ways). Though elk and cattle use the landscape in similar ways, elk became more effective agents of landscape change in a reflexive relationship with ideas of land that stress natural amenities over production.