so on. It is definitely time to recouple the house of man and the house of 

 nature and assess and manage them as one integrated ecosystem. 



In recent months the writing of environmental impact statements, as 

 required by NEPA, has been criticized in the pages of Science and other 

 professional magazines as being superficial and exercises of bureaucratic 

 futility. As I see it, current impact assessment is not so much bad or inadequate 

 science as it is wrong-level applied science, a viewpoint that has not been 

 emphasized in recent discussions of the subject. In other words, if NEPA is to 

 survive the economic and poUtical pressure of the future, assessment must 

 evolve as rapidly as possible from the present largely descriptive component 

 approach to a more holistic approach which combines the use of broad 

 ecosystem-level indices of structure and function with specific local or 

 population factors (i.e., "red fiags") that are of special public concern (such as 

 fish or game, or an endangered species). Also, economic and ecologic 

 considerations must be integrated, not undertaken as separate studies without 

 common denominators. This can be done, and if I had time I could describe 

 two cases where we were successful in such a merger. (Write me and I'll send 

 reprints.) 



Finally, the impact-assessor and the decision-maker should be part of the 

 same team, or at least sit around the same table to review all the alternatives. In 

 other words, a good assessment cannot be made piecemeal any more than one 

 can understand water or a coral reef by component study alone. 



So much for general theory; now for some suggestions for EPA and 

 Directors of EPA laboratories. In pursuing its mission to reduce and control 

 pollufion, EPA has so far concentrated efforts in two areas: (1) monitoring 

 technology, designed to determine the what, where, and how much of 

 undesirable inputs into our environment, and (2) control technology and 

 regulations designed to roll back the tide of effluents wliich threaten our health 

 and the quality of our life. These efforts, of course, are appropriate and need 

 to be continued without let-up, but they are essentially negative in approach 

 since they indicate to industry and to people in general what they must not do, 

 but not what they can do. I believe the time has come to add two positive 

 dimensions to the menu; namely, (1) waste-management systems that couple 

 in-house waste treatment with the assimilatory capacity of surrounding natural 

 ecosystems that serve as the ultimate tertiary treatment plants, and (2) a 

 merging of ecologic and economic assessments, along lines mentioned in my 

 earher review of theory so as to demonstrate what we all believe to be true; 

 namely, that the economic return of clean environments is greater than the 

 short-term gains that may result from ignoring or postponing pollution 

 abatement. 



VI 



