REBA luncheon

Yesterday I attended a luncheon of the Real Estate Bar Association's Environmental Committee, to hear Arleen O'Donnell, the new acting commissioner of MassDEP, speak briefly. She was energetic, attentive to questions and feedback, and had many interesting things to say.

One of the things we discussed was illegal dumping. At the time, I was already thinking about the common difficulties states and the international community face: for example, storm runoff isn't generally subject to Clean Water Act NPDES requirements, and the impact of that same kind of regulatory gap exists in the international arena as well, only it's between nations rather than between states. How can you reach into a state and effectively control this kind of source without infringing upon their sovereignty?

So, it made for an interesting resonance on U.S. states and nations and their common difficulties when I saw an article on illegal dumping this morning, after yesterday's discussion, about petrochemical waste dumped in Ivory Coast. (Residents complained about the smell of hydrogen sulfide (rotten eggs), leading to the discovery, and -- this is interesting -- two executives of the Dutch company that owned the dumping tanker were arrested.)