PUBLIC POLICY SHORT COURSE

PUBLIC POLICY SHORT COURSE
By:
Jonathan Toro
Dept. of Civil Engineering and Surveying
OUTLINE
Article: The Struggle for Puerto Rico
 Article: El Conflicto Ambiental y su Potencial
hacia un Desarrollo Alternativo: El Caso de
Puerto Rico
 Public Policy
 Sustainability
 Social Acceptance
 Case Study 1
 Case Study 2

ARTICLE: THE STRUGGLE FOR PUERTO
RICO
Published by Victor Sanchez, Tomas Morales,
and Pier Luigi Caldari in June 1975.
 Explain the high energy increased from the past
25 years and the result of the economic growth.
 The results of the environment during that
period.
 What the government has done during that
period.
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ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Increased by 15 times from 1948 to 1973.
 8.825 million metric tons of oil was consumed in
1973.
 Equaled about 40 of all the fuels imported.
 More than the total consumption in Egypt,
Algeria, Israel, Portugal, and Peru.
 Compared to the energy consumption of
Indonesia (11.6) and Pakistan (9.6).
 Per capita energy consumption increased by 11.5
times from 1949 (1.96 barrels) to 1973 (22.6
barrels).

ECONOMIC GROWTH
ECONOMIC EFFECTIVENESS
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS ARISEN
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Thermal pollution due to increased of pumping sea
water to the coast (1.12 million GPM).
In 1970, sulfur dioxide production tripled to 456,000
tons.
Released to the environment;
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135,000 tons of sulfur dioxide.
500,000 tons of carbon monoxide.
116,000 tons of hydrocarbons.
118,000 tons of nitrogen oxides.
88,000 tons of particulate matter.
More than 3,000 tons of lead.
More than 50 tons of mercury.
Considerable amounts of heavy metals and chemicals
(Vanadium, Nickel, and Vinyl Chloride)
DISCOVERY
Increased in energy consumption resulted in
steady slow economy growth.
 Environmental problems arisen as result from
increased on energy consumption.
 Tax-free industries (outside investors)
accumulated over $2 billion in earnings.
 The present (1975) island political administration
were offering the natural resources as economic
incentive.

ARTICLE: EL CONFLICTO AMBIENTAL Y SU
POTENCIAL HACIA UN DESARROLLO
ALTERNATIVO: EL CASO DE PUERTO RICO
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Published by Carmen Concepcion in 1988.
This article demonstrated the importance of human
health and the protection of the environment over
economic growth.
Factors that influenced
The lack of enforcement to comply with environmental
regulations.
 The increase in the permissible contaminant levels.
 The modification of the laws to establish and operate
industries
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The results of more complex environmental problems
led to the creation communities and organizations.
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Political and non-political.
Very active and formal.
Demanded the government to take action on the
environmental issues.
ARTICLE: EL CONFLICTO AMBIENTAL Y SU
POTENCIAL HACIA UN DESARROLLO
ALTERNATIVO: EL CASO DE PUERTO RICO
Mision Industrial is the first example of
organizations that took action regarding
environmental issues.
 Also, Cataño Unido Contra la Contaminación,
Comité Despertar Cidreño and Comité para la
Conservación del Ambiente follow the same
approach.
 Most of the environmental actions have been a
defensive reaction to government actions or
inaction by problems created from private
corporations.

PUBLIC POLICY
WHAT IS PUBLIC POLICY?
Action or inaction from individuals, groups,
societies, institutions, organizations, etc to solve
a social issue.
 This is where groups dispute for the power in to
make decisions regarding the constituents
interests.
 The Goal;

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Establish a good social, economic and
environmental public policy in development of
an infrastructure.
PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS
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Stakeholders or Constituent Analysis
 Who are the principal actors related to the project?
 What are their interests?
 What is the postulation regarding the project?
 How can we predict their behavior?
 How they visualize the project?
Project Insight
 Is it economical, environmental or community related ?
 What is the information that come from the different
stakeholders?
PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS

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Implementation
 How the regulated agencies promote or reject the
project?
 What factors are against the viability of the project?
 How can they reach to a feasible solution?
Evaluation
 How the efficiency and effectiveness of the project is
evaluated?
 What are the appropriate procedures to reach to that
efficiency and effectiveness of the project?
SUSTAINABILITY
WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?
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A political system that guarantee the citizens to
participate effectively in every decision process.
Economic system capable to generate excess and
technical knowledge in a auto sufficient manner and
sustainable.
Social system that provides solutions to the
consequences of a bad development.
Productive system that respect and preserve the
ecological base in the development.
A technological system that look for continuous new
solutions.
An international system that promote sustainable
commerce and finance.
An administrative system flexible to auto-correct.
SUSTAINABLE CONFLICT
SUSTAINABILITY DEVELOPMENT LAW IN
PUERTO RICO
(Ley num. 267 del 10 de Septiembre de 2004)
“La estrategia de desarrollo sostenible de Puerto
Rico debe reconocer la necesidad de una nueva
visión que tome en consideración el ambiente y los
recursos naturales que le sirven de base: en
particular, en lo relacionado al uso de tierras y el
recurso agua, la transportación, la producción de
energía; el manejo de los desperdicios sólidos y
líquidos; y el manejo de nuestra zona costera.
Debemos apoyar que nuestro desarrollo económico
continúe, pero en forma sostenible, para
asegurarnos de que el costo de ese desarrollo no sea
la excesiva degradación y destrucción del ambiente
y los recursos naturales o la injusticia social.”
SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE
WHAT IS SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE?
SOCIO-POLITICAL ACCEPTANCE
Is the most general level.
 From global to local scale.
 Policies and technologies can be subject to it.
 The aspect that most rely to be a successful
project. (Where most projects failed to convince)
 Depends on key stakeholders and policy makers
to stimulate the collaboration in the decision
making.

COMMUNITY ACCEPTANCE
Specific acceptance of siting decisions by local
stakeholders, particularly residents and local
authorities.
 Where NIMBYism unfolds, and people allow the
project as long is not in their own backyard.
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Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY)
Usually follows a U-curve level of acceptance
From high to low acceptance during the siting phase.
 From low to high acceptance once the project is up
and running.
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Mostly influenced by outcome fairness, outcome
favorability and process fairness.
MARKET ACCEPTANCE
The process of market adoption of an innovation.
 The adoption of innovative products by
consumers through communication with early
adopters.
 Apply both as consumer and investor.
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Supply and demand.
Linked with social-political acceptance due to
high influence in politic decisions.
SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE ANALYSIS
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SHTEFIE
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S – Social
H – Health
T – Technological
E – Economic
F – Financial
I – Institutional
E – Environmental
Developed by Richard Franceys, Margaret Ince
and others.
 A tool to analyze development programmes.

CASE STUDY 1: ENERGY ANSWERS
ARECIBO RESOURCE RECOVERY PROJECT
BY ENERGY ANSWERS INTERNATIONAL
OBJECTIVES
Generate energy from renewable and alternative
fuels.
 Increase Puerto Rico recycling rates and
capabilities
 Recover valuable materials for commercial reuse.
 Reduce landfilling and its associated greenhouse
gas emissions.
 Redeveloped an underutilized, previously
impacted industrial site into a productive reuse.
 Employ directly more than 400 people during
construction.
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OBJECTIVES
Create 150 permanent jobs with opportunities fro
hundreds more.
 Complete all of the above at disposal rates lower
than the other compliant disposable facilities
across the island and at energy sales below
Puerto Rico’s current marginal power production
cost.
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SITE
TECHNOLOGY
STEP 1
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Reuse, recycle and compost to recover resources.
STEP 2
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Recover metal and produce processed reuse fuel.
STEP 3
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Generate clean, and efficient energy. Steam for industry
or electricity.
PROCESSED REFUSE FUEL BOILER
Involves a semi-suspension combustion boiler
instead of the more traditional mass-burn
combustion boiler.
 Reduce the particle size (pulverized) to increase
the combustion efficiency.
 Ash residue is decreased.
 Waste is shredded before is fed into the boiler to
increase available surface area for combustion
and increasing energy generation and efficiency.
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TECHNOLOGIES COMPARISON
EMISSIONS CONTROL
Will treat, capture, monitor and control regulated
air pollutants in the combustions fuel gases
before venting to the atmosphere.
 State-of-the-art technologies to;
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Remove particulate matter
Acid gases.
Nitrogen oxides.
Mercury.
Other regulated air pollutants.
The air quality control system is guaranteed to
meet or exceed the applicable air quality
emission limits
STEP 4
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Recover metals and produce aggregate from bottom ash.
RESIDUALS MANAGEMENT
Recover ferrous and non-ferrous materials.
 Separate and independent process will be used to
condition the fly ash for potential reuse.

SUMMARY (INPUT AND OUTPUT)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Processed 2100 tons per day of waste.
 Recover and/or recycle 280 tons per day of metals
and non-metals materials (Environmental
Impact Declaration).
 Over 200,000 tons of ash will be produced yearly.
 Use of 2.1 MGD from the excess water discharged
to the ocean from Caño Tiburones required to the
cooling tower.
 No significant environmental impact.

OTHER INFORMATION
High Lead levels in site due to battery recycling
enterprise (Noticel December 2 2012)
 Environmental Quality Board authorized the
Incinerator construction (Metro, October 30 2014)
 Scientists indicate that incinerator represent
dangerous to the community (Primera Hora,
January 7 2015).
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OTHER INFORMATION
Over 1300 members of the community approve
Energy Answers Project (Metro, )
 Scientists and Engineers from Benzo, Italy and
Tarragona, Spain measured dioxins and nanoparticle levels for a period of 10 and 15 years
respectively with the result that they don’t
produce any health risk to their communities
(MicroJuris, Jesus Alvelo, February 10 2015)
 Over 40% of the solid waste in PR can be
recyclable (MicroJuris, Jesus Alvelo, February 10
2015)
 Private Landfill at Peñuelas will receive ash
deposits (Noticel, March 6 2015).
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PUBLIC POLICY
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In favor of the project;
Environmental Protection Agency
 Environmental Quality Board
 Arecibo residents (Over 1300)
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Against the project;
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Orlando Negron, Sierra Club President
Scientists, Jose Molinelli, geomorphologist
Angel Gonzalez, Environmental Health Committee
member of the College of Surgeons.
Popular democratic party mayors
Ingrid Vila, Ex-secretary of the governor.
SUSTAINABILITY AND SOCIAL
ACCEPTANCE

Is sustainable… Or not?
Enough solid waste is produced daily.
 Reuse, Recovery and Recycling of materials are poor.
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Is accepted socially… Or not?
Low cost energy is produce
 Decrease the amount of solid waste deposited in
existing landfills which is hazardous to human
health and possess high risk of water, soil and air
contamination.
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CASE STUDY 2: SUPERFUND REUSE
SUPERFUND REUSE: MIDVALE SLAG,
UTAH
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Smelting Facility on
Jordan River (446-acre
Superfund Site)
Contamination of soil
and groundwater with
heavy metals (1984
studies conducted).
Contaminants: lead,
arsenic, chromium,
cadmium, barium,
copper, mercury,
selenium, silver and zinc.
Source: smelting waste.
Listed on the National
Priority List in 1991.
CLEANUP PROCESS
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Separated in two areas
Operable Unit 1 (266-acres)
 Operable Unit 2 (180-acres)
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Operable Unit 1 (1995)
Removing and replacing soils from yards in a residential
neighborhood.
 Groundwater remediation (2006) with OU2.
 Required the excavation of contaminated soils on one
parcel of land, rather than capping (1998).
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Operable Unit 2 (2002)
Excavation and covers over smelter wastes.
 Groundwater monitoring.
 Implementing institutional controls to restrict installation
of groundwater wells and future excavation of the property.
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Cleanup Done by 2007 (Removed from NPL 2004)
MIDVALE SITE
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Had no future land for development.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
The collaboration between landowners, EPA and
the government lead to the development of
Midvale City.
 20 plus years of collaboration and dedication at
the federal, state, and local level to transform a
once contaminated land into a thriving
development.

MIDVALE SITE AFTER DEVELOPMENT
Construction of over 1,100
residential units, acres of
parks, business offices, a
supermarket and other
stores.
 Utah Transit Authority light
rail station and extension of
a light rail line through the
Site were completed in 2011.
 Only 20% is developed.
 600 plus jobs
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MIDVALE SITE AFTER DEVELOPMENT
QUESTIONS
REFERENCES
Las “dimensiones sociales” de la tecnologia,
Cecicio Ortiz y Marla Perez.
 http://aldia.microjuris.com/2014/12/03/indice-dedocumentos-y-enlaces-sobre-proyecto-deincineradora-energy-answers-en-arecibo/
 http://www2.epa.gov/region8/midvale-slag#9re
 http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/docum
ents/midvale-sf-success.pdf
 http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/recycle/p
df/midvale.pdf
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