CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY SPRING SEMESTER 2000

LEVIN COLLEGE OF URBAN AFFAIRS

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES

Course Syllabus

Meeting Time : Tuesday and Thursday 10:00-11:50 a.m.

Place : UB # 21

Instructor : Dr. Robert A. Simons

Office : 1737 Euclid Ave. #108 (UB 108), Cleveland State Univ.

Phone : 687-5258, 687-2136

Office Hours : Thursday 4:00-5:00 p.m. and by appointment

Required Reading Materials: Books at CSU Bookstore

Simons, Robert. 1998. Turning Brownfields into Greenbacks. Washington, D.C: The Urban Land Institute.

Vincoli, Jeffrey. 1993. Basic Guide to Environmental Compliance. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Various articles to be provided

This course is intended for undergraduate and graduate students with little or no formal background in environmental finance issues. The overall theme of the course is the role the public sector should play to promote efficient and equitable outcomes in the management and financing of our shared environment in the three main areas of air quality, water quality, and dealing with contaminated land, in the context of urban redevelopment. The goal of the course will be to provide the student with sufficient context in environmental finance so that she or he may follow practitioner analyses relevant to the topic, and pursue further course work.

After the introductory session that introduces some environmental economics pertaining to pollution and negative externalities, the first portion of the course (8 sessions in 4 weeks) will address air quality issues. The first week of the air section will address the regulatory structure and science of air quality measurement set forth by the USEPA. The second will deal with traditional approaches to regulating, through command and control and market intervention, air quality, and the third week will address new approaches, including the evolving right to pollute permit markets.

The next portion (8 sessions in 4 weeks) of the course will cover the issues relative to water quality, including EPA regulation of water quality in our nation’s surface streams, lakes and groundwater. Water rights and rules of use will be covered. The next week will deal with the science of water quality, and some of the traditional financing mechanisms for sewer and water treatment plants. Assuming a focus on sewer, we will discuss financing sewer improvements, through both regional and special improvement districts. The third week looks at urban groundwater problems, and how financing clean up through risk management is being undertaken.

The last half of the course examines regulation of contaminated land (brownfields). The first part would address Superfund, CERCLA and RCRA, the traditional regulation of contaminated land, and emerging state voluntary clean up programs. The second portion will feature international regulation of brownfields, guest speakers and a field trip to a brownfield site, and the third week of this group considers new ways to finance urban redevelopment, including some more comprehensive approaches which integrate both soil and groundwater management. The final session will be a comprehensive wrap up of environmental finance issues.

The course will have a comprehensive midterm examination on all materials besides brownfields. A 7-10 page brief research paper on an environmental finance topic on air or water issues will be required of all students. One of these pages will contain graphs, tables or other supporting information. Graduate students will be required to prepare 10-15 page paper. Students will also be required to identify a brownfield site and prepare a brownfield case study of about 15-20 pages. Students will be required to present either their brownfield case study to the class, or lead a class discussion for about 15 minutes. While attendance will not be taken regularly, a large portion of the examination questions will be drawn from lectures and class discussions, and you will be graded for class participation.

Grading for the course will be as follows:

Component

==============

Midterm Exam 25%

Brief Research Paper 20%

Brownfield Case Study 35%

Presentation/lead discussion 10%

Class participation 10 %

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TOTAL 100 %

The numerical values for the graduate student letter grades are:

A =93-100, A- =90-92, B+ =88-89, B =81-87, B- = 79-80, C =70-78, F=69 or less.

Undergraduate grades would be A=90-100. B=80-89, C=70-79,D=60-69, F=59 or less.

Students should refer to the CSU Graduate Bulletin for administrative procedures related to drop-add, withdrawal, and incompletes.

Session

1 1/18 Introduction,

course overview, Vincoli, 1993 ch 1

Market failure

2 1/20 Negative externalities

Cost-benefit analysis Sharp, 1994 Ch. 5

Equity and efficiency

3 1/25 Science of air quality Lents and Kelly, 1993

measurement, Criteria pollutants Vincoli Ch 2-3

4 1/27 Federal Air quality regulation, Feldstein 1996

link to transportation planning Vincoli Ch 5-6

5 2/1 traditional approaches to regulating, www.cbot.com/clean

command and control

and market

6 2/3 Right to pollute permits: theory Polesetsky, 1995

Global warming Newspaper Articles

7 2/8 AQ discussion on ways to clean

8 2/10 Right to Pollute Permits: Practice: Hooper 1996

Clean Air Conservancy

Guest speaker

Session

9 2/15 EPA regulation of water quality, Vincoli Ch 7

surface streams, lakes and

groundwater. Water rights

and rules of use,

10 2/17 Demand for water and sewer, NRDC, 1997 designing integrated systems,

storm drainage, science of water Great Lakes Science quality, BOD, treatment tiers Museum

11 2/22 traditional financing mechanisms www.epa.gov/ for sewer and water treatment efinpage/guidebk/

plants, fee structures, special guindex.htm

districts, new lines

12 2/24 NEORSD Financing Strategies. (Handout to be provided)

Guest speaker

13 2/29 Urban groundwater risk Arulanantham and management Morse 1996 (San Francisco area)

14 3/2 MIDTERM EXAM

BROWNFIELDS 15 3/14 What are brownfields, and why Simons, 1,2,4

16 3/16 Superfund, CERCLA and RCRA, Vincoli 8-10 EPA regulation Simons 3 first part

17 3/21 Intro. to brownfields Simons 3 second part evolving state voluntary

clean up programs

Session

18 3/23 International regulation of Simons 15 and 16

19 3/28 Brownfield Case studies Simons Ch. 7,

10-14 (skim). 20 3/30 Brownfield solutions Simons Ch. 6,8,9

21. 4/4 Local Finance of Brownfields Simons and El

Jaouhari

22 4/6 Work day/presentations for student papers

23 4/11 Ohio Brownfield case study Simons Ch. 12

Guest Speaker

24 4/13 Real Estate financing of brownfields

25 4/18 Student Presentations

26 4/20 Student Presentations

27 4/25 Regulation of Solid Waste Guest Speaker TBA

28 4/27 Comprehensive wrap up of environmental finance issues.

5/4 FINAL EXAM Date no final exam!!!

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