The Regional Ecological System

In any action involving contamination of the Environment— air, water, or soils— description of the entire Regional Environmental System and each of the individual Regional Ecological systems which make up the entire System are critical. Without an accurately pleaded systems description it will be impossible to later introduce testimony concerning the transport of contaminants and toxic substances throughout the region at a distance removed from the pollution source. Without such transport data, the proof of causal relationship between the contribution of a particular environmental toxicant from a source such as a paper mill or power plant is almost impossible.

The Regional Airshed

The Regional Airshed is one of the Regional Ecological Systems which are elements of the entire Regional Environmental System. In order to properly evaluate the effects of contamination of a Regional Airshed with environmental toxicants from an identifiable source upon a particular community, the plaintiff must relate the community to the regional airshed in which it is located.

In any air pollution complaint counsel must plead the existence of a regional airshed and locate the area or community of principle concern within the regional airshed and locate the regional airshed within the federally determined “atmospheric area.”

The first time the concept of a “Regional Airshed” was presented to a Court occurred in 1967 in Environmental Defense Fund v Hoerner-Waldorf Corp.. The following year, in 1968, the general atmospheric areas of the United States were legally identified by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare under §107 of the Air Quality Act of 1967 and for practical purposes delineate the general areas of common atmospheric activity.

In any complaint claiming atmospheric contamination with one or more environmental toxicants from a specific source, counsel must plead the existence of a regional airshed and locate the area or community of principle concern within the regional airshed and locate the regional airshed within the appropriate “atmospheric area.”
Without an accurately pleaded description of the Regional Airshed, it will be impossible to later introduce testimony concerning the transport, circulation, and cycling of atmospheric toxicants throughout the region at a distance removed from their physical source, such as the paper mill in the Hoerner-Waldorf case.
Without such transport data, establishing a causal relationship or even an association “more probable than not” between the emission of an atmospheric toxicant from a particular source such as a paper mill or power plant and the effects of such atmospheric toxicants upon the plants and animals including the people within the Regional Airshed or Atmospheric Area is almost impossible.