Abstract Details
5/22/2019 |
11:00 - 12:00
| Grand Ballroom EFGHIJ
DORMANT OPPORTUNITIES: TRANSLATIONAL ECOLOGY AND THE CLEAN WATER ACT
In the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA), Congress articulated an ambitious objective to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” This holistic ecosystem restoration and protection goal, which goes far beyond the narrow chemical water quality focus suggested by the name of the statute, remains only partially fulfilled nearly a half century later. A number of factors have impeded full implementation of the statutory objective, including a mismatch between statutory goals and statutory tools, and ongoing legal and scientific uncertainty about the exact meaning of the objective and the scope of water bodies covered. Translational ecology provides a methodology through which aquatic ecologists and other freshwater scientists can work with other stakeholders to contribute to further progress in defining and achieving the statutory objective. At the same time, the CWA contains a number of untapped or partially implemented programs and provisions that provide opportunities for the development and implementation of translational ecology. This talk will explore some of those bidirectional opportunities.
Robert Adler (Primary Presenter), University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law, alderr@law.utah.edu;
TBA