T1 AM Contaminat Cycling Assessment and Prevention in the NY/NJ Harbor (Part 1)
Tuesday, 15 November 2005: 8:00 AM - 11:40 AM in Ballroom 1

(POW-1117-834342) Integrating Science and Collaboration in a Comprehensive Management Plan for Pollution Prevention in the NY/NJ Harbor.

Powers, C¹, ¹ Chairman, NYAS Harbor Consortium, Piscataway, NJ, USA

ABSTRACT- Sound science and collaboration to achieve consensus are often considered conflicting human processes. In the life of the NYAS Harbor Consortium they are proving to be isomorphic ones. That is, the scientific and consensual achievements are interdependent. And the experience in this East Coast consortium is being mirrored on the West Coast by a similar consensual collaborative process associated with protecting salmon in Puget Sound. Social scientific and public policy gains can be made by understanding why these two different kinds of processes are working synergistically in unprecedented ways in these two heavily populated regional environments where improved quality and protection of large surface water bodies are needed to assure both economic and environmental progress through technically-sophisticated graded approaches to contaminant-specifc pollution prevention. The author conducted the workshop which framed the NYAS Consortium and has presided over every meeting - scientific and policy-making - held as part of this four year project. He will seek to put into this institutional context the more specific technical presentations in this symposium.

Key words: Consensus, Pollution Prevention, Collaboration, Sound Science