ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

1. THE ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

The environmental engineering profession arose from civil engineering in order to
accomplish two objectives: to create structures that serve people as intended, and to
improve the environment or, at least, cause no harm to the environment. Environmental
engineering encompasses many different areas of expertise such as drinking water and
wastewater systems, eco-logical buildings, and energy-efficient vehicles. Today’s
engineers receive intensive training in subjects that describe the manners in which
materials or built structures behave under varying forces from weather, climate, the land,
or moisture, in addition to designing sustainable structures.
Sustainability ensures people do not consume more natural resources than the planet can
replenish. Environmental engineers achieve sustain-ability by devising systems that reuse
materials for new purposes, reclaim materials from wastes, and recycle waste materials to
provide a benefit.

Ecological design achieves the same purpose by keeping track of ecological accounting,
which simply is a way to assure that consumption does not outpace replenishment.
Ecological designers realize that structures in nature already contain attributes that
maximize their usefulness and minimize the energy required to operate them. By
mimicking nature’s form and function, designers and engineers minimize the resources a
new building will consume. This biomimicry holds a vast amount of potential for teaching
engineers how to innovate by simplifying processes rather than complicating them.
Indeed, simplification is a good starting point for building sustainability.
Designing with nature as the model requires a new way of thinking about how a house or
a school or a factory should look. Many of the future’s ecological designs may also look
different from the familiar lay-outs of houses, offices, and buildings built years ago. In the
past, traditional structures were built to be rigid, sturdy, and immovable, but the new
designs will emphasize flexibility, delicateness, and movement. Most people will probably
need some time to get used to these new ecological designs built on nature’s blueprint. In
this way environmental engineering is very much like other fields in environmental
science: The science may turn out to be the easy part of the task compared with the job of
convincing people to accept new ideas.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
Human population growth is at the root of the world’s environmental problems. Although
population growth rate has slowed slightly since the 1990s, the world’s population
increases by about 77 million human beings each year. As the number of people
increases, crowding generates pollution, destroys more habitats, and uses up additional
natural resources.

Like in a greenhouse, certain gases in atmosphere permit the Sun’s radiation to heat
Earth. This causes a slight increase in global temperature—known as global warming.
Such a modest increase in temperature may reduce the average thickness of Arctic ice,
whereby causing a rise in sea levels. This may eventually drive many plant and animal
species into extinction.

Chemicals used in refrigeration, air-conditioning systems, cleaning solvents, and aerosol

sprays destroy the ozone layer. The consequences of continued depletion of the ozone
layer can cause a decline in plankton populations. It may lead to increased carbon dioxide
levels in the atmosphere and thus to global warming.

Plant and animal species are dying out at an unprecedented rate. The leading cause of
extinction is habitat destruction, particularly of the world’s richest ecosystems—tropical
rain forests and coral reefs. If the world’s population continues to grow at its present rate
and puts even more pressure on these habitats, they might well be destroyed sooner.

Although groundwater—water that collects beneath the ground—is a renewable resource,

reserves replenish relatively slowly. Scientists worry about groundwater depletion and
contamination. By some estimates, on average, 25 percent of usable groundwater is
contaminated, and in some areas as much as 75 percent is contaminated.

Many chemicals have been found to mimic estrogen, the hormone that controls the
development of the female reproductive system in a large number of animal species.
Preliminary results indicate that these chemicals may disrupt development and lead to a
host of serious problems in both males and females, including infertility, increased
mortality of offspring, and behavioral changes such as increased aggression.

Studies have shown that not all individuals are equally exposed to pollution. Three of the
five largest commercial hazardous-waste landfills in America are in predominantly black or
Hispanic neighborhoods, and three out of every five black or Hispanic Americans live in
the vicinity of an uncontrolled toxic -waste site. This suggests that the selection of sites for
hazardous-waste disposal involves racism.

Some countries produce a portion of their electricity using nuclear energy. Many people
oppose nuclear energy because an accident can cause massive devastation. The
accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant scattered radioactive contamination over a
large part of Europe. The rate of thyroid cancer in young Ukrainian children was ten times
higher than was the norm prior to the accident.

3. POLLUTION
Pollution is the contamination of Earth’s environment with materials that interfere with
human health, the quality of life, or the natural functioning of ecosystems. Some
environmental pollution is a result of natural causes such as volcanic eruptions. Most
instances of pollution, however, are caused by human activities.
There are two main categories of polluting materials, or pollutants: biodegradable
pollutants, and nondegradable pollutants. Biodegradable pollutants are materials, such as
sewage, that rapidly decompose by natural processes. These pollutants become a
problem when added to the environment faster than they can decompose. Nondegradable
pollutants are materials that either do not decompose or decompose slowly in the natural
environment. Once contamination occurs, it is difficult or impossible to remove these
pollutants from the environment. Nondegradable compounds and radioactive materials
can reach dangerous levels of accumulation as they are passed up the food chain into the
bodies of progressively larger animals. Such an accumulation process is known as
bioaccumulation.

TYPES OF POLLUTION

Human contamination of Earth’s atmosphere, known as air pollution, can take many forms
and has existed since humans first began to use fire for agriculture, heating, and cooking.
During the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, however, air pollution
became a major problem. Urban air pollution is commonly known as smog.

Excessive production of chlorine-containing compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons

(CFCs), commonly used in most refrigerators and Teflon utensils, has depleted the
stratospheric ozone layer, creating a hole above Antarctica that lasts for several weeks
each year. As a result, exposure to the Sun’s harmful rays has damaged aquatic and
terrestrial wildlife and threatens human health in high-latitude regions of the northern and
southern hemispheres.

Sewage, industrial wastes, and agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides are
the main causes of water pollution. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
reports that about 37 percent of the country’s lakes and estuaries, and 36 percent of its
rivers, are too polluted for basic uses such as fishing or swimming during all or part of the
year.
Unhealthy soil management methods have seriously degraded soil quality, caused soil
pollution, and enhanced erosion. Treating the soil with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and
fungicides interferes with the natural processes occurring within the soil and destroys
useful organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. This results in heavy
fertilizer use and increases polluted runoff into lakes and streams.

Solid wastes are unwanted solid materials such as garbage, paper, plastics and other
synthetic materials, metals, and wood. Billions of tons of solid waste are thrown out
annually. They typically contains a high percentage of synthetic materials that take longer
to decompose than the primarily biodegradable waste materials.

Hazardous wastes are solid, liquid, or gas wastes that may be deadly or harmful to people
or the environment and tend to be persistent or nondegradable in nature. Such wastes
include toxic chemicals and flammable or radioactive substances, including industrial
wastes from chemical plants or nuclear reactors, agricultural wastes such as pesticides
and fertilizers, medical wastes, and household hazardous wastes such as toxic paints and
solvents.

Unwanted sound, or noise, such as that produced by airplanes, traffic, or industrial

machinery, is considered a form of pollution. Noise pollution is at its worst in densely
populated areas. It can cause hearing loss, stress, high blood pressure, sleep loss,
distraction, and lost productivity.
Thermal Pollution refers to the harmful increase in water temperature in streams, rivers,
lakes, or occasionally, coastal ocean waters. Thermal pollution is caused by either
dumping hot water from factories and power plants or removing trees and vegetation that
shade streams, permitting sunlight to raise the temperature of these waters.

4. SOLID WASTES
Areas where wastes are buried, often called landfills, are the cheapest and most common
disposal method for solid wastes worldwide. However, landfills quickly become overfilled
and may contaminate air, soil, and water. Incineration, or burning, of waste reduces the
volume of solid waste but produces dense ashen wastes (some of which become airborne)
that often contain dangerous concentrations of hazardous materials such as heavy metals
and toxic compounds.
Composting, using natural biological processes to speed the decomposition of organic
wastes, is an effective strategy for dealing with organic garbage and produces a material
that can be used as a natural fertilizer. Recycling, extracting and reusing certain waste
materials, has become an important part of municipal solid waste strategies in developed
countries. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than one-fourth
of the municipal solid waste produced in the United States is now recycled or composted.
Recycling also plays a significant, informal role in solid waste management for many Asian
countries, such as India, where organized waste-pickers comb streets and dumps for
items such as plastics, which they use or resell.

Expanding recycling programs worldwide can help reduce solid waste pollution, but the
key to solving severe solid waste problems lies in reducing the amount of waste
generated. Waste prevention, or source reduction, such as altering the way products are
designed or manufactured to make them easier to reuse, reduces the high costs
associated with environmental pollution.

5. IMPACTS OF POLLUTION
Because humans are at the top of the food chain, they are particularly vulnerable to the
effects of nondegradable pollutants. This was clearly illustrated in the 1950s and 1960s
when residents living near Minamata Bay, Japan, developed nervous disorders, tremors,
and paralysis in a mysterious epidemic. More than 400 people died before authorities
discovered that a local industry had released mercury into Minamata Bay. This highly toxic
element accumulated in the bodies of local fish and eventually in the bodies of people who
consumed the fish. More recently research has revealed that many chemical pollutants,
such as DDT and PCBs, mimic sex hormones and interfere with the human body’s
reproductive and developmental functions.
Pollution also has a dramatic effect on natural resources. Ecosystems such as forests,
wetlands, coral reefs, and rivers perform many important services for Earth’s environment.
They enhance water and air quality, provide habitat for plants and animals, and provide
food and medicines. Any or all of these ecosystem functions may be impaired or destroyed
by pollution. Moreover, because of the complex relationships among the many types of
organisms and ecosystems, environmental contamination may have far-reaching
consequences that are not immediately obvious or that are difficult to predict.
Another major effect of pollution is the tremendous cost of pollution cleanup and
prevention. The global effort to control emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas produced from
the combustion of fossil fuels or of other organic materials, is one such example. The cost
of maintaining annual national carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels is estimated to be
2 percent of the gross domestic product for developed countries. Expenditures to reduce
pollution in the United States in 1993 totaled $109 billion: $105.4 billion on reduction, $1.9
billion on regulation, and $1.7 billion on research and development. 29% of the total cost
went toward air pollution, 36% to water pollution, and 36% to solid waste management.
In addition to its effects on the economy, health, and natural resources, pollution has social
implications. Research has shown that low-income populations and minorities do not
receive the same protection from environmental contamination as do higher-income
communities. Toxic waste incinerators, chemical plants, and solid waste dumps are often
located in low-income communities because of a lack of organized, informed community
involvement in municipal decision-making processes.

6. ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN PERU

The principal environmental issues in Peru are water pollution, soil erosion, pollution and
deforestation. Although these issues are problematic and equally destructive, the Peruvian
Environmental ministry has been developing regulation and laws to decrease the amount
of pollution created in major cities and have been making policies in order to decrease the
present deforestation rate.

The General Environmental Law (Law 28611) (GEL)

The GEL contains the general framework for environmental law. Some of the most
relevant aspects of this legislation are that it:
 Brings into a single legislative body the principles governing environmental policy and
the system for the approval of environmental management instruments for investment
projects.
 Clearly sets out the general principles applicable to all environment-related aspects of
law.
 Regulates access to public information and participation in the governmental
decision-making process in environment-related matters.
 Differentiates the competencies at national, regional and local levels of government.
 Contains provisions on the use and protection of flora, fauna, land, water, air and
other natural resources by populations, including indigenous peoples, rural and native
communities, and industry.

Other laws
Other relevant environmental laws include:
 Law of the National System of Environmental Management (Law 28245) and its
regulations approved by Supreme Decree 008-2005-PCM.
 Law on the National System for Environmental Impact Assessment (Law 27446) and
its regulations approved by Supreme Decree 019-2009-MINAM.
 Law on Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, approved by Law 26821.
 Law of the National System of Environmental Evaluation and Inspection (Law 29325)
and its amendments approved by Law 30011.
 Law that creates the National Service of Environmental Certification for Sustainable
Investments (Servicio Nacional de Certificación Ambiental para las Inversiones
Sostenibles) (SENACE), approved by Law 29968.
Sanctions
The following sanctions may apply:
 Reprimand.
 Fines not greater than PEN121.5 million (in very severe circumstances).
 Temporary or permanent confiscation of goods, instruments, equipment or
substances used for the commission of the breach.
 Order to paralyze or restrict the activities that caused the breach.
 Suspension or revocation of permits, licenses, concessions or other authorizations, as
applicable.
 Temporary or permanent close down of facilities where the activity that caused the
breach was carried out.