State DEC commissioner talks about environmental approaches

DEC Commissioner John Cahill, right, and Gregory Poe, assistant professor of agricultural economics, speak to extension educators in Warren Hall April 20. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

By Roger Segelken

Addressing Cornell students, educators and scientists who gathered April 20 with Cooperative Extension agents from across the state, John Cahill, the state environment commissioner, challenged the university to lead the way in a new era of environmental management.

Faculty and staff members pledged their cooperation but also offered alternative visions of the state's environment problems.

The commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) briefly addressed a Warren Hall audience of about 150 on the topic "Social, Economic and Political Forces on Environmental Policy in the Next Millennium," then responded for more than an hour to questions and statements from his listeners. Cahill said the heavy-handed "command-and-control approach" to improving the environment was effective in the 1970s and 80s. But it is now time, the Republican appointee of Gov. George Pataki said, for government to stop acting like the parent of a disobedient child. A better approach in the future, he said, is to set goals for polluters "and let them decide how to meet the goals."

One who questioned that approach was Theodore Hullar, the director of Cornell's Center for the Environment and a DEC deputy commissioner in the 1970s. Pointing to "best-management" practices designed to reduce pollution from farms, Hullar said those agricultural codes of conduct are ineffective and rarely followed because they are voluntary, not mandatory.

And when the DEC commissioner listed the two most-pressing environmental problems for the state as chemical toxins in the Hudson River and poor air quality in metropolitan areas, an assistant professor of agricultural economics disagreed. Gregory Poe said "non-point pollution" (wastes that cannot easily be traced to a single source, such as a factory) was a more serious problem for the state.

The commissioner said his department always had "an excellent relationship -- probably more so than any other university in the state -- with Cornell."

He added, "I accept the invitation to work with Cornell."