Issues related to natural resources
Except in the very rare case of newly established villages, towns or communities, most municipal managers will never get to “pick” their natural resources. Their municipalities were established in the current locations for some historical reasons over which they had no control, though oftentimes these founding reasons were associated with some specific natural resource available nearby: a spring, a river, a protected view, a harbor, fertile farmland, nearby timber, etc. Prior to the 1960s, such assets were generally perceived to limitless, self-correcting or selfcleaning, so large that any impacts man made would be scrubbed out by a self-regulating global ecosystem. We now understand that our natural resources are not limitless and that we are more than capable of irreparably damaging them. Depleting or damaging our natural resources in this way can have a fundamental impact on the quality of life within a municipality.
There are four broad areas of concern among natural resources: land use, waste management, water rights and pollution. Each of them will be briefly summarized in the paragraphs that follow.
Land Use:Wise land use policies can have a profoundly positive impact on how a municipality develops and maintains optimal blends of undeveloped, industrial, retail, recreational and residential zones. By creating master plans, enforcing zoning, and ensuring that development occurs only at a rate that human, capital and other natural resources can
accommodate, municipal managers have a nearly unparalleled opportunity to shape the ways in which their communities will grow in years to come. There may be cases where municipalities may acquire significant tracts of land, if for no other reason to ensure that they remain undeveloped, or are developed in a way that meets a sound land use plan. Contractors, utilities, businesses and residents alike must be subject to land use requirements, thereby increasing the likelihood that the most fundamental natural resource available to a community—the very ground upon which it rests—remains vibrant and viable to support the long-term health of the municipality and its residents.
Waste Management:The United States has long had a profoundly consumption-driven culture, wherein we acquire goods, use them until they are spent, and then discard their after-products or waste. This results in staggering quantities of paper, plastic, food byproducts, industrial waste, hazardous materials, glass, construction supplies and other waste requiring processing and disposal. While some of these products may be recycled, most of them ultimately will be buried or burned, creating potential water, ground and air pollution issues as byproducts.
Municipal managers must ensure that they have sound means for addressing the waste management needs of their residents, both in terms of removing waste in a timely, sanitary fashion, and also in terms of disposing of the waste in a safe and cost-effective fashion. Some municipalities may choose to provide this as a government service, while some may depend upon relationships between their residents and private contractors. If municipalities have their own landfills, they must ensure that they are run safely and in compliance with a well-crafted land use plan. Municipal incinerators must operate to stringent clean air standards. If waste management is entirely contracted out, it is incumbent upon municipal managers to ensure these services are provided in a cost effective, environmentally sound fashion.
Water Rights:Like land use, this issue comes down to a matter of policy decisions and planning to ensure that water resources are neither polluted nor unduly exploited to the point where residents are unable to afford or acquire clean water for household, industrial or recreational use. Municipal managers may have to impose and enforce unpopular dictates (e.g. rationing, watering bans, etc.) to ensure sound water rights policies are maintained.
Consideration must be given to both surface and aquifer based water rights, so that rivers and lakes remain just as unspoiled as the underground water pulled to the surface by wells. Water rights considerations must be factored into both waste management and land use decisionmaking, as both of those areas have the potential for significant impact to a municipality’s water supplies.
Pollution:As indigence and crime were outcomes of an entire syndrome of human resources issues, so is pollution an outcome of an entire syndrome of capital and natural resources issues. Poor decision-making and management of land use, water rights, waste management and utilities can directly result in increased pollution, as can failure to adequately embrace mass transit. Like crime and indigence, pollution is one of the most obvious, visible manifestations of poor municipal management, one that pervades all aspects of life, at work and at home, taking a significant physical and psychological toll over time.
In summary, the issues related to natural resources, as a group, often hinge on successful policymaking and enforcement, rather than the imposition or acquisition of new resources (once cleanup of previously despoiled resources is completed—which can be spectacularly expensive).
Municipal managers have to work with the cards that nature dealt them, as well as the ways in which their predecessors played their hands, but they must take what they have inherited and work to ensure that similar mistakes are never made again. Growth must be reasonable within the terms of what the land, water and air can bear. Finding a balance between the desire for economic expansion and preservation of natural assets may be one of the most difficult balancing acts that a municipal manager must perform.