Kentucky

Today's featured lunch date and a conversation  in the Courier Journal was University of Louisville Law School Professor Tony Arnold.  In addition to having "Courier Connected" lunch dates, Professor Arnold posts on the law school faculty blog in his area of expertise on land use and planning.  He is also currently sits on the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use in the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law.

His blog can be reached -

• Web browser at http://www.law.louisville.edu/blog/61.
• RSS Feed at http://www.law.louisville.edu/blog/61/feed.

And now to the story in the CJ:

LUNCH WITH ...Tony Arnold

Tony Arnold, on why 'land healthiness' should be important to all of us. As we were sitting down, you were talking about "conservation" rather than "environmentalism."

Here's the 2006 story:

Law professor works to strike balance between environmental law, property rights

From Tony Arnold?s perspective, that fresh application of pesticide on your lawn represents a major land-use decision.

 

Why?

         

Because when multiplied by thousands of homes and farms, those chemicals wash away and accumulate in water supplies far from their sources.

         

The effects of ?many small land decisions? on waterways are especially critical in Kentucky from an environmental and economic standpoint, said Arnold, the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use in the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law.

?Kentucky has more running water than any other state except Alaska,? he said. ?Water is an important part of who we are. It is an important part of our sense of community and our economy.?

 

The state profits greatly from water-based recreation such as fishing and canoeing. Degradation of rivers and streams, Arnold said, could adversely affect the quality of life for residents and the state?s tourism industry, which in 2002 had an economic impact of $9.1 billion.

         

Even so, Arnold said, communities need to strike a balance between environmental law and the ownership of private property.

   

?We need to take a look at the value to the community of having private property,? Arnold said. ?But we also need to check that what owners do with property is realistic.?

      

Efforts to protect the Ohio River show how complex this balancing act is. Cities and counties control land use, yet the river runs through or borders six states.

Instead of merely studying the issues, Arnold has suggested possible solutions. He presented a paper at a symposium last year in White Plains, N.Y., in which he proposed the creation of regional watershed management agencies with planning authority and tools to help local governments conform their local land-use plans to watershed-based plans.

         

This attracted the interest of the New York state legislature, which will consider Arnold?s and other symposium experts? suggestions this year.

         

Arnold?s credentials include several books on land and water use, including the recently published ?Wet Growth: Should Water Law Control Land Use??

?I look at ways that the legal system and regulation can be put to use in a broader conservation effort,? Arnold said. ?Because the law fragments these regulations into clean air regulations, clean water regulations and the like, I try to re-weave them because they are all connected in the real world.?

Arnold said some blame lies with government officials who don?t enforce already existing environmental regulations. However, he said, judicial decisions do not present adequate solutions.

       

?The law in and of itself will not solve all these problems,? he said. ?The law and legal institutions are triggers to move people toward solutions. We need a more nuanced approach to how we handle land use.?

       

Arnold also lends his environmental and land use expertise to local low-income and minority communities. He is active in U of L?s Signature Partnership Initiative with western Louisville, an interdisciplinary project to reduce and eliminate disparities in education, health, economic development and human and social services.

         

Through the initiative, Arnold helps study ideas for revitalizing underused or vacant industrial properties with potential environmental contamination; addresses environmental conditions, including air quality, as part of the West Jefferson County Community Task Force; and, with U of L law students, researches properties acquired by Habitat for Humanity to identify the potential for lead contamination in the soil.