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Infrastructure Upgrades and the Environment

From Pipelines to Rockets: Addressing the Impacts of Traditional and Emerging Infrastructure Projects on Earth... and Beyond

Samir A. Qadir, Elyse Mize, and William Kramer

Tuesday, May 21
International Room
3:45 PM


About the Session

This session includes three presentations addressing unique aspects of environmental impact analyses for infrastructure occurring on land, in the atmosphere, and into outer space. Topics include a case study of how greenhouse gas emissions were addressed in the NEPA review for a large crude oil pipeline project. Two presentations will focus on the emerging market for commercial space operations in the United States. Join this session for a discussion of siting appropriate launch facilities here on earth, and how to potentially address our impacts in outer space.

A paper presented at the 2017 NAEP conference in Durham, NC, cited the need for some form of environmental impact analysis for actions on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere in our Solar System. The subsequent article published in Environmental Practice detailed why such actions are expected, who will likely be undertaking them, and potential extraterrestrial impacts.  It argued that legal regulatory actions such as laws and treaties may not be practical given the novelty of extraterrestrial environments, the unknown nature of the construction challenges to be faced, the speed at which space ventures are evolving, and the international range of participants.  The paper proposed that private, not government-imposed, guidelines are preferable.  The next step is to begin to frame non-legislated measures that space industries themselves may take to avoid the adverse environmental impacts of their actions.  This presentation proposes that non-legislated, voluntary measures such as best practices and industrial codes of conduct should be developed to assist project proponents.  Initial sources of guidance are existing self-regulating practices employed by industries that carry out similar actions here on Earth, such as mining, drilling, road construction, arid land development and similar categories of projects.  These can be adapted for the challenging environments of outer space.

About the Presenters

Samir Qadir

Mr. Qadir is an environmental engineer at Potomac-Hudson Engineering, Inc’s (PHE) Gaithersburg, MD office with over 12 years of environmental consulting experience. Mr. Qadir has led greenhouse gas (GHG) and climate change analyses for three very large and numerous small NEPA projects. Two of these projects involved assessing the potential GHG emissions of major crude oil transport projects, including lifecycle GHG emissions for crude oil. Besides NEPA, Mr. Qadir supports federal and state clients with sustainability, environmental management systems, and compliance-related services. He has helped federal facilities develop sustainability plans to address GHG emissions reduction and other federal goals.

Mr. Qadir grew up in India, where he obtained a BS in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering. After graduating from college, he worked for two years at a nonprofit in New Delhi on a project funded by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), evaluating the environmental performance of industrial facilities across the country. In 2005, he graduated with an MS in Environmental Policy from Michigan Technological University.

When he isn’t at work, Mr. Qadir enjoys building Legos with his six-year old son. He is an enthusiastic runner who can often be found huffing and puffing along the trails near his home in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Fin Bonset

Fin Bonset, CM, is the Director of Aviation Services at VHB. With more than 20 years of domestic and international airport planning and project management experience, Fin's knowledge includes airport master, feasibility, cargo, and terminal capacity planning, as well as simulation/modeling, to provide aviation partners with the full capabilities to develop visions for future airport improvements.

William R. Kramer, Ph.D.

William Kramer received a BS in zoology in 1970. After serving in the Submarine Service, he worked as a wildlife biologist at the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Endangered Species Program in their Pacific Islands Office in Honolulu. He received a master’s degree in environmental policy from the University of Hawaii and a Graduate Certificate in public administration in 1986. Prior to retirement, he moved back to Washington, D.C., where he headed the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Branch of Endangered Species Consultation and Recovery. William returned to Hawaii and taught biology and bioethics at Hawaii Pacific University and assisted the US Navy for over a dozen years as a consultant on endangered species and environmental issues.