Environmental Pollution and Control

by P. Aarne Vesilind

Complex environmental problems are often reduced to an inappropriate level of simplicity. While this book does not seek to present a comprehensive scientific and technical coverage of all aspects of the subject matter, it makes the issues, ideas, and language of environmental engineering accessible and understandable to the nontechnical reader.
Improvements introduced in the fourth edition include a complete rewrite of the chapters dealing with risk assessment and ethics, the introduction of new theories of radiation damage, inclusion of environmental disasters like Chernobyl and Bhopal, and general updating of all the content, specifically that on radioactive waste.

Since this book was first published in 1972, several generations of students have become environmentally aware and conscious of their responsibilities to the planet earth. Many of these environmental pioneers are now teaching in colleges and universities, and have in their classes students with the same sense of dedication and resolve that they themselves brought to the discipline. In those days, it was sometimes difficult to explain what indeed environmental science or engineering was, and why the development of these fields was so important to the future of the earth and to human civilization. Today there is no question that the human species has the capability of destroying its collective home, and that we have indeed taken major steps toward doing exactly that.

And yet, while, a lot has changed in a generation, much has not. We still have air pollution; we still contaminate our water supplies; we still dispose of hazardous materials improperly; we still destroy natural habitats as if no other species mattered. And worst of all, we still continue to populate the earth at an alarming rate. There is still a need for this book, and for the college and university courses that use it as a text, and perhaps this need is more acute now than it was several decades ago.

Although the battle to preserve the environment is still raging, some of the rules have changed. We now must take into account risk to humans, and be able to manipulate concepts of risk management. With increasing population, and fewer alternatives to waste disposal, this problem is intensified. Environmental laws have changed, and will no doubt continue to evolve. Attitudes toward the environment are often couched in what has become known as the environmental ethic. Finally, the environmental movement has become powerful politically, and environmentalism can be made to serve a political agenda.

In revising this book, we have attempted to incorporate the evolving nature of environmental sciences and engineering by adding chapters as necessary and eliminating material that is less germane to today's students. We have nevertheless maintained the essential feature of this book -- to package the more important aspects of environmental engineering science and technology in an organized manner and present this mainly technical material to a nonengineering audience.

This book has been used as a text in courses which require no prerequisites, although a high school knowledge of chemistry is important. A knowledge of college level algebra is also useful, but calculus is not required for the understanding of the technical and scientific concepts.

We do not intend for this book to be scientifically and technically complete. In fact, many complex environmental problems have been simplified to the threshold of pain for many engineers and scientists. Our objective, however, is not to impress nontechnical students with the rigors and complexities of pollution control technology but rather to make some of the language and ideas of environmental engineering and science more understandable.

Genres: Nonfiction

404 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

See also works published under Peep Aarne Vesilind

Aarne was born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1939 to Paul Eduard Vesilind and Aino Rebane Vesilind. In 1944 his family fled Estonia to escape the invading Soviet Red Army. As refugees, they lived four years in a displaced persons camp in Geislingen, Germany, before immigrating to the United States in 1949. Settling in Beaver, Pennsylvania, ten-year-old Aarne enrolled in fourth grade without knowing a word of English. His transition was eased by supportive classmates who became lifelong friends. He learned to play the trumpet and joined the Boy Scouts, rising to the rank of Eagle Scout.

After graduating from Beaver High School in 1958, Aarne chose Lehigh University for its civil engineering program, but admitted to actually studying “adolescent behavior and fraternity” with Chi Phi brothers who also remained close friends for life. After Lehigh graduation Aarne married Gail Wood, with whom he had three children. In 1968, he earned a Ph.D. in environmental engineering at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a graduate student, Aarne serendipitously discovered an affinity for teaching.

In his professional career and his everyday living Aarne was profoundly influenced by Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962) and by Carson’s persistence in advancing awareness of environmental problems. Aarne spent a post-doctoral year with the Norwegian Institute for Water Research in Oslo and another year as a research engineer at Bird Machine Company. In 1970 Aarne joined the Civil Engineering faculty at Duke University, where he developed a new Environmental Engineering program. While on sabbatical with his family in 1976-77 as a Fulbright Fellow, he helped establish an Environmental Center at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand.

Aarne served as Trustee of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, President of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and a registered Professional Engineer in North Carolina. He received numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Collingwood Prize and the Award for Achievement in Environmental Education from the American Society of Civil Engineers. He also received the Founders Award and Distinguished Service award (twice!) from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. In 2007, he traveled to Turkey to accept the Specialist Medal in Residuals Research from the International Water Association.
Aarne was most proud of his teaching awards, which include the E. I. Brown Award for teaching excellence (four times!) from students in Duke’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Tau Beta Pi teaching award from students of the Duke School of Engineering. An enthusiastic and dedicated mentor, he taught and advised many graduate and undergraduate students—and he was always pleased when a former student called for advice or merely to chat.
In 1987 Aarne married his former high school girlfriend, Libby McTaggart. They settled in Chapel Hill, NC and acquired a summer camp on a small lake in Bath, NH. “The Birdbath” became a sanctuary for reflection, bird watching, and skinny-dipping. Surrounded by birch trees that reminded him of his early childhood home on the Pirita River in Tallinn, Estonia, Aarne started a small publishing house, Lakeshore Press, as a forum for academic texts, musical arrangements, and memoirs about Estonians before, during, and after Soviet occupation.

After a 30-year tenure at Duke, Aarne and Libby moved to Lewisburg, PA. At Bucknell University, Aarne assumed the charter R. L. Rooke Chair of the Historical and Societal Context of Engineering. He thrived among the enthusiastic faculty and bright students, several of whom he roped into forming a tuba quartet with him.
A prolific scholar, A