9 TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL START TO YOUR COASTAL CAREER

By Judy Tucker, TCS Executive Director

As all nonprofit organizations do, The Coastal Society is always looking for new ways to accomplish its mission and to try to generate some modest revenue. Long-time champion for students, Tom Bigford, host of six TCS interns (all successfully placed in coastal/aquatic jobs or academia), speaker at student events during TCS Conferences, and mentor to many, had dreamed of a stand-alone event for students to help them prepare for successful careers.  Ideas pop and events happen when two board members (Mo Lynch and Lewie Lawrence), a very active TCS member (Michelle Covi), and the TCS executive director (Judy Tucker and blog author), all live in the same region. The TCS Board approved our proposal to run a pilot day-long program to help students and new professionals explore the diversity of coastal careers and find jobs. Thus was born Coastal Career Days.

Lewie Lawrence, Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission
Lewie Lawrence, Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission

It took conference calls every two weeks and a survey of students in marine science and oceanography programs at six Virginia universities and in the six TCS chapters to shape the idea and identify the best date on the calendar. A concept paper was floated to colleagues working on coastal issues to gauge their interest in sending students and supporting the event through speakers and sponsorships.  Their reaction was swift and strong: this event must happen!  A 30-year veteran of the state marine resources agency was worried about finding qualified students to fill the impending vacancies from a wave of retirees who’d been at the forefront of environmental issues in the late ‘70’s.

Dorissa Pitts-Whitney, Hampton Roads Sanitation District
Dorissa Pitts-Whitney, Hampton Roads Sanitation District

A consulting firm with offices in many Virginia locations and one in NC saw the benefit of spending time with a pre-qualified group of potential employees in one place without taking time away from clients’ projects. One newly hired employee at a nonprofit organization wanted to share the inside tips on how employers look at resumes and cover letters. Without hesitation, nine employers agreed to spend a Saturday in November to set up a display table, make a 20 minute presentation, and spend the day seated among the students for additional discussion and round table activities. Talk about access to employers! The student attendees were thrilled.

The pilot Coastal Career Day speakers were:

Ross Weaver, Wetlands Watch
  • Kenneth Bannister, Draper Aden Associates
  • Lewie Lawrence, Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission
  • Mo Lynch, Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve
  • Jill Meyer, CSS-Dynamac
  • Dorissa Pitts-Whitney, Hampton Roads Sanitation District
  • Linda Schaffner, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
  • Ray Toll, Old Dominion University Office of Research
  • Tony Watkinson, Virginia Marine Resources Commission
  • Ross Weaver, Wetlands Watch
  • Michelle Covi, Old Dominion University Climate Adaptation and Resilience Program

Here are a few of the tips shared by the speakers:

  • The less urban the area, the more valuable a generalist is.  Be able to learn quickly, and willing to take on a variety of tasks. In return, your resume will show a diversity of skills and lots of experience in solving problems. Consider local and regional employment, not just state and national levels.
  • Consider smaller organizations.  When they expand through a new program, they may need to hire expertise not available on their current staff. Learn why they are hiring.
  • Don’t short-cut your resume.  Employers can easily spot a template resume and can tell when a cover letter is generic. Don’t use them!
  • Show off your skill-sets.  A resume should show you have the core skill sets to get the job done. eyond that basic qualifier, you’ll need to prove you can communicate clearly, have people skills, “command a room” or make an impact on them.  Indicate leadership by showing where you influenced getting a project done.
    Linda Schaffner, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
    Linda Schaffner, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
  • Express yourself.  A cover letter should show that you are excited about their position and how you can hit the ground running. Back it up with experience, and explain why you are the best person for the position.
  • Feds or contractors?  The basic difference between a direct hire by the Federal government and a contractor to the agency is that the contractor cannot do administrative things like signing a contract or representing the agency publically. That means you get to focus on science or writing. It is also easier to make a lateral move to another agency.
  • Agency hiring process.  Different government agencies have different hiring practices; some can’t recruit unless there is an opening. If you want to work in a particular agency, contact them to find out what their hiring process is. Then watch where grants have been awarded as an indication of possible openings.
  • Be entrepreneurial. If your research or idea could benefit a company or its project, tell them you’d like to do some research and write a white paper (state of the knowledge or research) for them. They don’t have the time to do that, and your white paper can be used to promote the company. Maybe they can pay you, or maybe you’ll have to consider it a type of internship on your resume. Or, show them how what you are working on right now in school could benefit their company, as a way to start a relationship and attract their interest in you.
  • Network and be open-minded. Contact alumni to learn about
    different employment. If they refer you to talk to someone else, keep an open mind, and learn about a job you might not have thought of. This network will get you responses to your resume.
Mixing and mingling in the exhibit hall

Sponsors

A hearty thanks to our sponsors for making the pilot Coastal Career Day available to Virginia students:

sponsors

CLIMATE CHANGE ANALYSIS UNDER NEPA: REVERSING THE TREND

By:  Steve MacLeod

A recent study out of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (Sabin Center) may help turn the tables on how projects are typically evaluated with respect to climate change under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and similar state policies. The resulting paper prepared by the Sabin Center is titled Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on the Built Environment under NEPA and State EIA Laws: A Survey of Current Practices and Recommendations for Model Protocols (August 2015). The study calls attention to an aspect of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) draft guidance on climate change analysis that has frequently been overlooked – namely, how climate change may affect a project. The Sabin Center paper also outlines a structured approach for analyzing climate change effects on a project, which will hopefully assist agencies in performing such analyses more consistently and effectively during NEPA reviews.

Existing Framework

NEPA requires an Environmental Assessment (EA) or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for federal actions that may have a significant effect on the environment. In addition to activities conducted by a federal agency, “federal actions” under NEPA include the issuance of federal permits or the supply of federal funds for a project. In February 2010, the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released draft guidance for federal agencies to consider the effects of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) during their NEPA evaluations, e.g., during the review of a permit application for a project. The 2010 guidance specifically notes that “climate change can affect the integrity of a development or structure by exposing it to a greater risk of floods, storm surges, or higher temperatures.”

The CEQ draft guidance was revised in December 2014 to clarify and reinforce the 2010 draft document’s recommendations, partially in response to public comments on the 2010 draft. The CEQ’s 2014 revised draft guidance clarifies direction on when and how to consider GHG emissions, and includes references to accepted GHG quantification strategies. The 2014 revised draft guidance also reiterates that an agency should assess the impacts of climate change on the project, in addition to the more common practice of evaluating the impact of the project on climate change. However, the CEQ guidance does not clearly define how the climate change impact analysis should be accomplished. Indeed, the 2014 revised guidance acknowledges that “agencies continue to have substantial discretion in how they tailor their NEPA processes to accommodate the concerns raised in this guidance.”

The CEQ draft guidance followed President Obama’s 2009 Executive Order 13514 instructing federal agencies to “establish an integrated strategy towards sustainability in the Federal Government and to make reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) a priority for Federal agencies”. Under EO 13514 and subsequent supplemental or superseding executive orders, Federal agencies began developing strategies for reducing GHGs; for example, the U.S. Navy issued its Climate Change Road Map memo in May 2010. Since 2009, agencies have also developed strategies for assessing vulnerability of infrastructure to climate change effects; for example, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued its 2012 Climate Change and Extreme Weather Vulnerability Assessment Framework. These efforts have facilitated the reduction of GHGs and adaptation to climate change for some agency-initiated developments, which is an underlying CEQ goal. However, as with the CEQ draft guidance, these documents do not provide detailed instructions on how to analyze climate change during a NEPA review; such analysis would apply to ALL major federal actions, including the regulation of many private-sector projects.

NCharlestonSC2_NOAA
Green infrastructure from local neighborhoods in Charleston, SC (NOAA, 2015)

The Sabin Center Initiative

In 2015, the Sabin Center conducted a systematic review of NEPA documents to better understand how climate change issues and infrastructure vulnerabilities were being addressed. The Sabin Center study found that, in the absence of a specific climate change analysis protocol for NEPA reviews, the evaluation of climate change impacts on proposed projects has been limited and inconsistent in scope. This finding was based on a review of federal EAs and EISs issued between 2012 and 2014. These results were generally consistent with a similar review of recent EAs and EISs conducted by Defenders of Wildlife in 2013. In particular, while it has become common practice to quantify GHG emissions from a proposed project, this practice only addresses one side of the coin: how a proposed project will potentially contribute to climate change. Because an EA/EIS more often considers how a project will affect the environment, the opposite approach has been dubbed a “reverse EIS” because it emphasizes the environment’s effect on the project.

image002
Climate risk assessment in energy development and mining projects (Sabine Law Center, 2015)

Catchy term aside, CEQ notes that the justification for the “reverse” climate change analysis is rooted “squarely within the realm of NEPA… ultimately enabling the selection of smarter, more resilient actions.” As a more specific example, NEPAs purpose is, in part, to “attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences” [42 USC §4331]. For instance, risk to health or safety is clearly an issue in a case where climate change could result in sea level rise or more intense precipitation events that in turn could cause flooding of critical energy infrastructure and subsequent loss of power.

Aiming to bridge the gap between the CEQ draft guidance and routine agency action, the Sabin Center has outlined a detailed protocol for conducting an analysis of climate change effects on a project during a NEPA review. In developing its proposed protocol, the Sabin Center pulled examples from several existing documents, including policies implemented at the local, state and international levels. The study also considered certain EISs that DID incorporate a detailed assessment of climate change impacts on a project, including the EIS for the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project. By creating a more distinct framework for a “reverse EIS” assessment, the Sabin Center’s study will hopefully help agencies improve the design of more projects through the NEPA process or similar state and local reviews, thus moving us one step closer to smarter and more resilient infrastructure development.

Conclusion

One aspect of a robust EA/EIS is that it employs the best available scientific and technical information. When it comes to incorporating an assessment of climate change effects on a project, an additional measure of a successful NEPA review will likely be that the lead federal agency used the best available analysis tool – something the Sabin Center has aimed to create. Integrating a “reverse” climate change analysis into NEPA documents adds a critical dimension to the thoughtful review of proposed projects that may be significantly affected by shifting environmental conditions. Such an analysis will better inform the public and improve agency decisions in developing appropriate mitigation measures to address relevant and often controversial climate change issues of concern.

About the Author:  Steven MacLeod is a TCS Board Member and is employed as an Environmental Scientist at Ecology and Environment, Inc. (E & E) in Buffalo, New York, where he consults on energy transmission and shoreline restoration projects. Steve thanks his colleagues at E & E for their contributions to this article, particularly Mr. George Rusk, J.D., and Ms. Laurie Kutina. Thanks also to Ms. Jessica Wentz, J.D., at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law for her review prior to publication.

SWIM, BIKE, RUN!

By: Rebecca Cope

At 10am on September 12th, the blast of an airhorn signaled the start of the 15th Annual Neuse Riverkeeper Triathlon. Racers swam across the channel to Radio Island, where they mounted their bikes for a high speed tour of Beaufort’s historic downtown district, then completed the last leg of the race on foot, returning to the Marine Lab and a cheering crowd of spectators. The glory of crossing the finish line wasn’t the only motivation for these racers; they were also helping to raise about $2,500 to support a healthy Neuse River watershed.

TeamLadiesFrom it’s headwaters in the Piedmont to where it flows into Pamlico Sound, the Neuse River supports a wide range of agricultural, industrial and recreational uses, and these uses have important impacts on our coastal communities and ecosystems. For over 30 years, the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation (NRF) has worked to protect, restore, and preserve the Neuse River watershed, and Duke’s TCS chapter is proud to be a long-term partner in their work. Travis Graves, the Riverkeeper himself, recently shared his thoughts about our ongoing partnership:

“For 15 years The Coastal Society’s Neuse Riverkeeper Triathlon has been bringing communities together to celebrate our most precious resource. The money they raise goes directly to support our work protecting the Lower Neuse River basin and all of the communities that depend on it for fishable, swimmable, drinkable water.”

Runner

At the Triathlon, members of the NRF volunteered their paddling
skills to help keep our swimmers safe in the water, as they do every year. Joining them were about 50 more volunteers who kept racers on track, recorded times, and made sure everyone was hydrated.  Ashleigh McCord, a Master’s candidate at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and returning Triathlon volunteer, said she saw the race as, “a chance to engage students, faculty, and community members … in supporting a local organization that does critical work in our local coastal watershed.”

HighFive

Following the race, the festivities continued with a cook out and silent auction featuring prizes donated by local businesses. A brief bout of wind and rain did not deter people from sticking around to hear the race winners announced. Rachel Karasik, whose team placed 2nd, explained why she participated this year: “As a volunteer for the triathlon last year, I really enjoyed experiencing the camaraderie and celebration between racers, observers and volunteers… Everyone’s support and enthusiasm made me want to experience the triathlon from a different perspective.”

On behalf of the Duke TCS officers, I’d like to thank our racers, volunteers, and local business owners who helped make this year’s triathlon a huge success. This event wouldn’t be possible without your support and dedication to protecting our watershed. Travis Graves says he’s, “already looking forward to next years race!”  We couldn’t agree more!

TCS PRESIDENT VISITS THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

By:  Tom Bigford

This fall promises to be busy as I spread messages from TCS and seek partnerships to strengthen our future. My primary destination this fall is Oregon and Washington. I hope to see some of you at each of these events. Please notify me of similar opportunities in a state near you. Your society needs your help as we reach out to partners, potential members, and sponsors.

Pacific Northwest Trek

I’ll begin my Pacific Northwest trek on November 8-12 where I will moderate a technical session at the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation’s biennial meeting on “Fish as Integrators of Estuarine Health.” Speakers will use their experience with fish to assess the health of select coasts and estuaries. Check out the conference website for the latest program information. Hopefully our presence will be strong, as it was in 2013 in San Diego under the leadership of Megan Bailiff, Leigh Taylor Johnson, and Mike Orbach. While there, I will join Green Fire Productions to show their inspiring “Ocean Frontiers” films. Each features stories of citizens joining to make a difference along our coasts. If you haven’t seen their work, go here. You’ll enjoy the films and be inspired by the shared accomplishments of citizens and professionals from coast to coast.

While in Portland for CERF 2015 I’m planning a trip down I-5 to Oregon State University, home of the newest TCS university chapter. I’m working with faculty advisor Michael Harte and student president Chelsea Duke to arrange a small event to talk about our Society, learn about their interests, and talk about how they can engage. The opportunities are huge so I expect many great ideas from the OSU crowd.

I’ll also be headed north from Portland to Grays Harbor on the Washington coast. TCS has partnered with the Coastal States Organization (CSO), National Estuarine Research Reserve Association (NERRA), and the Washington coastal zone management program to convene a “Coastal Connections” event to help local citizens and community planners understand and improve community resilience along their coast. This gathering will be in the home district of Rep. Derek Kilmer, a strong advocate for coastal issues. CSO, NERRA, and TCS may partner with other states for similar events in the coming months. There’s no set date for this event yet but hopefully it will coincide with my early November trip to Portland.

TomsBlog1_HerbFinally, on a sad note, my plans will not include a visit with Maurice “Herb” Schwartz, the first president of TCS (1976-77). Herb passed away in late July at 97 years old. We have lost a true visionary, the person who noticed our coasts needed a voice and the leader behind the movement to create our society. Past TCS Director Rebekah Padgett and I visited Herb in 2013 to convey an honorary TCS membership; I visited him again last year to solicit his sage advice on the coastal future. This year, my unanswered emails were punctuated with the sad news from his family. I have shared our condolences . He will be missed.