Bill Walsh, founder of the Healthy Building Network, answers questions 0

What work do you do?

I'm the founder and national coordinator of the Healthy Building Network.

How does it relate to the environment?

The Healthy Building Network is the only organization dedicated to linking green building strategies to the specific goals of the environmental-health movement. Our goal is to shift market demand in the building and construction industry away from what we call worst in class building materials, and toward healthier, commercially available alternatives, competitively priced and equal or superior in performance. Right now, stopping the use of polyvinyl chloride plastic, also known as PVC or vinyl, is our top priority. We use a variety of strategies, from technical consultations to grassroots activism, to convince consumers, especially those with major commercial interests, to alter their purchasing habits. Ultimately HBN seeks to reverse the negative health impacts of many commercial industrial policies by influencing laws that affect public health.

What are you working on at the moment?

What I'm actually working on, as opposed to what my job description implies I'm doing? OK. I've got this collection of voodoo dolls representing the flacks from the Vinyl Institute, the American Chemistry Council,* the American Forest & Paper Association, and the other 997 trade associations defending the rights of polluters. Each day, after reading their latest press releases on the PR Newswire, I adjust the pins. In some cases I'm hoping to stimulate the heart to see if perhaps we can release any human empathy whatsoever for the people whose lives they make worse rather than better. When confronted with a particularly bizarre assertion -- that dioxin contamination comes from trees, say -- I'll focus on the left side of the head to see if I can coax a rational thought to pierce the consciousness, maybe the little voice in the back of the head that says, "Thou shalt not lie." Alas, it remains a work in progress, with no apparent success, except one. I have some pins permanently lodged in the posterior regions, and the Vinyl Institute will admit that I am a pain in the ass.

What do you really do, on a day-to-day basis?

We publish a bi-weekly electronic newsletter that offers perspective on the market and politics affecting the green-building movement. The Healthy Building News is only a 500-word essay or interview each issue, but it takes a lot of time because we footnote every claim or fact reported.

The HBN staff is an eclectic group, as is our larger network of allies, so I also spend a lot of time on conference calls and of course in email communication tracking developments in the green building world and contributing to an appropriate response. Hardly a day passes when I don't hear about an important move by a major company, like a million-dollar order for PVC-free products by Kaiser Permanente, or Shaw Carpet's last production run of PVC carpeting. Then we all put our heads together (not an easy thing via conference call) to figure out how to leverage it into further market transformation.

Of course, I'll also get word of the latest greenwash scam, like when Armstrong Corporation and a bunch of other flooring companies (all members of the U.S. Green Building Council) invoke green-building standards in a lawsuit to block a green building tax credit in New York.

Basically we try to support the good guys and fight the bad guys.

What long and winding road led you to your current position?

I went to law school with a vision of being a trial lawyer who drove a Porsche Targa to courts where I would win cases for deserving people suing unscrupulous defendants. I left in a rented truck on my way to Washington, D.C., with a graduate fellowship and a stipend from the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center. There I represented a sick woman who had asked ChemLawn to notify her before they sprayed pesticides next door so that she could close the windows. ChemLawn refused, citing the federal pesticide laws that are supposed to protect public health from pesticide misuse. That was my introduction to the grassroots toxics movement. It grabbed my gut and never let go.

Instead of doing the smart thing and holding on to her case for two years until I could open a private practice and buy a Porsche courtesy of ChemLawn, I let a bunch of idealistic law students con me into a quixotic campaign to challenge the preemption clause of the federal pesticide law. OK, sure, ultimately our theory prevailed in federal court, but you won't see a policy wonk driving a Porsche with a FIFRA vanity plate -- that would be the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

But I was hooked on working with the communities on the front lines of the environmental struggles of the day. It was invigorating to be part of a movement that produced such iconic public figures as Lois Gibbs and the late John O'Connor. All over the country you could meet fabulous and courageous activists fighting for democracy itself as much as the environment. This was the movement that in 1986 reauthorized the Superfund law and passed the federal right-to-know laws by a single vote on the floor of the U.S. House. I loved it. I spent two years working on the Superfund law with U.S. Public Interest Research Group and then moved on to Greenpeace, thrilled by the prospect of incorporating nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action in service of the movement.

Over time, the focus of our work at Greenpeace shifted from combating toxic waste to advocating for cleaner products and production. Because of the huge environmental impact of buildings and building materials, I thought the green-building movement deserved more attention than it was getting from the environmental community, so I started HBN as a way to meet that need.

How many emails are currently in your inbox?

None. It didn't used to be this way. I used to be overwhelmed just like everyone else. Then our IT whiz kid fixed it so that everything goes right to the spam folder. It's like losing weight without exercise.

Who's the biggest pain in the ass you have to deal with?

Without a doubt, hands down, no contest, without exception, that would be corporate trade associations. To appreciate the impact of trade associations on civil society and reasoned discourse, think of the nanotechnology run amok in Michael Crichton's Prey.

Who's nicer than you would expect?

No one. I have high expectations.

What has been the worst moment in your professional life to date?

While at Greenpeace we laid it on the line in support of the community in East Liverpool, Ohio. They were trying to stop construction of a hazardous waste incinerator on the banks of the Ohio River. The smokestack was flush with the school and homes on the bluff above. It was a monument to official indifference and corruption. Greenpeace worked behind a coalition that included farmers, nurses, postal workers, steel workers, black people, white people, wealthy people, and working poor.

The campaign was skillfully led. One of the community leaders won a Goldman Prize and one of our Greenpeace activists went on to be voted a Time magazine Hero of the Planet for her later work. The cause made the front page of The New York Times and Nightline, and when the famous Clinton/Gore campaign bus swung through the valley, Al Gore said to a cheering throng, "This incinerator would not have been permitted in a Clinton/Gore administration. We are on your side." There's a tape of that speech around somewhere.

This cause became the first issue on the plate for Clinton's EPA administrator, Al Gore's former chief of staff, Carol Browner. They granted the permits. It was absolutely craven. Not that I'm a Pollyanna about campaign promises, but you only have to compare Gore to Cheney in terms of delivering for their constituency to see what a disgrace it was, and remains, for him to cave to toxic-waste brokers so that they could burn hazardous waste next to a school yard. That tells you something. It foreshadowed Gore's later capitulation on the Kyoto Protocol, and ultimately, I believe, the reasons why rank-and-file Democrats never warmed to him.

What has been the best moment?

In terms of professional achievement, HBN's successful campaign to phase out most uses of arsenic-soaked, pressure-treated wood has had one of the largest, most tangible impacts of any work with which I've been associated. It embodies our goal, which is to make it so that healthy building products are not a specialty item. Today when you go to buy pressure-treated wood at your local lumberyard, it won't have arsenic or chromium in it.

But on an emotional level, one of my best moments also occurred in East Liverpool, Ohio. I was sitting on the floor of a crowded living room while the local folk sat down to watch a video of the movie Gandhi. Most people basically knew little about Gandhi. All of a sudden, one of the women -- the future Goldman Prize winner -- shouts, "Pause it. Pause it." Someone says: "Why?" She says: "We have to take notes. This is incredible." Ultimately 33 people from the Ohio River Valley and Martin Sheen stood trial for civil disobedience at the incinerator.

What environmental offense has infuriated you the most?

Greenwashing really pisses me off because it only works when there is a sliver of truth to a claim that is really a fig leaf for antisocial behavior, essentially conning people, taking advantage of their better nature and best instincts.

For the pragmatic environmentalist, what should be the focus -- political action designed to change policy, or individual action designed to change lifestyles?

One person's pragmatism is another's idealism, and yet another's idea of a complete waste of time. People doing what they feel called to do, with persistence, creativity, vigor, and joy -- that's where I see the greatest potential.

What's your environmental vice?

Eating meat. It makes me feel like I have the integrity of Homer Simpson. Once I even preyed upon my local Sierra Club representative -- vegetarian, pregnant, anemic, and vulnerable. I fed her various meat and meat byproducts from our grill all summer. She remembers it with affection, but I remember it as hitting bottom and admitting that I need a 12-step program or something.

What are you reading these days?

With my daughter I'm reading C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and with my son, The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban. On my own I've been transfixed by a recent book called The Philosophy of Sustainable Design, by an architect named Jason McLennan. It's one of the best primers on the green-building movement, but I'm most intrigued by his lucid analysis of how change gets made in institutions, in society, and possibly even recalcitrant meat eaters. Also I recently finished a book called The People's Business by Lee Drutman and Charlie Cray, which lays out an interesting case for controlling corporate excess -- whether financial like Enron or environmental like Dow in Bhopal, India, or Midland, Mich. -- by reasserting civic control over their license to do business, the corporate charter. It makes a lot of sense.

What's your favorite meal?

Anything my kids make when they decide to bring mom and dad breakfast in bed on a Sunday morning. Microwaved, twice-brewed coffee; bagels, toasted, buttered, then cooled; a salad from last night's dinner ... whatever it is, it's sure to be a delight, and always elegantly presented.

Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you?

Wearing socks with sandals, an amazing experience in footwear comfort, if not fashion.

What's your favorite place or ecosystem?

Fenway Park.

What's one thing the environmental movement is doing particularly well?

Getting it right. When has the environmental movement been wrong on a major issue?

What's one thing the environmental movement is doing badly, and how could they do it better?

I don't fault the environmental movement for any bad practice, nor do I think it is accurate to generalize about a field so varied and diverse. But to some extent, the environmental establishment, if you will, is organized in a way that is anachronistic, rendering otherwise good work less effective. Many environmental groups have a structure that reflects the regimen of environmental laws. That is to say, programs are segmented in defense of specific threats to species, air, land, water, public health. This tends to isolate the various scientific disciplines and public-policy experts, and focus energy on narrow problems rather than comprehensive solutions. It confronts the public with multiple, competing, shopworn, and negative messages that leave people weary and cynical. Worse, perhaps, it leaves us ill equipped to keep pace with interdisciplinary approaches that characterize private sector innovations.

I have been humbled and challenged by the breadth and depth of thinking in the green-building movement. The leaders in the green-building movement are presently much more holistic, creative, and optimistic in their approach than much of the environmental movement. The green-building movement is still predominantly a private-sector initiative, defined by voluntary programs and guidelines. As this evolves into public policy -- and this is beginning to happen -- it will challenge the existing structure of environmental law and environmental groups. Some sort of reformation seems inevitable, perhaps imminent.

If you could institute by fiat one environmental reform, what would it be?

The adoption of the precautionary principle would pretty much change everything for the better in very short order.

What was your favorite band when you were 18? How about now?

Since I was 15 actually, Bruce Springsteen has had top rotation of my 8-tracks, cassettes, vinyl (yes, vinyl), CDs, and now MP3s. I will admit to a midlife crisis during which I latched on to an ephemeral indie band called the Peasants. They did not age well. Two albums and they were gone. But in their day they did win a critics poll in Spin for their debut album, which was actually called "The Best of Bill Walsh." Now available on CD I hear.

What's your favorite TV show? Movie?

C-SPAN, in the wee hours. There's nothing better than Russell Mokhiber of the Corporate Crime Reporter asking a question at a White House press briefing. Drama, tragedy, comedy, farce, and parody all tightly wound into less than 60 seconds of colloquy with the press secretary to the president of the United States.

What are you happy about right now?

What makes me happy right now is that green building professionals are starting to take a strong stand in public to defend the integrity of their profession, and to keep the nation's leading authority on green building standards from devolving into a greenwashing tool under pressure from industry trade associations. So many efforts to develop professional standards of environmental conduct have been derailed or co-opted by self-styled "stakeholders" whose only real "stake" is the one they intend to drive through the heart of the organization.

Groups like the Vinyl Institute and the American Forest & Paper Association are threatening to tie the U.S. Green Building Council in a stranglehold of litigation. They are forming their own fake green building association. They are corrupting the internal deliberations of the group by abusing the consensus decision-making process. But it looks like the green building community is going to stand and fight. Nothing makes me happier than to tell them: HBN's got your back.

If you could have every InterActivist reader do one thing, what would it be?

When the moment comes, and you will know it when you see it, do the right thing.

*[Correction, 25 Mar 2005: Originally, Walsh mistakenly listed the American Chemical Society when in fact he meant the American Chemistry Council. The ACS is a science-based nonprofit independent of the chemical industry. Walsh explains his mistake and responds to a letter from the ACS in Letters to the Editor.]

Greenwalshing

How do you determine what should be classified as a "worst in class" building material?    -- Name not provided

A three-pronged analysis: First, is there a serious environmental problem associated with the material? Second, by focusing on that material, would we contribute to achieving the goals of the larger environmental-health movement? Third, are there commercially available alternatives that are superior from an environmental-health perspective and comparable in price and performance?

To mix some common metaphors, are we at the tipping point where we can raise the bar?

Take the case of arsenic-soaked pressure-treated wood, the Healthy Building Network's first campaign victory. Aside from exposing kids to arsenic on their playground equipment, a huge problem with arsenic-treated wood is that the arsenic will leach into groundwater from landfills, especially unlined construction-debris landfills. This is already a problem in Florida. And the catch is that most of the arsenic-treated wood produced hasn't even reached the landfill. But for being lodged in wood, the same amount of arsenic would be considered hazardous waste and banned from even lined solid-waste landfills.

How's that for a loophole? You mean to say the wood is going to degrade and release the arsenic? D'oh!

At the same time, there were arsenic-free formulas, made by the same manufacturers, performing to the same standards, being niche-marketed as "green" specialty products. This is a case where an industry could have taken the high road, committed itself to a gradual transition, and made money coming and going. But when a few companies started to aggressively market the new formula as safer for the environment, their competitors, using their trade association, threatened to crush them.

There are two satisfying things about that campaign. First, we were actually defending the integrity of good businesses as much as the health of kids. So no one can say that HBN is anti-business. Second, when the arsenic formula was banned for retail sales, the trade association folded. Woo hoo! Its president went on to work for a trade association defending the interests of snack foods.

What's your opinion of the LEED rating system, as administered by the U.S. Green Building Council? Do you think it represents a significant step forward for the building industry?    -- Meghan Houlihan, Missoula, Mont.

LEED is such a significant step forward for the building industry that it is now in jeopardy, as the least ethical interests in the business community seek to gain control of it. Every manufacturer whose building product does not make the cut under fair but firm definitions of "green" is strategizing right now about how they can bend the LEED system to their purpose.

A LEED rating system that lives up to the U.S. Green Building Council's stated mission, "to transform the building market," could be the first great environmental policy achievement of the 21st century. A LEED rating system that degenerates into a greenwash marketing scheme will be the most counterproductive development for the environment since Dick Cheney emerged from his undisclosed location.

The fight for the soul of the USGBC has been joined. Last year, a management initiative to grant membership status to trade associations was rebuffed by contentious opposition from some board members and local USGBC chapters. Now a new CEO and board face proposals that advance transparent greenwash agendas by the American Forest & Paper Association and the Vinyl Institute. These have been widely and publicly denounced by, among others, companies who truly are committed to green building principles.

So it is a defining moment for LEED and the green-building movement. HBN is committed to preserving the integrity of LEED, so you can keep track of developments on our website.

Where can I learn about green building techniques? Are there any classes or certification programs for green building?    -- Kassandra Sutherland, Davis, Calif.

In California? Nah.

OK, seriously, there are a lot of options, especially in California. The dominant certification standard, for buildings and professionals, is the USGBC's LEED system. Local USGBC chapters around the country host a variety of educational programs. Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility also has chapters in San Francisco and Chicago that hold educational forums on green building and run listservs for other regional and national events. Building Concerns has regional directories for educational programs (and architects, contractors, etc.) for California, the mountain states, and the Southeast. Building Green, publishers of Environmental Building News, and the Green Resource Center both publish regional and national listings of educational opportunities.

What do you see as being the best way to bring about fair costs for green building materials?    -- Jared Webb, Rocky Mount, Va.

Manufacturer responsibility has so many direct and indirect benefits: creating immediate economies of scale for materials reuse, stimulating design innovation, and fully accounting for product costs. One of the best examples of this in the U.S. today is the carpet industry, led by manufacturers such as Interface, Milliken, and Shaw.

What, in your opinion, is the greatest threat to human health from the building sector? Reading your newsletter, more or less everything is about vinyl.    -- Ÿystein Solevâg, Eidsnes, Norway

We focus to be effective, not to suggest there is one "greatest" threat. A few years ago, the site was heavy with information about arsenic because arsenic-treated wood was a top campaign priority.

We focus on PVC or vinyl because the weight of available evidence tells us that among building materials, it may well be the single most important source of many of the worst toxic chemicals plaguing the global environment today. Dioxin and three other chemicals targeted for elimination under international treaties can be traced in significant quantity to the production and use of PVC. Some 65 tons of mercury have been unaccounted for by chlorine factories, which produce the feedstock for vinyl. That's more than the annual mercury emissions from power plants. More than half of all chlorine produced is used to make PVC, which can be over 50 percent chlorine by weight. (By comparison, less than 5 percent is used for drinking and wastewater disinfection.) There's more, including growing bodies of evidence that chemicals leaching from PVC contribute to indoor air quality problems. And PVC has been declared a "contaminant" to other plastics recycling, after more than a decade of failed efforts to effectively recycle it.

What people really need to understand is that no other plastic is based on chlorine, so other plastics do not have the unique environmental impacts of PVC. But many other plastics, not to mention other materials, do offer equal or better performance at comparable cost. If PVC makes the grade in green building, then what doesn't? Failing to distinguish PVC from other plastics is like failing to distinguish old growth from other lumber. This is the easy one folks -- the low-hanging fruit!

How is your organization funded? How can citizens get involved?    -- Pat Vairo, New York, N.Y.

We are predominantly funded by grants from philanthropic foundations and contributions from the general public, so go to our donations site! Another way to get involved is to participate in local efforts. In New York, an effective statewide group is the Citizens' Environmental Coalition. In New York City there's a great group called WE ACT (West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.) that does environmental-health work citywide. Just search "environmental health" and a state, and you'll find many excellent organizations around the country.

I saw a portion of a documentary called Blue Vinyl in which Greenpeace partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build an environmentally friendly home in New Orleans. Do you know of any other partnerships with Habitat for Humanity? What is your organization doing in regards to environmentally friendly housing for the poor?    -- Mamatha Gavini, Atlanta, Ga.

Everyone interested in green building or toxic-chemical policy or just good documentary filmmaking should watch Blue Vinyl. It is a remarkable piece of work. To give you some idea of how good the movie is, consider that every interview I did for it ended up on the cutting room floor! The DVD version is about to come out, with an update on the Habitat for Humanity project and, finally, a scene featuring moi. The first email I got after my Grist interview was from the filmmaker, Judith Helfand, saying, "I can't believe you don't have a favorite movie!" I could only reply: cutting ... room ... floor.

It was an honor working with Habitat and Greenpeace on the New Orleans project. The top folks at Habitat's headquarters in Americus, Ga., set us up with their national green team leader, with whom we worked for over a year, and then we got the red-carpet treatment from the New Orleans affiliate and produced a fine house. Habitat has a nationwide commitment to building Energy Star-qualified homes, but they are a highly decentralized organization, and running on charity at that. So they can only go so far in terms of uniform standards. There have been other exceptionally "green" homes built by a number of chapters that I'm familiar with, including Puget Sound and Washington, D.C.

If folks know of others, let us know. We would love to feature them on our website.

As for HBN and affordable housing, later this year we plan to launch a new program, so stay tuned.

I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I am currently working with the local Habitat for Humanity chapter to get a reuse center started. We are in the early stages of planning. Do you have any suggestions? Any ideas where we might be able to find funding sources?    -- John Terry, Fairbanks, Alaska

John, do you really want me to put your potential funding sources on the internet? By the time you wake up in Fairbanks, all of the money will have been doled out east of the Mississippi. It's a great idea, though, as we need a better infrastructure in order to greatly expand the market for materials reuse. I have forwarded your contact information to my colleagues at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who have over 30 years of experience in promoting materials reuse, ecologically sound economic development, and the deconstruction of buildings and reuse of building materials. They have worked with a number of successful reuse centers that are self sufficient. Habitat's got a great record with reuse centers as well. Let's stay in touch.

Would you support trade associations if they were advocating the right sorts of public policies? Or do you reject their participation on principle?    -- Alison Wise, founder and executive director, Sea Change Sustainable Business Interest Group, Oakland, Calif.

There are a lot of useful functions that trade associations provide for their member companies, such as continuing education and certification programs, trade fairs, keeping an eye on overall market and political trends, and communicating this information to their members. When trade associations start to communicate industry positions outward, on behalf of their members, the trouble starts.

Part of the problem is structural. A trade association has to be careful not to run afoul of antitrust laws, so they have to be open to all companies in their line of business. As a result, they can never be better than the worst company they represent. This doesn't rule out ethical behavior, but it does mean that the debate is held hostage to the worst practices in the industry, even when there is critical mass for progress among many of the leading companies. Obviously a group whose mission is to promote wind power or organic farming is less likely to cause problems, but even those industries will be subject to the same forces as they grow.

In two decades of advocacy work, I have reached numerous agreements with companies -- even after very contentious conflicts. I have never found common ground with a trade association. They are the junkyard dogs. Their record on environmental-policy debates speaks for itself, in four-letter words.

If companies are going to engage in public policy making, they should speak for themselves, so that they are accountable: to employees, communities, shareholders, suppliers, and customers. They can't expect to be treated with trust or respect when they play both sides against the middle. The USGBC's credibility has already suffered because some of its members, under the cover of their trade association, the Resilient Floor Covering Institute, financed a lawsuit against New York state's green tax credit and misrepresented LEED in briefs to the court.

We now have a situation where trade associations, some of which are financed by corporate members active in the USGBC, have established a rival Green Building Coalition dedicated to undermining the USGBC. It's a cancer in the green building movement at the moment.

Who are the strongest environmentally sensitive companies on the national level in the U.S. and who are the "baddest bad guys" in terms of environmental impact?    -- Angus MacFoodle, Salem, Mass.

This guy doesn't want me driving a Porsche, he wants to see me buy one for some New York City libel lawyer. It's a good question for which I can't give a good answer because there are too many confounding variables, most of which I don't have enough information about. For example, the same action may be economically beneficial to one company and not to another. Some firms act from a place of abundance, while others act despite financial insecurity. Diversified companies may have more options than manufacturers committed to a single material or product. Some companies prioritize environmental progress, while others prioritize other important goals -- working conditions, programs for kids, etc. Making a recycled doormat is one thing; a floor for an operating room or a trauma unit is another.

That being said, one major indicator that distinguishes the better company is the extent to which their "good deeds" are integral to their core business. More than one automaker boasts a high-profile green building, and Wal-Mart specifies energy-efficient components for their stores. Some go so far as to say that those are public-relations fig leafs to cover the otherwise harmful environmental impacts of their core business. The impact of those efforts is dwarfed, however, by health care companies rejecting PVC in their medical devices and buildings, playground manufacturers abandoning arsenic-treated wood, or carpet companies taking back their product. The big difference is that suppliers, customers, competitors, and peers all react to innovations in core business function.

I know, I know, you want names. Thumbs up, thumbs down. You decide then. Who is the stronger?

America's leading carpet manufacturers -- Milliken, Shaw, Interface -- have some exemplary "take back" and remanufacturing programs, and as a result they have more "green" awards than P. Diddy has bling. But they were/are also responding to a gathering storm of concern about the volumes of carpet in the nation's landfills and the fact that many green designers eschew carpeting for a variety of reasons. There was a time when it was foreseeable that green buildings would not be carpeted. That's changed now because carpet companies are some of the most aggressive industrial innovators. It takes nothing away from a revolutionary like Interface CEO Ray Anderson, who changed a corporate culture, to note that his innovations are also consistent with a smart long-term business plan.

Then there is the Firestone Building Products division -- not a brand that pops to mind when you say green building. Their sales reps look about as natural showing products at a green building trade show as they would showing some love at a P. Diddy show. As far as industrial roofing products go, the bar is not so high. Selling white, energy-saving roofs is all you need to do to earn your bragging rights. But Firestone just reversed themselves on a relatively recent decision to enter the PVC membrane roofing market. They stopped construction of a factory, put major national contracts at risk, took themselves out of a profitable market, and phased out 800 tons of annual PVC production, citing environmental reasons.

Are there any user-friendly sources of information on safe and sustainable building products?    -- Johanna Polsenberg, Washington, D.C.

There is no better source for information on green and healthy building materials than the Environmental Building News. Our goal, of course, is to make it so that someday you won't have to do special research, or even ask. It won't be on the store shelf if it is not healthy.

I believe many plastic water pipes are made of PVC materials. If this is true, is the water coming into contact with the vinyl contaminated?    -- Dan Busemeyer, Champaign, Ill.

Some PVC pipes manufactured before 1977 leach the human carcinogen vinyl chloride into the water in the pipes. According to one civil engineer who has submitted comments [PDF] on PVC pipes to the USGBC, peer review studies have raised more recent concerns: In one study, the levels of lead in water distributed by lead-stabilized PVC pipes was generally very low, yet the levels of lead in water from newly installed PVC mains were found to temporarily exceed the levels recommended by the World Health Organization. A variety of studies demonstrate that UV light assists in the migration of lead and tin in PVC pipe. Lead has also been detected in another study of waterlines. Leaching of lead from the PVC appears to be responsible for lead elevation in these water samples.

What is the best environmental choice for siding?    -- Arthur Amidon, Huntington, N.Y.

I got a lot of questions about specific materials choices, and generally I have referred these to my colleague Matthew Cacho, who staffs the desk for HBN. But I would like to use this one to make a few overarching points about materials choices. First, recognize that your decision will reflect your values, what is "best for you," because there is no "best" answer and there is no way of objectively quantifying the pros and cons of competing materials. Think about it for a minute -- how will your system weigh global-warming impacts against carcinogens in human breast milk? Second, the overall analysis of which is "best for you" will include lots of details about the structure (including whether it is new construction or remodeling, its location, its function) and about you (what is important to you politically, economically, aesthetically).

To make my choice, I would start by applying the Cradle to Cradle framework developed by chemist Michael Braungart and architect Bill McDonough, which envisions a goal of two material cycles. One cycle consists of organic materials that can be safely composted at the end of their useful life into soil and nutrients to grow new organic materials. We should strive to use as much of these as possible; this will encourage ever-improving production and manufacturing techniques. The other cycle consists of synthetic materials, ubiquitous and necessary in the industrial world. These should only be used if they can be locked into a zero-waste cycle of perpetual reuse with the end-of-life waste from our products becoming food for a new industrial cycle. Materials that cannot be effectively composted, reused, or truly recycled at the end of their life should be avoided.

Next, I would think locally. Reduce the environmental impacts of transportation and support local economies. What siding options are manufactured locally, and what sort of siding is best suited to my bioregion?

Finally I would think about my own values. I would want to make my choice resonate with activist campaigns that are looking out for the public interest. So I would not buy cedar shakes from a clear-cutting timber firm, even if the product was indigenous to where I lived. I would not choose vinyl because there is an international campaign to replace it with better materials. Given my budget and sense of aesthetics, I'd probably end up going for the expired license plates, like that hippie's house in Blue Vinyl.

I'm heading to law school next year with huge expectations and even larger goals. I believe a healthy environment is necessary for peace, and I believe environmental issues will become a high priority when deciding both domestic and foreign policy within my lifetime. What should I look for when deciding where to attend law school, and how can I maximize my experience?    -- Katherine Armstrong, Charleston, S.C.

I think you're onto something. Today, some of the most positive environmental impacts are the result of work that is not considered "environmentalism," for example, design, engineering, and procurement. Two of the biggest environmental drivers from a public-policy perspective are probably tax policy and global trade policy right now, great areas in which a committed environmentalist could make an impact. So, that is to say, I would not limit your choice to the schools with renowned environmental law programs.

Personally, I maximized my experience by never taking a class I wasn't interested in just because it would be on the bar exam. You're going to pay through the nose for a bar review course anyway, and they work. I filled that space with lots of clinical work. I had chosen Northeastern University Law School, largely because their cooperative education program built in lots of experiential learning. But one could also fill it with scholarship, or interdisciplinary studies. Bottom line, law school doesn't have to be a drag. It was mostly a fun and exhilarating time for me. The late 3rd Circuit Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. even let me skip out of my internship early a few times in order to see Springsteen's six-night run at the hallowed Philadelphia Spectrum in September 1984.

I agree that the Boss is the best, but I am very curious about the obscure band, the Peasants, that produced an album called The Best of Bill Walsh. Was this some sort of tribute to your great works? Or was it about the football coach, and you just liked the name of the album? Where can I find this music on the web?    -- Jim Vallette, Southwest Harbor, Maine

Funny you should ask. The last column moved someone to send me an email informing me that the Peasants are alive and well in cyberspace. As for the meaning of the music, literalism usually makes for bad criticism. I know how frustrated Springsteen gets when people keep pestering him about whether Crazy Janey and her mission man are real people or not, so you should just take it for what it's worth. Don't forget the follow-up effort either, Live From Sunny Italy, featuring the eco-anthem "Reunite Gondwanaland."

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