Topics include the efficient management of private and common property resources, economic aspects of environmental issues and concerns, efficiency, market failures, benefit-cost analysis, and policy analysis. Each student, in consultation with an advisor, will select a set of elective courses that are appropriate to his or her interests and needs. In general, these electives come from the following groups of courses. As part of their coursework, all students participate in a group practicum that involves studying and contributing to the decision making process surrounding an environmental issue. Students in the 1996 Environmental Decision Making class researched the industrial activity that created the contamination, the history of the community, the regulations that shaped the response of the regulators, and the effect of potential decisions on members of the community.
Torch Lake is a body of water connected to Lake Superior through Portage Lake.
From approximately 1860 to 1960, the lake received the waste rock from local copper mining operations. When tumors were found in fish caught in Torch Lake, an investigation was started that resulted in the lake becoming an EPA Superfund Site and a joint U.S.-Canadian Area of Concern. Today, the local community is in the process of addressing any concerns that remain so as to have the area delisted as a Superfund site and as an Area of Concern. Students in the 1998 Environmental Decision Making class studied the decisions that led up to the listing of Torch Lake as a Superfund site and Area of Concern. In addition to analyzing the decision making process, they also contributed to the decision making process by facilitating a review of fourteen potential impairments to beneficial uses that must be addressed before the site can be delisted as an Area of Concern.