[Taxacom] scholarly standards in environmental assessments

[Fred Schueler]

Taxacombers,

Over the decades there's been a certain amount of grumping on Taxacom 
about identifications and specimen handling in environmental 
assessments, and I wonder if anyone can point me to critiques of the 
overall scholarly standards in EAs? My experience is summarized in the 
definition given below. I'm writing a review of the herpetology of the 
EA for the Boundary Road landfill east of Ottawa, Ontario, - 
http://www.dumpthedumpnow.ca/ - http://www.dumpthisdump2.ca/ - and 
preliminary google searches just give me the standards EAs are supposed 
to meet, not those they actually implement.

I can send my draft ms around for review to anyone who is interested.

fred.
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           Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
Vulnerable Watersheds - http://vulnerablewaters.blogspot.ca/
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
     RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
    on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
     (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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environmental assessment (administrative high-jink): a winter survey of 
summer-active biota, usually authored by a biostitute. “Striking prima 
facie errors populate this assessment. ‘Ash’ and ‘poplar’ are genera: 
not species. Cattails are absent, and almost all of the houses are 
permanent residences rather than cottages... It’s curious that anyone 
conducting an ‘environmental assessment’ would have missed this rambling 
stand of the giant invasive grass, haplotype ‘m’ Phragmites australis, 
the ‘Grass that ate New Jersey’...  Stronger language than ‘good’ has 
been used of this marsh: ‘a previously unreported Provincially 
Significant vegetation type in Ontario.’ The fact that ‘no rare species 
were discovered’ by the assessors suggests a cursory survey... [since] 
the Provincially Rare Quillwort Isoetes riparia at this site 
‘constitutes the largest known population in Canada and likely the 
largest in North America.’” -- Willola Wanderer. -- from The Devil's 
Addendum - http://pinicola.ca/devildic.pdf