Regional Diversity in Environmental Attitudes, Knowledge, and Policy: The Kentucky River Authority

The development of public policy for the use of natural resources continues to grow in importance. Severe drought conditions in 1988 intensified the efforts of many political leaders to develop policy to address this natural resource issue. This research describes efforts by political leaders to find in the Kentucky River Authority (KRA) a solution to problems of the availability, quantity, and quality of the waters of the Kentucky River Drainage Basin (KRDB) for human use. The data for this study were collected with a telephone survey of 624 residents of 14 central and eastern KRDB counties. This analysis examines regional differences in environmental attitudes, environmental knowledge, and opinions about environmental policy in the context of providing data to those trying to develop and implement public water policy in the Basin. Differences were expected in environmental outlook between residents of the eastern Appalachian region, and the central Bluegrass region of the Basin. Few differences, however...