Environmental permits enable regulatory agencies to control the disturbance and degradation of the environment caused by man's activities. Created by governments through legislation, the permit processes are administered by elected officials. Environmental legislation is relatively new as an independent field of the law: the laws themselves are primarily a conglomeration of older legal doctrines from other fields of law, modified and adapted for particular situations (Landau and Rheingold 1971). Like other laws, environmental laws are meant to serve and protect the rights and well-being of...