Green Means

A Strong EPA

By Shannon Scott

            Given the current global environmental and economic crises, EPA enforcement is critical to preserving the U.S.’s quality of life and economic strength. 

Clean fishing waters, unspoiled hunting lands, and breathable air distinguish the U.S. from the vastly polluted lands and cheap labor economies of China, India, and Mexico - countries where unscrupulous industries have created filthy, unsafe, and poisoned environments. 

Richard Nixon knew this when he signed the EPA into existence in 1970.   Under Ronald Reagan, George Schultz directed negotiations of The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer.  Fiscal conservatives saw clearly that environmental destruction, including global warming, could lead rapidly to economic ruin.  Strict environmental protection laws and EPA enforcement separate us from third world living standards and economies.  Whether we enjoy the wider outdoors or not, most of us are grateful for unspoiled wild lands and potable water from our taps.

Toxic industrial wastes that saturate water, land, and air, lock third world countries’ into weak economic positions.  Even if stringent environmental protection laws went into full force today, these nations’ economies and living standards could not improve to those of progressive first world nations.  Pollution-caused cancers, musculoskeletal weaknesses, deformities, miscarriages, brain damage, and internal organ failures drastically impair human resources.  Ill populations further weaken third world economies, and force first world nations to incur economically debilitating health care costs.

In the U.S. many polluting companies have taken pride in seeing how much they can get away with, how much short term profit they can reap at public and national expense, coercing political and legislative support.  Over the last century our nation realized its share of corporate greed caused environmental disasters:  

Love Canal – where a housing developer built over a toxic waste dump resulting in residents experiencing rampant miscarriages and birth defects.

Bunker Hill Mine in Kellogg, Idaho dumped lead and other heavy metals into the Coeur D’Alene drainage, soil, and air causing thousands to suffer catastrophic illnesses.  Hundreds of children grew with twisted malformed bones.  Many didn’t live long enough to see 18^th birthdays.  The Superfund clean-up site of the Silver Valley stretches from Washington to Montana. 

The Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia recently had a massive explosion that left 25 miners dead.  Massey Energy, the parent company amassed more than 1,100 violations in the past three years, many of them serious. Federal regulators even ordered parts of the mine closed 60 times over the past year.  Yet Massey Energy continues to operate making huge profits. 

In 2008, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Fossil Plant poured coal sludge – a byproduct of the ash from coal combustion – onto more than 300 acres of land.  15 homes were destroyed, and many sit on land that is now contaminated. The plant’s byproducts included arsenic, lead, barium, chromium and manganese. These metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.

The W.R. Grace Pulp Mill in Libby, Montana spewed asbestos over the town for decades, sickening over 1,000 people and killing over 200.  W.R. Grace is also connected to numerous other contamination incidents, including an Acton, Massachusetts Superfund site.

Monsanto dumped now-banned PCBs into West Anniston Creek in Alabama. They also dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into open-pit landfills – and proceeded to spend decades covering it up even after confirming that fish submerged in the creek turned belly-up within seconds.

For decades the Anaconda copper mine leached uranium and arsenic into Mason Valley, NV area water tables and soils.  Atlantic Richfield bought the site from Anaconda in 1977, and provides bottled water to families with contaminated wells.  This area also has inordinately high cancer rates compared to the rest of Nevada.  At the time of this writing, Governor Sandoval sanctioned and praised the transfer of BLM land in Mason Valley for yet another copper mine.  Nevada Copper Corp., the owner, is seeking partnership from “a developing Asian country”.   This will be a partnership with third world business and political leaders.  Let’s hope it’s not China, with their communist government, culturally embedded corruption, and abominable environmental conditions – imports we can live without.

Protecting the U.S.’s environment and economic future is actually easy. 

First, the EPA must have wide public support.  Demand stringent laws, and maximum funding for the EPA.  Increase EPA enforcement staff so that no bad corporate deed goes undetected, or unpunished.

Second, industries must comply with EPA legislation, and further develop cleaner technologies.  

Reward clean industries with tax breaks, and penalize unclean businesses with higher tax rates and penalties.

Third, gross violation penalties must be stiff enough that if a company offends, board members and share holders clean house of operations decision makers.  Fines significantly damage operations, and just like in the financial sector, executive officers who knowingly condone or sanction violations must be sentenced to mandatory incarceration.  America’s economic future and quality of life depend upon it.

            Fifty years ago, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring erased America’s ignorance about industrial wastes’ catastrophic effects.  People learned that toxic waste and industrial chemicals poisoned air, land, and water causing, cancers, learning disabilities, and birth defects, and organ failure, and lung diseases.  Americans whole-heartedly embraced environmental protection legislation.  We must again.

            Protecting America’s environment is not an option; it’s a national economic imperative.