Topic: Government Regulation
Water, Beer and the EPA! The actions of Federal agencies are often redundant and unnecessary. Maintaining accountability at the local level is often the most efficient and cost effective method. by Gene DeNardo
(libertarian)
Saturday, July 25, 2009
One of the Environmental Protection Agency's tasks is monitoring the water supply of local municipalities. Since for the most part communities are supplied water by the public sector, this necessitates the regulation of local and state agencies by an all powerful federal agency.
The paradox of this situation is obvious: if local agencies that govern relatively small numbers of people do not have the capacity to be accountable to their citizens and supply safe drinking water, then how can we trust a centralized federal agency to control and monitor these local agencies? Or is it simply the "layering" of agency upon agency that will eventually get the job done? We have an interesting example of this interaction of agencies in Portland.
Portland, Oregon has arguably some of the best municipal drinking water in the nation. Snow melt is collected in the Cascade foothills, just west of town. The entire drainage is protected from contamination. The water is then piped and is gravity fed into the city. There are a few storage and distribution facilities and very minimal treatment occurs. The water remains contaminant free and supplies the needs of the city in the highest fashion. What eventually gets to the homes and businesses is extremely pure and fine tasting water, very close to its natural state.
This just is not good enough for the EPA [link edited for length]. Apparently the officials in the Fed EPA offices lose sleep at night worrying about cryptosporidium. This is a parasitical bacterium that can become waterborne through fecal contamination. Normally, it causes mild to moderate symptoms that disappear fairly quickly but can present a serious risk to individuals with compromised health.
The EPA, with of course only the "common good" in mind, wants to protect Portland citizens from exposure to this bacteria. Apparently, local officials working in their home town, drinking this very same water, are not capable of providing this protection. Funny thing is, although extensive testing occurs every day at every point along the collection and distribution of the Portland water supply, cryptosporidium goes years without being detected at all. City officials estimate there are about eighty confirmed cases of cryptosporidiosis a year, which is relatively low. In this, as in all water purity areas, the city rates among the best in the nation.
Even so, the EPA persists in requiring the City to install filtration systems that will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, will not improve the already high water quality and will increase the cost of water to the citizens. The threat of mandatory fines is eminent and the City seems to have little choice in the matter. They must spend hundreds of millions of dollars to repair a system that isn't broken.
Sovereign Immunity is an interesting related side issue. Sovereign Immunity is an exception to the "Rule of Law". A State or Governmental Agency grants itself immunity from the process of law. According to the idea, the agency by its nature, cannot commit crime or a legal wrong. Those who make the law cannot break the law. In the environmental area, agencies such as the United States Army, which is one of the most prolific polluters in the world, is exempted from any of the regulations the EPA might impose on other polluters.
However, in cases such as the Portland case, although a federal agency is not under the jurisdiction of the EPA because of Sovereign Immunity, local and State agencies are. This might all seem contradictory and illogical but we must realize that ordinary citizens using rational thought processes and common sense can in no way ever believe they have the ability to understand the workings and laws of government. Law and Government exist in a universe far removed from common sense and rational thought. If we keep this in mind, it makes perfect sense for a Federal agency to require a local municipality to install hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment to remove a contaminant in the water supply that doesn't exist in the first place, yet allow the Army to do as it pleases. Besides, it is "good for the economy" and when push gets to shove, the federal agency is "bigger" than the local agency.
This issue first arose during the Bush Administration. Portland officials refused to accommodate the Bush Administration on several of the requirements mandated under the Homeland Security Program. Around the same time, the EPA began to concentrate on forcing the Portland Water Bureau to submit a plan to construct the expensive filters that seemed quite needless. Many local citizens felt that the two events were not coincidental but closely related. However, the same demands have seamlessly transitioned the changing of the guard. The EPA under Obama has given the city no slack.
This is not an indictment of the EPA, but an observation of the interaction between Federal and local agencies. If a local municipality has through the collection of taxes designed, constructed and maintained a successful water system for its citizens for an extended period of time, why is it necessary to get an arm of the Federal Government involved? The Federal Government has taken no part in the system, including land acquisition, to this point. What right does the Federal government have in regulating local water supplies that are in no way connected to Federal projects? Certainly, there may be a role for the states to watch over municipal or county supply systems, but there seems to be no basis for Federal jurisdiction.
Should the original development of the Portland water supply have been allowed to take place under free market principles? With five major river drainages, this would have been entirely possible. The rights to water could have been auctioned off, creating revenue for local government. The great centralization of the entire city supply, resulting in massive collection from one drainage that is common in public works projects, would probably never have occurred.
Perhaps, all five of the major drainages would have been harvested for water, to some degree. If that were the case, one would think that all five of the rivers would be in much better environmental condition, comparable to the one currently protected drainage. The use of a river as a water supply greatly increases its "economic" value and any resulting damage to this value from pollution would affect the current proprietor and the user clients. Lawsuits and resultant compensation would seem to keep pollution at a minimum.
Oh, and the beer! Portland has the largest collection of microbreweries per capita in the world. It has even surpassed the long standing champion, Bavaria. The major ingredient of beer is water and its quality [or lack of] greatly influences the taste of the finished product. Brewers want their water clean, pure, soft and natural. Many brewers have voiced their opinion that the added water treatment facilities will negatively affect the quality of local beer. That in itself should be enough reason to keep the Feds out of our local water!
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The views expressed in this
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