PLEASE NOTE: This is not a sponsored post.
The Book of the Week is “The Riverkeepers, Two Activists Fight to Reclaim Our Environment as a Basic Human Right” by John Cronin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., published in 1997.
Riverkeeper is an environmental organization that, over the course of decades, has brought legal actions to minimize pollution of a few major rivers across the United States. Unsurprisingly, litigation and political shenanigans perpetrated by polluters, go together.
It is always local residents who are hurt the most from egregious acts of pollution (usually spread by big corporations) because: they can’t afford expensive legal costs, and are usually dying of cancer or are suffering serious health problems (never mind what the pollution does to plants and animals) by the time they are compensated (if they ever are) for damages inflicted by the defendants.
The authors began with a story of how wealthy political donors took an unlikely side against a utility project (because it happened to be proposed for their neighborhood). Beginning in early 1962, Riverkeeper attempted to stop Con Edison from building an electricity-generating reservoir (the Storm King project) that would make waterfront properties an eyesore in Westchester and Putnam counties, and kill many striped bass.
In the second half of the 1960’s, propaganda wars raged on both sides, but public opinion was against Con Edison. Stakeholders included: the federal government, five utilities, two state agencies, Scenic Hudson (an environmental group), the Fishermen, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and local residents.
And the insults and injuries just kept coming, even after the first Earth Day in 1970– with offenders like Exxon and local governments responsible for pollution levels in Quassaic Creek, Croton Landfill, and three cities in Connecticut.
Even worse, there was lack of regulatory action from politically entrenched government agencies such as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both feared retaliation from the NRA, whose gun clubs were polluting waterways with lead and other toxins. The NRA simply closed the gun clubs rather than clean up, and remained a political powerhouse.
In another story, in 1976, the Hudson river’s commercial fisheries were closed by local politicians after General Electric dumped an excessive amount of PCB’s in the river. Not only were local residents poorer in various ways for the outrageous crime, but so were hundreds of people trying to make a living through fishing.
In the early 1990’s, environmentalists saw “joy in Mudville” as New York City Democratic mayor David Dinkins express interest in actually helping enact legislation that would protect the city’s drinking water (as testing had shown that it contained as much as 2% sewage in it– after going through a treatment plant), whose source was upstate entities that controlled the watershed.
The attendant political hostility was such that a reviewer said of Pat Robertson’s 1991 book, The New World Order, “These ravings would hardly be worth mentioning had they not played such an important role in fueling the ideological underpinnings of the antienvironmental movement and the zealotry of its followers.”
The environmentalists’ dreams were dashed by 1995, when Republican Rudy Giuliani engaged in excessive deregulation. Daily, too many sociopathic political hacks around this country are slowly, indirectly, poisoning America via the discharge of: millions of gallons of raw sewage into waterways, pesticides onto golf courses, dirty water from storms, and innumerable toxins contained in everyday products into the air, water and earth.
Nevertheless, through the years, there have been a few isolated incidents of pollution reduction of environmentally conscious philanthropists, and a few legal triumphs when defendants were actually compelled to comply with hopeful-sounding federal laws: the Coastal Zone Management Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, to name just a few.
Grassroots groups need the higher authority of FEDERAL LAW to minimize pollution resulting from extremely consequential egregious acts because: 1) The polluters are politically entrenched at all government levels; 2) The polluters argue vehemently that pollution should be regulated locally. BUT, the enforcement of state laws has been lax because monster corporations divide and conquer, pitting state governments against each other when, for instance– deciding where to locate a plant or keep one open– by waving an economic carrot or stick.
Those big donors claim they will create jobs and grow the tax base of the area. Or, they’ll threaten to relocate, if their wrongdoing isn’t condoned by local politicians, who are also usually greedy and power-hungry.
However, along the lines of local enforcement, the authors recounted how a law officer showed that community policing concepts can minimize pollution, and keep local areas clean, on a small scale. He arrested small business owners for illegal disposal of garbage, debris, toxins and wastewater, etc.
If law-abiding citizens look around– and entities more powerful than themselves are allowed to get away with that kind of polluting– they feel they have license to do the same. The excuse “Everybody does it” allows everyone to contribute to the lawlessness, and there goes the neighborhood.
Read the book to learn of the other main influences and people (hint: one was Rachel Carson and her scary book) that and who have shaped the regulatory environment of the environment in the United States through the decades.
In honor of Earth Day (April 22), here is a little ditty:
THINGS CAN ONLY GET WETTER
sung to the tune of “Things Can Only Get Better” with apologies to Howard Jones.
We’re on a path to LOSE it all.
Acts of pollution affect us all.
It’s compromise we have to realize.
Greedy, selfish polluters shouldn’t keep us from natURE and health, unless we tolerate their smears and lies.
And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Reg-u-la-tors on political STRINGS run the show,
propagandize with no regrets.
Litigation takes forever, is a minefield. Taxpayers lose every time.
Where are the ethical philanthropists?
And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe…