Are there Vogons on Canada’s National Energy Board?

Ensuring that private wells in  North Carolina are  held to the same standards as municipal water sources seems to be a no-brainer. Why would any one NOT want to know if their primary water source has arsenic, or old lace in it! Apparently, the need to buy a house in one day rather than wait the week or two that most environmental labs in the state would take to run the various drinking water tests takes precedence, seems like a little spin to me.

The real issue here is the competing needs of the buyer and the seller, the buyer needs to know and the seller does not necessarily want the buyer to know. If this is a private transaction, no big deal, people can ask, but when you’re up against the cookie cutter developers (politically connected, of course) and the home builders association, the power asymmetry pretty much ensures that in the absence of regulation, bad things will happen.

newsobserver.com | Testing of new wells under fire

The state’s real estate and home building industries are opposed to mandatory tests of new drinking water wells, especially if a test backlog could delay the sale of a house.

Companion bills, introduced late last month in the state House and
Senate at the request of Gov. Mike Easley, would require North Carolina counties to enforce state well construction standards. Water-quality tests will be required of new wells that provide water to houses or small businesses that serve transient populations, such as service stations.

The News & Observer reported in March that more than 2 million North Carolinians drink water from private wells and that they are at risk from contaminants that they cannot see, smell, or taste. Some are man-made, from a nearby farm or business, and some are natural, such as arsenic or radiological contaminants.

There are no state testing requirements for private wells. At least three attempts over the past 15 years to require minimal testing have been defeated.

Rick Zechini, who represents the N.C. Association of Realtors, and R. Paul Wilms, who represents the N.C. Home Builders Association, say the bill should be defeated if it isn’t changed.
“Until we get assurance that there is [testing] capacity, that the tests won’t take weeks and months, and that the cost is not prohibitive, we’re not in a position to support the legislation,” Zechini said.

Environmental Protection Agency – EPA Press Release: EPA Report Shows Decrease in Toxic Chemicals Released

(Washington, D.C. – April 12, 2006) The amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment decreased four percent from 2003 to 2004 according to the Environmental Protections Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) released today.

“Today’s report demonstrates that economic growth and effective environmental protection can go hand-in-hand,” said Linda Travers, acting assistant administrator for the Office of Environmental Information. “We are encouraged to see a continued reduction in the overall amount of toxic chemicals being released into the environment.”

Significant decreases were seen in some of the most toxic chemicals from 2003-2004.

· Dioxin and dioxin compounds, which decreased by 58 percent,
· mercury and mercury compounds, which were cut by 16 percent and
· polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) went down 92 percent.

Why, that is positively great news, especially on the dioxin and PCB front. Since pictures are nicer and data from the last 5 years provides a little more context, why don’t we use the Toxics Release Inventory Explorer to pull some information together…

No drastic decreases, dioxin releases during 2004 are close to those during 2000. Wow, seems like 2003 was an especially bad year, the PCB release is off the charts. One landfill facility was responsible for more than 80% of the release. Kinda useless to point to trends caused by single data points, but I guess that’s what press releases are for, pick on some fortuitous piece of data and hope that the media is lazy enough to not spend a little time looking into the story.

The grist picks (up) on this release as well.

Meanwhile, the EPA is considering a loosening of regulation in this regard, read this Seattle Post-Intelligencer article for more details.

The EPA inventory “keeps that pressure on to keep those emissions down,” Hansen said. That’s the purpose of this kind of public information or “right-to-know” program.

The EPA has not made a final decision on the changes it has proposed — namely, requiring emissions reports every two years instead of annually and raising the volume of chemicals that have to be released before a report is required.

“The jury is still out,” said Brook Madrone, TRI program manager for the regional EPA office.

Information is power (always end on a cliche!)

Through the most excellent Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News blog comes notice of a book that answers a question that’s been on my mind off and on.

Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News – Post details: Reality Check: The Nature and Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan

Despite a growing theoretical literature trying to explain how and why voluntary programs might be effective, there is limited empirical evidence on their success or the situations most conducive to the approaches. Even less is known about their cost-effectiveness.

The book’s called Reality Check (and long byline) and at $40 is too expensive for a look see! But here’s a teaser:

The central goals of Reality Check are understanding outcomes and the relationship between outcomes and design. Most of the programs it studies have positive results, but they are small compared with business-as-usual trends and the impact of other forces–such as higher energy prices. Importantly, potential gains may be quickly exhausted as the “low-hanging fruit” is picked up by voluntary programs. By including in-depth analyses by experts from the U.S., Europe, and Japan, the book advances scholarship and provides practical information for the future design of voluntary programs to stakeholders and policymakers on all sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

So, the answer is no, I guess. Voluntary programs catch the bulk of changes that can be carried out easily anyway and may have been part of the company plans. They also make for good Company PR. The greater the threat of regulation and good enforcement, I guess, the more power you have to set up a good voluntary program. But if it is all carrot and no stick, who knows…

For an example of what a voluntary program looks like, here’s Climate Wise from the EPA.

The head of the U.S. delegation — Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky — was booed Saturday afternoon when she announced that the United States was rejecting the plan as then written because they were “not prepared to accept this formulation.” She said developing countries needed to carry more of the responsibility. While rhetoric at such conferences is often just words, a short speech by a delegate from the small developing country of Papua New Guinea appeared to carry weight with the Americans. The delegate challenged the United States to “either lead, follow or get out of the way.”Just five minutes later, when it appeared the conference was on the brink of collapse, Dobriansky took to the floor again to announce the United States was willing to accept the arrangement. Applause erupted in the hall and a relative level of success for the conference appeared certain.

U.S. agrees to Bali compromise – CNN.com

Papua New Guinea, way to go!! Apparently, this administration can still “compromise”. Now the Bali talks are being called a success with all kinds of shenanigans happening on the last day. So, what did they compromise on?

The EU wanted an agreement to require developed countries to cut their emissions by 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. The United States opposes those targets, along with Japan and Canada.

The latest draft of the agreement removes the specific figures and instead, in a footnote, references the scientific study that supports them.

While the EU and the United States appeared to have ended their impasse, India had objections to other parts of the agreement, notably the contributions developed nations would make to help developing nations clean up their emissions problems. Talks were expected to continue for several more hours.

So, no mandatory cuts on the table, they agreed to talk some more in 2 years time. So, who will it be in 2009? President Clinton/Obama sending Al Gore for talks, or President Giuliani/Huckabee/Romney further stonewalling. Apparently, this US election is going to be pretty important as well!

So, what does Nobel price winner Rajendra Pachauri think?

“I wouldn’t term that a failure at all,” Pachauri said. “I think what would be a failure is not to provide a strong road map by which the world can move on, and I think that road map has to be specified with or without numbers. If we can come up with numbers, that’s certainly substantial progress, and I hope that happens.”

I disagree. This is a numbers game. The damage caused by CO2 in the atmosphere is non-linearly proportional to the the amount in the atmosphere. The more you cut, the less damage you will cause later. At some number, the emission cuts may affect the lifestyles of certain countries. But to say that you don’t need numbers for success is just diplomatese.

Note that Japan and Canada opposed cuts as well, but thanks to the exalted world leader position of the US, they can get away with little scorn.

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Tags: climatechange, bali