If anyone believes Americans would have the level of clean rivers, lakes, oceans and estuaries we have today (even though so many of them are polluted and suffering) based on the good will of business, industry or the private sector—I want what you are smoking. And I live in Colorado. The clean water we do enjoy today, and share with all other plants and animals is 100% due to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the creation of the federal agency, Environmental Protection Agency to oversee Congressional funding to states to implement individual state clean water acts.
The Clean Water Act was created when we changed our collective paradigm from “waters can absorb anything we put in them” to “waters cannot, we must treat the water before releasing it into our river and lakes.” The cause for this paradigm shift was people getting sick, fish dying and rivers catching on fire. The era of drinking water and waste water treatment began.
We are now in need of another paradigm shift.
The lead poisoning in Flint Michigan is an excellent example of how our paradigms or beliefs are creating poisonous systems that produce events where we get sick. Especially poor and minority communities. You can find this poisonous thinking cycling throughout our education, security, economic, food and housing sectors. All of which provide basic needs of food, shelter, make a difference and provide for our families. The environment, water included, is the nucleus and foundation necessary to provide the basic needs for all living beings (plants, animals and humans) deserve.
For some of us this is not a surprise and neither is the follow up stories that Flint, Michigan is one of many communities with tainted drinking water. I live by the Animas River that has been tainted by legacy mining and outdated mining laws (paradigms) for a century. Last August the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) caused an accidental spill releasing a dose of metal laden low pH water from an inactive mine into the Animas. The EPA was doing the work for public safety and good to prevent a mine blowout. Under our current paradigm, the industry that caused the mine waste and all of us who benefited from the era of subsidizing mining are not responsible. We have kicked the full price tag down the road to future generations and mother earth to absorb. And, under the current paradigm ,we need entities like the EPA, nonprofits and third parties to clean up the legacy of mining and to prevent disasters we have not yet paid in full.
The blaming of EPA for the insult to American waters from 100 year old mining laws and an outdated mining paradigm is the same poisonous thinking that created Flint, Michigan’s drinking water problem. You can’t have both ways. Power, authority and money come with responsibility and accountability. States have systematically lobbied Congress to give them more and more power, authority and money to manage natural resources. Lobbying paid for by industry. Industry that brings a tax base and jobs. But so does environmental regulation. Regulation is designed to fill in the missing social and environmental elements required to maintain a healthy and wealthy country that incorporation and industry does not, plain and simple. Industry is held accountable to shareholders and not the general welfare (health, economic stability, wellbeing of individuals). That is our current paradigm. States, however are accountable to their citizens and must discern and balance through effective policy and legislation.
States have the power, authority and money to manage their own drinking water via the Federal Drinking Water Act. Congress restricted the role of the EPA and gave the responsibility and accountability to the states. EPA, if they find unsafe drinking water, must prove that the problem is widespread (so much for everyone counts) and give the state time to fix it before they can take action. That means states are in charge – and if something goes wrong, as it did in Flint, the states must take responsibility. State officials in Flint, Michigan made 100% of the decisions, for whatever reasons, to change the water source that put good water into pipes that would leach lead and chose not to treat the water with a simple, known technology. In doing, the state, not EPA, exposed many, mostly poor and minority families to lead poisoning. The poisonous cycle is when the state had the gall to blame the EPA for their choices.
This is poisonous thinking, separating power, money and authority from responsibility and accountability. Defund, eliminate and get rid of the very agency that is there to protect us. In this case and in the Animas River spill, EPA was not corrupt, operating in self-interest or for self-gain. While it is true corruption does create agencies that harm the very people they are designed to protect (look for future paradigm blogs on this), Flint, Michigan and the Animas River are not examples of such corruption. The poisonous thinking is separating power, money and authority from responsibility and accountability.
While our legislatures here in Colorado complain that the EPA is not doing enough on the Animas locally. They fully engage in efforts to defund and get rid of the EPA. You can’t have it both ways. Their paradigm is outdated. Regulation does not cost jobs, it actually produces jobs. In addition, healthy people are productive. When we get more of what we don’t want it is time to look at the beliefs underlying the system and ask different questions. Questions that lead to deeper thinking not more flippant blaming and reacting.
To produce effective change, you create something better. That destroys the old simply by replacing it because it works better. However, to propose and produce something that builds better systems that result in events that support the environment and our health requires work and effort. One needs to get their hands dirty, do research, ask question, look at data and actually think and ask the right questions. Questions that move to solution not the next election or raise. If we continue to just react and point fingers and blame, we will only get more of the same poisonous thinking and harmful results.
A recent study cited that race is the most significant predictor of a person living near contaminated air, water or soil. Over half, 56% of the population near a toxic waste site are people of color (The Nation February 2016). Flint, Michigan’s population is more than 50% black where the state as a whole is 80% white. The poverty rate in Flint is above 40%. This is a symptom of how we have collectively subsidized our cost of living (extracting and using resources), by not paying the full price and sending those externalized costs to marginalized communities and our children’s future.
Based on the paradigm before the 1970’s, Industry proved they could not police themselves. States have shown they cannot police themselves either. Western states have a movement afoot to take over all National Parks and Federal lands claiming they can manage them better. Under the current paradigm, the evidence demonstrates what is needed is not a change in ownership but a change in paradigms. A paradigm that honors the environment, all people and living beings will be the only paradigm that ensures we will retain a quality of life. Anything short of this is more propaganda hanging on to the old paradigms.
