The Precautionary Principle, Ignored Again

An item in Wednesday's paper caught my eye. I mean the Washington Post, and I mean p. A17 of December 23's paper. It's an AP-signed piece entitled "U.S. wants farmers to use coal waste." The piece describes an EPA/Ag Dept. idea that, on the face of it, looks completely insane, a full-frontal violation of the precautionary principle. The government, starting back in the Bush Administration, wants farmers to spread something called FGD gypsum on their fields. This product is what happens when coal scrubbers work; it's the residue from the process. The residue contains trace amounts of arsenic, mercury and lead, but the EPA assures us it's safe.

Right.

Into my head rushes the memory of the geniuses who said it was safe to feed animal by-products to herbivores, like cows. What did we get? Mad Cow disease. I remember pthalitomide (or however you spell it). That was supposed to be safe, too. I remember no one thinking that massive amounts of plastic in the environment was anything to be concerned about, even microwaving veggies under plastic wrap, with all those long polymers falling into the food by the millions. Now some of us at least know better.

There is a common denominator to all these disasters and many more. Actually, it is a compound common denominator: a lack of scientific imagination and knowledge coupled with the fact that someone stands to gain financially from doing the wrong thing in ignoring the precautionary principle. The right question to ask here in this new example is, as always, Cui bono? Who stands to gain here?

Unfortunately, the AP article does not really help us understand this. There is zero investigative journalism involved here. Read the article; you'll be as frustrated as always, waiting for the real news behind the headline.....and never getting it. The article doesn't say what "encourage farmers" means. Do farmers have to pay for the substance, or not? How much, and who sets the price? Who gets the money? How much does it cost to dispose of this crap otherwise, and who pays for that? The article doesn't say. All we can infer is that, since there is something called an American Coal Ash Association, "a utility industry group", there is money moving somewhere that we citizens cannot see.

The EPA proposes to regulate for the first time coal wastes. No doubt Congress will eventually have some oversight responsibilities here, perhaps even some legislative prerogatives. You know what that means: graft, payola, outright crime and lying as Congressmen desperately seek campaign funds to make and buy the TV ads that have become the toxins of our political system. If we expect to prevent the creation of yet another source of plutocratic corruption in our political system, we have to first get to the bottom of this FGD gypsum caper. The Associated Press hasn't.

Maybe there's nothing wrong with this idea. Maybe it really is safe. Maybe it's even economical. OK, well explain it to me. Prove it to me. Show me the data. I dare you.