"State agency offices pollute creek in Vancouver"
Thirteen years after Washington state's environmental agency found a creek severely polluted, the contamination has been traced back to the agency's regional office.If a private business made the same mistake, it would have been blamed on corporate greed and insufficient regulation. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 12, 2009 01:45 PM | Email ThisCity workers discovered this week that a sewer line from the building housing the regional offices of the state Department of Ecology and Department of Fish and Game, and a small U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contingent, was mistakenly connected to a storm water runoff system, rather than a municipal sewer main.
As a result, sewage from the building has been entering Burnt Bridge Creek and eventually Vancouver Lake for an unknown number of years.
So it's the military that's responsible. Military = Hitler.
Posted by: cliff on April 12, 2009 03:02 PMNot one of your more thoughtful posts.
Posted by: Bruce on April 12, 2009 03:20 PMOne thing 4 sure: The government is indeed not motivated to make money:
Its overwhelming tendency is to want to take more and more of OUR money.
BTW: Great post, Stefan. Glad to see you're back in action a little more often.
Posted by: Methow Ken on April 12, 2009 05:05 PMGovernment is motivated to seek power and when carried to excess results socialism, communism and so on.
Posted by: Fed Up on April 12, 2009 05:46 PMYou should post this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPF9-o-YHGM
I'm sure you and your Marxist Slaver friends will be celebrating the birthdays of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot! I mean, after all your failed ideologies have only killed 100 million people...
Oh, about the tea parties to which you seem opposed; you seem to like increased taxation! So let me ask you - do you take any deductions at all for your businesses or personal taxes? If so, why? I thought you like taxes! Or are you just - once again - showing your amazing hypocrisy...
HOPE AND CHANGE! DISSENT IS PATRIOTIC!
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on April 12, 2009 08:09 PMOne thing 4 sure: The government is indeed not motivated to make money: Its overwhelming tendency is to want to take more and more of OUR money.
and
Caught in the net were several dead birds. It was amusing to walk a bit further where the building sign identified it as the EPA!
and my personal nonsensical favorite:
I'm sure you and your Marxist Slaver friends will be celebrating the birthdays of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot! I mean, after all your failed ideologies have only killed 100 million people...
Sheesh. It's like someone presses a button, and you just spew out the same tired crap on cue. Pathetic.
And Stefan? Why don't you try a little harder to actually get something relevant? Complaining about efforts to clean up a polluted waterway just make you seem like a complete twit.
Posted by: demo kid on April 12, 2009 09:05 PMA private business did make the mistake - the business being the construction company, working for the private owners of the building.
I'd think the building owner should be picking up the tab for any additional costs incurred by the tenants, which in this case is we taxpayers.
Posted by: BA on April 12, 2009 10:09 PMI think you came to the thread after Factless' reprehensible statements were purged; those same statements that drove my response. In essence, Factless - once again - proclaimed that it was the Conservative viewpoint that drove millions of animals to death, and that we wanted to essentially poison the environment and people because that's what Conservatives do.
You know, the typical mantra of you Marxists...
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on April 13, 2009 09:15 AMThe notion that you screw up and if we don't catch you means you're off the hook is an interesting concept of avoiding responsibility - but b.s. in the real world.
Screw ups do happen, and they often get fixed. Like this case.
Posted by: BA on April 13, 2009 10:23 AMAnd, no, they don't let big companies off scott free. The Boeing chromium situation was a good example of this. Also, King County has a department in place that does monitor discharges from companies and they do levy fines when necessary. If you are so inclined to actually do some research, check out the King County Industrial Waste Program.
Posted by: Burdabee on April 13, 2009 11:55 AMThere are coliform tests, fecal coliform tests (animal feces) and another test (strictly for humans) that could have been used to trace the pollution.
The crackerjack staffers couldn't find the pollution if it were right in front of their noses- and it was.
Posted by: swatter on April 13, 2009 12:53 PMAm I shirking the question of how did it pass inspection - nope, none of us have any information to be sure it was ever inspected.
As for passing inspections shifting the responsibility to the agency making the inspection - good luck with that thought - the real world doesn't operate that way.
It seems, in reading the article, that the building owner understands his responsibility.
Posted by: BA on April 13, 2009 01:03 PMBTW, you can certainly tell the difference between sanitary sewer and storm pipe. Except, the connection may have been made by connecting roof and footing drain pipe mandated by the jurisdiction for reasons only a liberal can tell you.
BA, you are still ignoring the story absurdity is why didn't the grand poohbahs figure this out earlier. A few years ago, it would have been a top priority instead of enforcing some of the 'exotic' programs the liberals got instituted in this state.
Posted by: swatter on April 13, 2009 01:47 PMWhy that might be a liberal action is lost on me. What's the alternative? Two parallel pipes in the same trench running to the same storm drain or outfall? Neither of these sources need to be treated for water quality, unlike surface runoff from parking areas or driveways.
As for the absurdity in the case (I think it's being reported for the irony...) sure, unless the outfall of the storm water system was either very far from this point source and difficult to trace or the quantity of sewage relative to the flow of storm water was such that it wasn't obvious. Dye tests are done all the time.
Now, with cameras running inspections of the pipes these things are probably caught more frequently, as well as boot-legged connections.
In some jurisdictions tests are being run of sewage to track drug use - big brother is headed into your bathroom...
Posted by: BA on April 13, 2009 02:03 PMThis calls for *tighter* regulation of builders who take shortcuts.
Only IDIOTS (like those at "Sound Politics") would blame the EPA for not knowing that their landlords were polluters.
Posted by: BG on April 13, 2009 02:25 PMCrawl spaces are a different story. There isn't that much volume of water associated with crawl spaces (unless you have built over an artesian well), so I don't have as much problem with you draining that water to the creeks.
Posted by: swatter on April 13, 2009 03:58 PMEven in locations with hard piping storm water systems I've done commercial projects where roof run off is used to irrigate the surrounding landscape. It recharges the groundwater, reduces use of domestic water that would be used for irrigation, doesn't add to the mix of water coming off the parking areas that has to be dealt with for water quality, and takes pressure off the storm water systems in general by reducing the peak flow during a rain storm.
It costs a bit more up front, compared to the old days where you just pointed the drainage at your neighbor, but it is the right thing to do.
I thought this site was supposed to be about reaching black and white conclusions based on incomplete and often wrong information?
Posted by: BA on April 13, 2009 04:39 PMI usually agree with you, but this time your wrong. That building was built by private industry ie Fred Meyer as a Garden Center. Use to shop there in the eighties.
Posted by: Dan on April 13, 2009 08:44 PMTotally embarrassing to them and to their apologists on this board.
Posted by: swatter on April 14, 2009 07:31 AMCitizen lawsuits by many enviro groups results in millions of dollars of attorneys and paperwork shuffling, and in the end, they do not end up cleaning the water. Ecology has too many people thanks to Gregoire during her reign as Director.
Posted by: swatter on April 14, 2009 01:55 PMSo, if you ever visit a building, use the facilities, and later it's found that the plumbing was incorrectly hooked up, are you subject to a fine?
Are the fines proportional? Based on what? Number of uses? Type of use? Should there be a waiver of liability issued to each bathroom user for our homes and businesses? Should we ask for one?
I'm sure that Swatter can cite many examples of lawsuits that spent more money on paperwork than actual results - and I'd agree.
I'm also sure that some, perhaps the majority, of those lawsuits do in fact result in positive change.
Fix the screwup and be done with this.
Posted by: BA on April 14, 2009 02:12 PMIf I was the owner and I was being charged for sewage system usage, than I would sue the utilty for charging me for something that I never used.
Posted by: SHED on April 17, 2009 09:16 AM