The modern environmental movement started in the 1960s, based on reporting that explained how, in the name of progress, we'd polluted our air and water and were making the planet inhabitable.
We're still figuring out the right mix. Still, overall, the laws and regulations generated by the movement in its earliest years have worked as intended. The air and water are cleaner. People live longer, healthier lives.
That's the good news. The bad news is that the regulatory regimes created then are still expanding. Overregulation is costly, kills jobs, and often fails to deliver on its promises – something the trial lawyers, scientists, consumer advocates, and environmental activists always looking for new problems to solve frequently gloss over.
This certainly looks to have been the case in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., a tiny community about an hour north of New York City, where activists and politicians voicing concerns about the threat of contamination coming from lead-wrapped cables running along the perimeter of a local park got it temporarily closed.
They blamed "the mess" on the telecom companies who used these cables to build out the most remarkable communications network of its era. Now they and the companies that own them are targets for anyone wanting to show potential environmental harm coming, an often-lucrative proposition for those interested in it.
We've seen things like this repeatedly with industrial products once considered safe. Environmental reclamation and remediation are big business and have, over the years, enriched a lot of attorneys, researchers, and activists. Wappingers Falls, it seemed, was an excellent place to test the theory. Quick action by the state and regulators was expected to prove the allegations made in news reports of possible soil contamination.
It didn't. On August 1, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the park was safe to reopen after soil analysis showed lead levels met state and federal safety standards for children's play areas.
That's not surprising. For decades, regulations regarding the manufacture and installation of cables like the ones over Wappingers Falls have made them safe to use. This is backed up by years of research and study. They have never been identified as a significant source of lead exposure.
The incident in Wappingers Falls is an example of bureaucratic overreach one can easily imagine being fueled by well-connected special interests seeing a potential profit of one kind or another -- if the cables were determined to be a health hazard needing removal. It might not be worrisome if this were the only instance of such a thing. It isn’t.
In early July, the Wall Street Journal began publishing articles that seemed to bolster the allegations. It never presented direct evidence regarding lead exposure – and conflated the presence of lead with exposure, yet the series became a catalyst for calls for government action and investigations in places like Wappingers Falls.
Other complaints about the series involve allegations that the methodology used was flawed and the science was misunderstood. Critics say California Sportfishing Protection Alliance vs. Pacific Bell Telephone Company – a lawsuit prompted by the same individuals the Wall Street Journal used to test samples for its series – reached conclusions that differ from what the Environmental Protection Agency and other authorities have said.
That suit was settled to avoid protracted litigation, say the defendants. Third-party testing commissioned by them showed low or no detectable levels of lead in the waters around the cables' location.
The result of that testing is publicly available, unlike much of what the Wall Street Journal found at what it said were 300 sites visited. The paper collected almost 200 samples at more than 100 of those sites but only disclosed what it found at 17. Despite questions about what it uncovered but declined to release, its reporting is helping drive the issue forward.
The fallacy equating the presence of lead with the potential for harmful exposure is endemic in the reporting on the issue. No credible evidence proves lead-clad cables present the same health risk as lead water pipes. Yet, the impression that they are hazardous is conveyed continually.
These cables are essential to "keeping the lights on." They are used in the electrical grid and by railways. They're safe. Pennsylvania even requires underground high voltage wires "be in the form of insulated lead-covered cables."
Overall, the lack of skepticism shown to claims made by so-called environmental groups not run by scientists – professional divers founded the group whose work prompted the lawsuit over the Lake Tahoe site – creates a narrative that may not reflect the facts. Allowing that to drive regulatory action and public policy formulation is what's potentially toxic.
Peter Roff is a veteran Washington, D.C. commentator and former United Press International senior political writer now affiliated with several public policy organizations, including Frontiers of Freedom and the Center for a Free Economy.
You can reach him at RoffColumns AT GMAIL.com and follow him on Twitter @TheRoffDraft.
