Drinking arsenic is OK ???

[wring]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
**I never said it was acceptable. I said that it’s not unreasonable for a new administration to want to spend time going over the assumptions of a previous administration, especially in an area where you have reason to believe that many of their studies were flawed and/or their decisions were overzealous. My point is that if the number of deaths per year is in the dozens, it does not qualify as a major health problem that requires immediate decision-making on a rule that could have widespread consequences for the economy.

It really annoys me that people can come out and make blanket statements like, ‘This is a HUGE health problem’ when they apparently have almost no perspective on the true dangers involved. Then you see numbers thrown around like 130,000 cancer deaths a year from trace arsenic, and you know that there is a lot more heat than light being shed on the issue. **

excuse me? I ‘have no perspective on the true dangers?’. Check back. I’ve provided links to describe the various dangers involved (well documented and accepted world wide), and the numbers of people involved. I never said that it was a huge problem in the nation, the phrase ‘huge health risk’ I used when describing the risk for those people in the 3000 communities (according to several of the links) whose water supplies are contaminated by arsenic at around the 50 ppb level.

Suggest you go back and re-read both posts and links. I’ve said at least twice before where those numbers came from.

where’s your sides ‘proof’? where are your studies that show there’s little or no risk? where are your assessments that quantify the numbers of people involved? where are your links demonstrating the costs involved? where is your proof that only dozens of people are involved? Where’s your proof that there would be ‘widespread economic consequences’? Hmmmm?

[Sam_Stone]

Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear - I’m not claiming ANYTHING. I’m simply pointing out that one of the major fallacies of the EPA (and the environmental movement in general) is that they often advocate taking drastic action based on very little or no solid evidence, and without consideration for the costs involved or the tradeoffs that might result in even worse consequences for public health (i.e. regulating nuclear power out of existance, which results in the use of much dirtier technologies that simply have the advantage of already existing in common use).

I mean, the “Precautionary Principle” is explicitly embraced by many in the environmental movement, and that’s basically a commitment to mandate environmental regulation *before the science is in on whether or not it’s needed. “We’re not sure, so let’s take precautions”. This rule explicitly ignores the tradeoffs involved in making such decisions.

All I was trying to say was that, in the opinion of many conservatives the Clinton EPA went way to far in many, many cases. It became a militant agency, especially in its first four years. So I can’t blame Bush at all for wanting a review of the evidence and conclusions of that agency before passing what could be very expensive regulations.

[wring]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
**I’m simply pointing out that one of the major fallacies of the EPA (and the environmental movement in general) is that they often advocate taking drastic action based on very little or no solid evidence, and without consideration for the costs involved or the tradeoffs that might result in even worse consequences for public health (i.e. regulating nuclear power out of existance, which results in the use of much dirtier technologies that simply have the advantage of already existing in common use).

** Ok then, please submit your proof that this is true in this case. It seems to me that:

1. The entire world agrees that arsenic in drinking water is bad. The World Health Organization has established a world wide level the same as the EPA had been planning. That info is in the links provided.

2. The EPA in this case, has conducted studies over the past 25 - 30 years. Included in these studies are the number of communities that will be affected by this ruling (some 3000), and according to the maps in the links, most of them seem to be by mining areas.

3. Originally, the EPA wanted a much lower level to be established (which is, according to the links, remember them?- still higher than they normally would allow for any known carcenogen.). However, they negotiated this comprimise (which matches the WHO’s level) and came up with a figure of about $60 per year per household costs involved. All of this is documented.

But now that there’s a new administration, and the new EPA director suddenly has a problem with some 20+ years worth of studies? I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with the industrial groups that agreed before to the new EPA regs, the same ones that donated some 5 mil to the Republicans, the same ones that MR. Bush has now said aren’t going to be held responsible for cleaning up after their own projects, right?

Precautionary rules would be a good assessment tool in light of brand new, untested research. The EPA has been aware of horribly high levels of arsenic (a very well known poison) for nearly 30 years, in these communities. They’ve relatively recently been made aware that in addition to the prior known risks, the risks of fatal cancer from this water is quite high as well. Drinking water. cancer. Doesn’t sound to me like the time to take another quarter of a century to evaluate the issue. My dad’s suffering from arsenic poisoning. His doctor ordered him to make immediate changes in his diet. He didn’t want to wait for additional years of study, ya know?

[ElvisL1ves]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
the EPA … without consideration for the costs involved

I believe that’s part of the EPA’s legal charter. Assessing costs is arguably not in their expertise anyway, and allocation of resources (financial and other) is part of the broader political process, anyway.

… or the tradeoffs that might result in even worse consequences for public health (i.e. regulating nuclear power out of existance, which results in the use of much dirtier technologies that simply have the advantage of already existing in common use).

But now you’re blaming the EPA for an area they DON’T get involved in. If that was aimed at the environmental movement in general, I agree with you, but please be aware that the subject of nuclear power is under serious reconsideration there.

…the Clinton EPA went way to far in many, many cases. It became a militant agency, especially in its first four years.

It could easily be said that there was a lot of catching up to do, after 12 years of Reagan-Bush footdragging. That’s exemplified by the publicly-stated objections to any sort of publicly-minded regulation that can be summarized as “It will cost too much (no matter how little the cost, that’s always said); this is unproven and we need to study it more so we can be absolutely sure (but we’re not going to fund or support any studies, because THEY ‘would’ cost too much); the people asking for it are extremists and nutcases anyway; etc.”. You’ve done a good job of that in your previous posts.

[Sterra]

It could easily be said that there was a lot of catching up to do, after 12 years of Reagan-Bush footdragging. That’s exemplified by the publicly-stated objections to any sort of publicly-minded regulation that can be summarized as “It will cost too much (no matter how little the cost, that’s always said); this is unproven and we need to study it more so we can be absolutely sure (but we’re not going to fund or support any studies, because THEY ‘would’ cost too much); the people asking for it are extremists and nutcases anyway; etc.”. You’ve done a good job of that in your previous posts.

I think you did a better job of proving that the ones who advocate it are extremists and nutcases by your very first post in this thread:) Because, they are raising the arsenic levels from 10 ppm to 50ppm!!!

[Sam_Stone]

I didn’t mean to imply that the FDA regulates nuclear power - of course it doesn’t. I was just using that as an example of how it’s wrong to ban something that has flaws, if that ban means continued use of something else that has even more flaws.

One of the big frustrations I have with the green movement is that they almost universally ignore or are outright hostile towards market solutions to environmental problems. For example, why aren’t environmentalists fighting to have price controls removed from power distribution? It’s basic economics that when the government caps the price of something artificially low it will stimulate demand. So if you want to advocate conservation, you should be dead-set against price caps. Yet I’m hearing nary a peep from the green party, other than to scream that deregulation is bad.

This really hurts the green movement, because it allows some conservative extremists to paint them as socialists masquerading as environmentalists. I’m sure you’ve heard the term ‘watermelon’? Green on the outside, red on the inside. This damages the cause of environmentalism.

Besides, there are a number of great ideas on the market side for helping solve environmental problems, yet they get dismissed or even attacked by the greens. It’s frustrating.

As for the EPA and their lack of cost/benefit analysis - that would be fine if they were just an advisory agency, identifying potential risks and passing them on to other lawmakers. But the EPA writes regulation, and therefore they have a responsibility to make sure that those regulations aren’t onerous. I know it’s popular with them to say things like, “You can’t put a price on a human life”, but that ignores the fact that we can, and do. All the time. There’s hardly a product in the world that couldn’t be made safer by spending more money on it. But somewhere we draw the line and say, “That’s safe enough”. The EPA’s line, when they even bother to draw it, is often way out to lunch.

In other agencies, the line is drawn much, much lower. For example, airbags cost about $200,000 per life saved, and even at that relatively low cost there was heavy debate over them. The EPA routinely writes rules that would cost millions, billions, and in the case of wood preservatives even trillions of dollars per life saved.