Lessons for EPA

[James Marple <jesl@carolina.net>]

Bob Carlitz: Re "Lessons for EPA from this Dialogue"

I've seen such a wide difference in the receptiveness of EPA officials to public comment that I believe this single issue could be the subject of another of these discussions.  I note, as an example, that the EPA's Marcella Hutchinson monitors Waterforum discussions and provides frequent illuminating response to comments, yet such direct interchange, a fine opportunity to deliver intelligence, is rare.  

I'd also like to see an EPA air pollution forum similar to the excellent NPSINFO effort, one that is widely publicized and moderated thoughtfully enough to minimize distractions/diversions/distortions of the many agents of profiteers who seek to obstruct air quality improvement efforts.  

Do EPA duties justify greater effort to invite public participation in its air quality regulatory efforts where these are related to water resource management alternatives?  It is obvious that if 500 billion gallons of local rainfall was guided to storage on the South Coast then 2,000,000 MWh of electricity would not be needed yearly to pump this amount over the mountains.  This would reduce the need for older high-pollution generation plants and so contribute mightily to the cleansing of air.  It would also allow the extraction of at least this much cheap hydropower from rain falling on South Coast highlands and eliminate need for the proposed new N/S transmission line, both by providing new generation sources and pumped storage facilities that would allow economical application of cogeneration methods. (fuel cells, microturbines, photovoltaics, wind farms, wave energy harvesting.)  In addition, the simple BMPs that store more rainfall would raise water tables and thereby enhance the growth of vegetation that cleanses air and moderates climatic extremes, bringing additional savings in reduced need for electricity.  Revelation of these significant benefits should cause observant and conscientious politicians to demand greater efforts from the EPA and facilitate these with additional funding. 

Has the EPA been constrained in analyzing and exposing the direct connection between air pollution and water resource management in California?  Have the many concerned citizens who participated in EPA planning been misled into arguing about pollution loads instead of focusing upon reduction of the need for inefficient fossil-fuel generators that derives from increased rainwater capture?   After seeing $50 billion stolen from the public in the past year by energy monopolists we need not still wonder why they go to such great lengths to co-opt all information sources. (And most politicians.) A public that understood the relationship between EPA actions to protect water quality and the high cost of electricity would be angry indeed at those whose dollars pervert their information base and buy false testimony.