Coal ash

Published April 1, 2014

by Carter Wrenn, Talking About Politics, March 31, 2014.

I don’t know why but I’ve become absorbed by the machinations of bureaucrats – it’s a bit like watching Alice in Wonderland: Down is up, and up is down.

Take hard work.

 

Businessmen work hard to get ahead.

 

Students work hard for better grades.

 

But who joins a bureaucracy to work hard?

 

The most prominent bureaucracies in North Carolina are the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. DHHS has the most problems. Because it’s biggest. But lately, with the Duke coal ash spill, DENR’s been in the most trouble.

 

For several years, on behalf of a client, I’ve been studying how DENR works with corporations (in this case Alcoa) and it’s not as dull as it sounds.

 

DENR’s supposed to protect the environment but how the bureaucrats go about it depends on their individual wants and needs which brings us back to hard work.

 

The bureaucrats, basically, don’t go out and find pollution. Instead they tell a corporation like Alcoa or Duke Power, File a report, tell us if you’ve polluted, and what you’re doing about it.

 

The corporation hires lawyers who file hundreds or thousands of pages of reports that primarily say, We haven’t polluted very much and none of the pollution is a threat to anyone, so we simply propose to monitor it.

 

After that, corporate lawyers go on filing reports for years saying, We’re still monitoring – and DENR bureaucrats stamp the reports and file them and that’s it.

 

No one breaks a sweat.

 

Of course, sometimes, an unfortunate bureaucrat runs into a trickier problem.

 

A couple of years ago a group of corporations who own dams on rivers had to renew their ‘State Water Quality Certificates,’ so they all got together with the bureaucrats at DENR and more or less said, Let’s all agree this isn’t going to be a hardship for anyone.

 

That was civil enough but the bureaucrats looking at the businessmen, right off, spotted an unspoken undercurrent. Duke Energy and Progress Energy had plenty of friends in places like the Governor’s office and the legislature and, of course, no bureaucrat in his right mind wants to get on the wrong side of a powerful politician – everyone of those corporations got their ‘Water Quality Certificate.’

 

And that’s, more or less, how DENR’s worked for years.

 

The bureaucrats survived peacefully by not offending powerful politicians and, beyond that, avoided over-exertion. It all worked out happily until, as almost always happens, there was a day of reckoning.

 

The coal ash spill.

 

Suddenly the bureaucrats found themselves being slammed in newspapers and on the six o’clock news and found themselves answering awkward questions at press conferences. They were in a media maelstrom.

 

Then a worse blow fell: Subpoenas started arriving on their desks from the U.S. Attorney. 

And, in all likelihood, an even worse blow is in the works: The politicians, who they’ve been accommodating for years, are going to say, Don’t blame us. If the bureaucrats had done their job we wouldn’t have had a spill.

http://www.talkingaboutpolitics.com

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April 1, 2014 at 10:10 am
Norm Kelly says:

So what we understand now, after the disaster and this post, is that the fox was truly guarding the hen house. Protecting the hen house from the prying eyes of the public. Certainly NOT protecting the public from harm.

Just like the UNC sports fiasco, this is NOT limited to DENR nor is it limited to NC. Which brings people like me to ask the simple, yet hard to answer, question: why is it that so many people trust government so much? What has government done right in the past 50 years that makes people want to give THEM more power? Why is it that so many people feel comfortable giving the government control of our health care? Why is it that so many people are frightened when Google might be tracking your web browsing or Apple is tracking your phone use & location data, but when the government illegally collects data on EVERY citizen through Internet use and cell phone use there's such little uproar? Who has more to gain by invading your privacy? Google or the central planners? Who can affect your life more: Google/Apple or the central planners? Who has made comments about putting the boot on someone's neck? Did Google/Apple do it? Or was that statement made by the thugs in the central planner organization? Hint: it wasn't a private company.

What's the difference between a private business and a government agency? When I deal with a private business, I have choice. When company A pisses me off, I simply go to company B. When a government agency pisses me off or violates the law either to help me out or to hurt me, I have no choice but to continue to interact with that monopoly. If I blow the whistle on that government agency for not following the laws when dealing with me, what's bound to happen to me and that government agency? I'm likely to be targeted by other government agencies. That agency is likely to have NOTHING done to it as punishment. Based on recent history it's likely that someone in that government agency is going to be promoted. It's also likely, based on recent history especially at the central planner level, that other government agencies will be brought in to target/harass me.

Ask yourself a simple question: who would you rather have targeting you? A thief bent on stealing your identity or some government agency? DENR has been doing business like a corrupt bureaucracy for years. Did anyone expect the businesses potentially under the thumb of these people would complain about DENR not doing it's job? Does anyone expect that bureaucrats would care to make their bosses angry, the ones who control the purse strings? Does anyone expect that things are gonna change? Remember years ago when it was DMV coming under fire for not being able to follow the law? Should we expect that agencies are going to be 'uncovered' one by one until we clean house? Or will the agencies who've passed muster this year simply fall back into their ways when the spotlight falls on some other agency? Why do so many citizens continue to trust government so much?