Commentary
Remember the brouhaha over storage of petroleum coke — pet coke — on the banks of the Detroit River last summer?
The city of Detroit forced Detroit Bulk Storage to remove the pet coke and the company appealed. It recently withdrew the appeal saying it will not store pet coke on the site but still plans to use it to store material such as limestone and asphalt.
But how it got there came from a mindset locked in 1960’s industrial era thinking when the river and its banks were dumping grounds for pollutants. I know, I once worked in a steel mill not far from the pet coke storage site.
Fifty years later we’re still trying to clean up those legacy sites and will be for another 20 years, funding permitting.
Before we get to mindset, let’s get the basics out of the way.
How are we protecting the Great Lakes and its nearby waters like the Detroit River today?
For sure it takes money.
The Obama administration has pumped a billion dollars into Great Lakes restoration programs over four years. That’s admirable, but still well shy of the estimated $20 billion needed for a decent restoration job.
It also takes regulation and enforcement.
We’ve accomplished nothing if we don’t protect by regulating — keeping bad stuff out of the air and water in the first place. But regulation has a bad name in certain political and industry circles. It’s the jobs or the environment mantra that we can’t seem to shake.
Regulations have to be enforced and that isn’t our long suit. Many contain loopholes that hinder effectiveness and responsible agencies are typically short-staffed. Then there’s political pressure. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants his Department of Natural Resources to have a “chamber of commerce mindset.” It’s not hard to understand that message if you’re an enforcement staffer.
Money, regulation and enforcement are tangibles that we understand and can point to as evidence that we’re doing the minimum.
But I’d argue that there’s something more important that helps predetermine the path we’ll take: Our mindset.
Here’s what I mean.
Environmental journalist Ken Ward was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air about the recent chemical leak into the water supply in West Virginia. He said politicians there like to bang on the table and rail against regulations. Ward reports for the Charleston Gazette.
Ward described how a new piece of legislation was introduced after the leak that would minimize the chances of another occurrence. Environmental groups told him that the legislation was fine. But not much would change until the rhetoric and table banging against regulation and enforcement stopped.
That’s mindset.
Yes, West Virginia politicians want clean water but they’re willing to risk it with lax regulation they perceive leads to jobs. That assumes they really believe that and aren’t just motivated by politics.
Pollution diet
The Chesapeake Bay has had algae problems for decades and made little progress combating them until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally put farmers and builders on a “pollution diet.” The EPA’s decision was challenged legally and a federal judge affirmed the agency’s authority to act.
The decision is being appealed.
So here’s the mindset of attorneys general of 21 states, including Michigan:
They’re concerned that if the EPA’s “pollution diet” plan sticks for the Chesapeake Bay, the concept will expand to other parts of the country. They’ve filed an amicus brief siding with the polluters — farmers and builders.
Heaven forbid that efforts to control harmful algae blooms would gain a foothold. And what gives with Michigan signing on to the brief?
Like it doesn’t have algae problems too? Witness Saginaw Bay. And the Detroit River’s outflow is a major contributor to Lake Erie’s algae problems.
I struggle with the retrograde mindset of weak politicians and industrial polluters. No surprise there.
Access over substance?
But the mindset of certain environmental groups bothers me to no end with their penchant to play the inside game. That is, putting access to politicians and corporate money ahead of their responsibility to advocate for what‘s right for the environment.
Here’s an egregious example.
In his State of the State address, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said he would put money in his budget proposal to fight invasive species. That’s good news, but it isn’t revelatory and should have been done three years ago, not in the last year of his term. It didn’t even make his speech’s highlight reel.
Snyder isn’t the worst Great Lake state governor — see Wisconsin — on environmental issues, but he’s a plodder at best.
Helen Taylor from the Nature Conservancy must see it differently.
“One of the keys to solving the (Aquatic Invasive Species) problem is visionary leaders stepping forward with bold solutions. Gov. Snyder has done that tonight…” Taylor said in a press release immediately after Snyder’s address. Taylor is the Conservancy’s Michigan director.
Is Snyder a “visionary leader…with bold solutions,” as Taylor says?
Hardly.
He spent four years pitching himself as a nerd. (Now he’s a comeback kid.)
I must be missing something because during the address Snyder didn’t detail what would be in his budget. How could Taylor call it “bold”?
I contacted the Nature Conservancy.
“The ’bold’ in this case is that we finally got a governor in their state of the state to say they are going to ask for an appropriation for invasive species work” replied Rick Bowman, the conservancy’s director of government relations in Michigan.
Really?
If Snyder wanted to be visionary and bold on aquatic invasive species policy he could have taken a leadership position on the Army Corps’ study on separating the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River. That’s the issue of the decade and beyond if you’re interested in invasive species.
The Nature Conservancy’s Taylor was appointed to the Great Lakes Commission by Snyder. Snyder is formerly a member of the Conservancy’s board of trustees.
Back to pet coke.
Chicago has a similar problem to Detroit’s pet coke storage issue. Its pet coke piles are smack dab in an economically challenged residential neighborhood. Chicago and Illinois officials have rallied and are developing regulations to control spread of the dust.
That’s doing something, but Henry Henderson has a better idea.
“We can put a tarp over the piles and hope no one notices the plight of our neighbors,” says Henderson, who directs the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Midwest office in Chicago.
And that’s what will have to be done in the short term.
But Henderson also asks, why allow pet coke to be stored in the neighborhood in the first place?
“We should seize this opportunity to re-envision the Chicago’s Southeast Side and encourage investment and development that uplifts and sustains the area,” he said. “That will help the entire city by swelling tax rolls and cleaning up the most persistently dirty air in town.”
That’s changing the mindset.
Similarly, Henderson and his Chicago colleague,Joel Brammeier, the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, are working to change the mindset that says the purpose of the Chicago waterways system is to transport sewage and goods. That comes from a 19th century mindset. And a byproduct is that the waters are a prime vector for aquatic invasive species like Asian carp to enter the Great Lakes.
Like covering the pet coke piles, we have to continue to chip away at protecting our lakes and rivers using money, regulations and enforcement. That doesn’t change.
But those tactics alone are the equivalent of playing only defense. They won’t get us where we need to be if we want clean water, air and healthy neighborhoods.
Changing mindsets can.
I suspect the folks living near the pet coke piles in Detroit and Chicago and those who rely on West Virginia’s water supply would agree.