Funny that those who praise EPA, have jobs that don't require interaction with the agency...
HI5 is spot on, and I can cite firsthand an endless list of bizarre EPA instigated actions needlessly costing American businesses and homeowners thousands every day...
...A contractor in Elko, in business for 17 years, on the same 5 acre, flat upaved lot, east of town, when they graded 1 acre of the land for parking, received a fine, and demand to conduct an environmental study and submit a stormwater runoff plan within 30 days...OR, in lieu of the study, could pay a $3,800 mitigation fee to the FEDERAL EPA...paid the fee, hired an environmental consultant to prepare the SWPP, at a cost of $1,700, then spent another 3 days installing a box culvert along the edge of their property: A property surrounded by arid "high desert"...
...Every diesel powered piece of construction equipment in the State of CA MUST BE INSPECTED AND REGISTERED, with CA EPA...every piece...even a 5hp generator...cement mixer...transfer pump...everything...
...Witnessed one of my clients, installing a water main in Marin County...at 2:30p one afternoon...had parked a Bobcat on the jobsite...and Bobcat developed a fuel leak...lost about 5 gal diesel before they caught it...immediately called the main office...which shut down another jobsite across the Bay...to send over a backhoe on a trailer, transfer and crew to excavate 20 yards of topsoil, while simultaneously mobilizing a third party hazmat testing lab to head to the jobsite...while three govt. inspectors played cellphone-circle jerk calling their bosses to see what laws were being violated. By 4:30p...two hours after the horrendous 5 gal spill...20 yard of soil had been removed, placed in a covered transfer and were enroute to a hazmat storage site in Sonoma, adminstrative staff had already filled out Federal paperwork required when there's a spill...and faxed it to the regional EPA office...while the inspectors and testing lab continued testing to determine the extent of the environmental "damage". We calc'd the 2 hour response cost at $42,000.
I've seen similar situations resolved by two workers with shovels and wheelbarrow digging up the saturated soil and spreading it out on tarps so the fuel can evaporate...at a cost of ~$50.
...A third generation rancher who refused to quitclaim 500 acres of his 1,500 acre ranch to an environmental group attempting to create a riparian watershed protection area along a creek. Two years and $50,000 in legal bills later, the EPA served him with a court order to relocate his livestock...after "finding" E-Coli bacteria in the wells on his property and in test wells they had drilled around the perimeter. Accusing him of "polluting" the water table (the closest potable water wells to his property were 2 miles away...a distance even their expert said was beyond the potential migration/plume), the EPA gave him the option of donating the 500 acres as "mitigation", constructing a tertiary water treatment plant to treat the groundwater, or simply stop raising livestock.
He sold the livestock, kept the land, retired, and publicly stated he'd shoot the next govt. employee that stepped foot on his land. I spoke with him about his decision. His plan: To outlive the envirowhackoism and continue ranching one day.
...Water treatment requirements so ridiculously stringent virtually every municipality in the U.S. has had to construct entirely new sewage treatment plants over the past 8 years...at a cost to the taxpayers in the hundreds of billions (personally, my cost for one of my properties is approx. $25k over 7 years.)...
...CA EPA air quality laws so mind-numbingly absurd, the leftislature has crafted motor vehicle maintenance/pollution standard laws so intricate and restrictive, owners end up junking cars after 8 years or risk paying punitive fees/costs to keep the vehicle on the road...a practice fine for individuals/businesses with hundreds of thousands in PR or disposable income, but too costly for most small businesses or middle class...
...Bans on building fireplaces in new homes...
...Bans on having fires in fireplaces where they exist...
...Charging campers with a Federal crime for shooting rattlesnakes along CA rivers (where they are "protected")...
...Mining moratoriums that in effect negate our nation's natural resource wealth...
...And an army of attorneys, govt. and private, gorging at the environmental law litigation trough...
AZ, Kalm, etc...
...you may rhetorically knock the Asian countries, but re: quality of life...they all have jobs, can feed their families without govt. aid, and healthcare is so readily available and decent, I have two friends (couples), one from China , the other from Indonesia, who when the wives became pregnant, "moved" back to their home countries to have their children. The Chinese family saved $35,000 by going "home". Those reduced costs don't come at the expense of quality of care, but from elimination of overhead expenses. It doesn't cost hundreds of millions/billions to construct a regional medical facility; millions annually to ensure "sustainable", bio-hazard-free, common areas...the list goes on and on and on...
...but don't knock those developing nations if you don't know what you're talking about.
