Author Archives: Pam Lacey

In a recent speech, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson commented that many folks don’t remember how polluted the country was 40 years ago when EPA was created, so they now wonder about EPA’s mission.   At the time, Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River often caught fire, and cities such as Pittsburgh and Los Angeles were regularly entombed in a haze of smog.

I was a child then, but I do remember family trips from Annapolis to Baltimore, when we could see the brown cloud resting over the city and smell its sulfuric rotten egg stench long before we arrived at its black soot-covered buildings.  In the days before add-on pollution controls, we sometimes hung wet laundry outside in the “fresh air” only to find it covered in soot from the local Naval Academy power plant and (ironically) laundry facility.

Times have changed.   Administrator Jackson is right that we have made huge improvements during the past 40 years.  I also agree that it is possible to make further environmental improvements and still grow our economy, but I don’t always agree that EPA’s proposals accomplish that goal.  I think there is a tendency for different offices to operate in “silos,” focusing on one narrow area and “pushing the limit” on controls of that one thing, even if it would cost billions of dollars and provide minimal benefits, and even if spending a fraction of that money on another issue under the jurisdiction of another silo at EPA would yield significant benefits.

I am an environmental pragmatist.   In my view, the public interest would be better served if the leadership at EPA looked at the big picture—above the silo level—and focused the agency’s and society’s resources on what makes the most sense, so that we get the biggest improvements for the buck—for health, the environment and economic well-being.

Here’s something interesting.  MIT’s Center for Civic Media is launching a new hydraulic fracturing web tool to help landowners become better informed, savvy negotiators when “landmen” come knocking to buy mineral rights in the Marcellus Shale and other new natural gas production areas.  See http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2010/11/mit-unveils-civic-tools-for-communities-affected-by-natural-gas327.html I’m not sure what to make of it yet because it is only partly built.  Time will tell.

This seems to be a good public service.  People in shale production areas will be able to see where existing wells are located near their address and obtain news and other information. – I found a bunch of wells near my family’s original town, Laceyville, Pennsylvania.  Too bad we don’t own any land anymore in what turned out to be a prime natural gas patch. Oh well.

I’m all for using responsible practices for drilling and making sure that the public and landowners are well informed about both the benefits and potential pitfalls of selling mineral rights for shale production.  (See “Haynesville” – a good film illustrating how neighbors banded together to learn and negotiate a better financial compensation arrangement as well as protecting their water and land.)  This new MIT site seems to be akin to “Checkbook” when looking for a good local plumber or contractor, or Zagat for locating a restaurant through user reviews.  The site will allow people to post good or bad reviews of landsmen – those on the up and up, and those apparently not so fair.  I’m glad to see they encourage good reviews as well as scathing ones.  Anyway, definitely a site to watch.