An article by Seth Slabaugh in the Muncie Star Press reports a Ball State study on the stuff in our water.
Here’s what you might be ingesting the next time you have a cool drink of water: acetaminophen; antibiotics used to treat urinary tract infections; antibacterial agents found in soap; trace amounts of caffeine and cotinine, a body-producing byproduct of nicotine; anticoagulants; and carbamazepine, a drug used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder. Oh, and DEET insect repellant.
. . .
The federal government has not established maximum contaminant levels for pharmaceuticals in treated drinking water, Alan DeBoy, vice president of operations for Indiana-American Water Co., said during a community forum in Muncie this week.“But those will be coming,” he said.
I don’t know how you deal with this except through government regulation. I know that anti-government types dislike almost any sorts of government intervention and believe that property owners should be able to do as they will on their property and that people’s ability to manufacture or buy products should be almost unfettered. But, as always, a person’s right to swing his arm stops at the other guy’s nose. In the case of something as simple as a punch in the nose, you don’t need a whole lot of government intervention; you can just sue the guy for damages you sustain from the punch. Pollution is a tougher issue because the damages are less direct. If I’m get sick from a steady stream of cocktails consisting of soap, caffeine, nicotine, and DEET, who do I sue?
You have to either stop the chemicals from getting in the water or treat the water more completely before it gets to third parties. So far as I can tell, this requires regulation and taxes. Like I’ve said before, I’ve never heard a very good Libertarian approach to pollution. I’d certainly like to hear it though.
Most of this is coming from our wastewater from shower/sink drains and toilets. We allow the fecal stuff in Indy to overflow into the White River, other places also let overflow into streams while still other homeowners let it go directly into the streams or sources of groundwater through septic systems. Better regulation of sewer systems and treatment facilities is the only answer, but that will be costly. Probably will not be solved until people start developing three arms. :)
It’s alway the same problem: nobody is responsible for maintaining or cleaning up anything in the evironment and those with most power ( namely corporations) successfully argue that they shouldn’t be the ‘scapegoats’ and they also don’t want government(socialism) to do anything because taxes would have to be levied to do it (But they will do it if government pays them directly in a no-bid contract).That’s why infrastructure is falling apart and virtually nothing has gotten done for a long time unless the profit of any endeavor can be divided up beforehand.. It’s probably a too-simplistic evaluation of why these important things don’t get done,but no worse than the ‘pro-freedom’ rallying cry from the wingnuts,who warn of ‘communism/socialism/fascism'(take your pick) if any national government action is ever addressed toward anything.. It’s dismaying that more money didn’t go to infrastructure in the bailouts(seems mostly street paving).
I was first in Berlin in 1990,the summer after communism fell. East Germans were telling me,and have been telling me since, that the government had already lost credibility with even their most ardent communist base and nothing was functioning except for the ever decreasing cadre of party members at very top.There was a gradual bankruptcy taking place.1945 Berlin was bascially 1989 East Berlin,except for shoddy Russian replacements of destroyed structures,and then nothing more was addressed.
But already in summer of 1990,German government was taking back East Berlin block by block,drab crumbling blocks of buildings being transformed into brand new looking rows of businesses and homes. The effort has continued the last 20 years and East Berlin looks virtually like West Berlin by now and there is just one huge united city.Its overwhelmig to now see the huge German government complex of high rises built in former no mans zone just south of Brandenburg gate.Also the new state of art Haupt Banhoff central raiload station has opened replacing the cramped platform that had served divided west Berlin..Berlin has now become a premiere Euopean City as it was before ww2. It was all done systematically bulding by building,block by block.it was exciting to see each year’s progress.
This is why communism fell if you ask around in East Germany: the country was literally falling part and no believed in the system anymore. There was no will to fix anything outside of daily routine….Ronald Reagan was just one of a series of American presidents who outspent communism on the cold war-western Europe border,where east Germany stood.West Berlin was always a glaring symbol of success for east Germans to have to see every day.
Unaddressed infrastructure deterioration can also bring down the USA.That’s the point for us in USA.:It’s now nobody’s responsibility.I don’t think Germans branded anything ‘socialism’…they just did it.
Just a couple of notes – no ax to grind, honest:
In some respects, water purification is an energy issue, since with enough energy you can (theoretically) get any amount of pure water to any location. That said, you probably don’t want to irrigate the Sahara with water that costs a dollar a quart when delivered!
Another thing to note is that you only need one rule to ultimately ensure both good water and sewage treatment – pass a law that every municipality’s intake has to be downstream from their output. (There is an energy cost to this – but it would certainly focus your engineers’ attention on the issue!).
Finally, some of the reports on water purity are detecting VERY low levels, and not every place has these problems. So, check your local situation before you pick on your local suppliers – but this is worth checking on, I think.
But what is downstream to Muncie is upstream to Anderson, and downstream to Anderson is upstream to Indy, and so on and so on. Unless you are at the top of the source, you are always drinking someone elses crap. Why not elect officials who include maintenance costs in the cost of the project instead of electing officials who pander to our basic instincts? And maybe we are overmedicated–so lilly should stop pushing drugs. Where is mitch on all this? Safe water for all hoosiers.
I haven’t read this; I just looked it up and made sure there were sufficient references to provide more sources, which I inferred based on the author’s bent for anarcho-capitalism. I know Block’s tone and peculiar (at least IMO) ethical system sometimes have a tendency to overshadow his excellent points.
http://mises.org/journals/scholar/waterprivate.pdf
Also, I’m not saying it’s airtight, but Rothbard does instigate a discussion of pollution in his book, For A New Liberty, which you can read here (about 2/3 down in his chapter on Conservation, Ecology, and Growth — http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp#p242