Quote:
Originally Posted by Buffy
It's most often not a problem of the "science of comprehensive risk assessment" being in error, but the politicians (and the public who pressure them because they don't want to have to pay for it) who disregard perfectly good assessments...
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I have to agree with this. Once I worked on an EIS for US Borax’s Quartz Hill molybdenum mining proposal in southeast AK. The mine was to be located in the pristine Misty Fjords region of the Tongass National Forest. US Borax wanted to fill two adjacent fjords half way up with mill tailings, and the U.S. Forest Service was claiming that the project would cause “no significant impact.” I saw things quite differently: the benthos of both fjords would be severely impacted, of course, not to mention the water chemistry. But that all happened during the Reagan administration, and the EPA, along with the state of AK, gave it a pass.
However, as soon as Clinton took over the presidency his EPA director, along with AK’s equivalent administrator, reversed the EIS decision and scotched the project. The reason: soluble heavy metals in the mill tailings would violate AK’s water quality standards (which, btw, I predicted but was shouted down).
So, you’re right, politics makes al the difference. As such, shouldn’t a coefficient for politics be added to all comprehensive risk-assessment models? But how?
