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Featured stories in this issue...

The Precaution Reporter Will Continue Under New Management
  Rachel's Precaution Reporter lives! In future it will be published
  by the Science and Environmental Health Network -- thanks to
  enthusiastic and passionate expressions of support from readers.
Cumulative Impacts: Death Knell for Cost-Benefit Analysis
  The impacts of our various economic activities are now adding up to
  a damaged world -- a world in which Earth's natural capacity for self-
  renewal has been exceeded and permanent degradation is evident. Our
  legal and regulatory systems were never intended to limit the
  accumulation of small impacts. Instead, U.S. law relies on cost-
  benefit analysis to justify individual impacts -- a practice that is
  now obsolete because it is destroying the planet as a place suitable
  for human habitation.
Buffalo Plane Crash Highlights Precaution vs. Cost-Benefit Analysis
  The safety board, which investigates plane crashes, "appears to
  favor the precautionary principle" while the FAA, which regulates
  aviation, "appears to favor cost-benefit analysis," said Candace K.
  Kolander. "This tragic accident gives the aviation industry an
  opportunity to revisit these differing approaches to regulating
  safety, and hopefully helps bring us back toward the precautionary
  principle and away from cost-benefit."
Cancer Questions Grow Around Fermi Nuclear Plant in Michigan
  "Those who create a poison are responsible for demonstrating that
  it is safe (this is the Precautionary Principle in public health),"
  Mangano told Michigan Messenger in an e-mail exchange. "But instead of
  utilities and the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] conducting
  studies, they set an arbitrary limit of radiation emissions and
  exposure, and declare any levels below this to be 'safe.'
Chemicals Industry Wants 'Free Trade, Not Subsidies'
  European Environmental Bureau President Mikael Karlsson warned that
  new industrial policies must not jeopardise broader societal
  objectives, stressing the importance of applying the precautionary
  principle to new products. "The precautionary principle does not mean
  banning products or curbing innovation. It can encourage innovation."
Precautionary Policies Help Europe Prosper as U.S. Falls Behind
  The European Union's precautionary approach to the natural
  environment is driving innovation -- and gaining economic leadership
  -- the world over. Lack of environmental regulation is causing the
  U.S. to fall behind economically.
Let's Talk About the Highly Radioactive Waste
  "Fortunately, we can use some tools to help with this impasse. One,
  the 'First Rule of Holes,' instructs that if one finds oneself in a
  hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Another tool is the much-
  underrated Precautionary Principle, which basically says that if a
  technology poses dire risks to the health and safety of people or the
  environment, it should not be implemented."

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From: Rachel's Precaution Reporter #183, Feb. 25, 2009
[Printer-friendly version]

THE PRECAUTION REPORTER WILL CONTINUE UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

By Katie Silberman

When the staff of the Science & Environmental Health Network learned
that Rachel's Precaution Reporter (RPR) was slated for retirement, we
knew we had to do something. RPR has been a keystone of SEHN's work on
the precautionary principle, and we had a feeling that our colleagues
relied on it as well.

In order to gauge reader interest, we asked RPR publisher Peter
Montague if he would do a readership survey. We hoped to discover
whether people were really reading and using RPR, and therefore
whether we should devote our organization's resources to keep it
going.

Were we surprised! Within hours of sending the survey, we were
positively deluged with responses, lamenting the end of RPR, begging
it to go on, relaying the specific ways activists and scholars have
been using RPR in their work, and offering an outpouring of volunteer
time, funding and support to keep it going. From every corner of the
US as well as several other countries, devoted readers pledged their
loyalty to RPR.

Well Dear Readers, we can't deny such passion! Due to popular demand
from you, SEHN has decided to carry on RPR. Although noone can do it
like Peter -- one of the true Godfathers of the environmental health
and justice movements -- we will do our best to steer this little
ship. At first SEHN will publish RPR monthly, and then depending on
resources (has anyone else heard that phrase this year?) we will try
to ramp up the frequency. (Unfortunately we can't pick up Rachel's
Democracy and Health News too, only Rachel's Precaution Reporter.)

And meanwhile, SEHN and Rachel's have been deeply touched by your
offerings of support for the work. Like all non-profits, SEHN is on
pins and needles financially this year. To those of you who love RPR
and offered to send $12 or $120 to support its continuation, we humbly
and gratefully accept your partnership in this vital work.

To donate online, click here.

To donate by check (to "Science & Environmental Health Network")
please mail to:
PMB 282
217 Welch Ave, Ste 101
Ames IA 50014

We thought you'd like to hear some of the comments made by your fellow
readers:

** Precaution Reporter is invaluable as a tool that utilizes and
reports upon the precautionary principle and the issues regarding
environmental changes, human impacts due to population and industrial
growth, etc. Its value is priceless. It would be a shame if it were to
be stopped just when we need it the most.

** I strongly support Rachel's and have been a loyal subscriber. If
Rachel's stops its activities, who else out there is going to "take up
the slack?" Few other outlets are openly discussing limits to growth,
problems with capitalism, or the steady state economy.

** Rachel's is an invaluable resource for small, poor grassroots
organizations. Peter Montague has done more for the environment in
Denton, TX than I can tell you. Without Rachel's, Citizens for Healthy
Growth would have never made what progress it has over the past eight
years in making our community a healthier place to live.

** I've used material from RPR in articles I've written, a book I've
edited, and more. Often I forward articles from it to scores of
people, some of whom have their own lists, much bigger than mine, and
they then forward to hundreds. Academics have incorporated materials
I've cut and forwarded in their classes... throughout the US & in
India. My brother, who is VP for business development at an
international company, first learned about the PP via articles I
forwarded him. He has incorporated this in his work and in panels he
participates in.

** It's great; you should keep doing it. It is this sort of media
monitoring that is invaluable in providing the broader picture of the
development of intangible, yet critical ideas like precaution.
Otherwise, one's experience of it is willy- nilly; this makes it clear
that it is a global MOVEMENT.

** I find Rachel's information invaluable. Sure -- some things could
be found elsewhere -- but in today's messed up world -- who's got the
time??? Yet as we all know, information is power and Rachel's
definitely supplies both!! Please continue this publication!

** The work Peter Montague and his group have done has proven
INVALUABLE and we can never thank him enough!! We are indebted to him
forever for all his incredible work. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep the
Precaution Reporter going -- there's nothing else like it and I think
many of us absolutely rely on it.

** Rachel's fills an important void, in that it provides analysis of
environmental and public health issues through the lens of
precautionary thinking; it is a vehicle that is helping us rethink our
approach to the biosphere and to each other. Beyond simply reporting
news stories (which is also important), it provides context and
insight. I do hope it continues.

** This newsletter has been valuable through a time of growing
awareness of the issues it addresses. It's hard to see it go just as
more people really are growing more environmentally conscious and want
to learn more. I think the readership is poised to grow right now. The
key to it all is in presenting possibilities & generating excitement
in creating change, because much of the info is so painful to take in
that people find it easier to keep turning the other way. With a
cultural turning point at hand, I do hope you keep this newsletter
going and promote it.

** I remember particularly a long and very useful dossier about lead
and other heavy metals that I shared with the social organizations
that fought in Uruguay to have lead removed from gasoline. It was in
2002, and I published more than 50 articles about lead in the
Uruguayan press. I hope to have the opportunity to return one day the
solidarity and generosity that your work contains.

** As a teacher of geography and environmental studies I have come to
rely up on Rachel's for materials that I use in class on a formal
basis but also for its contributions to the vast wealth of random
knowledge that I draw upon on any particular occasion. At a time when
the environment is so under threat and the world is sort of finally
starting to get with the programme -- or at least have some concept of
what "we" have been talking about for the last 40 years Rachel's (all
parts of Rachel!!) is incredibly important. It would be a terrible
loss.

* * *

Many thanks to all of you who sent in survey responses, and we thank
you for your support and look forward to continuing this journey
together.

Thank You, Bon Voyage and Godspeed, Peter!

Katie Silberman and the other staff of the Science & Environmental
Health Network

Return to Table of Contents

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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News, Feb. 19, 2009
[Printer-friendly version]

CUMULATIVE IMPACTS: DEATH KNELL FOR COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS

By Peter Montague

In the beginning, planet Earth seemed limitless. Yes, humans could see
that they were making big changes locally -- hunting the wooly mammoth
to extinction, for example, or permanently altering forest ecosystems
with fire. However, for eons there was never a hint that humans could
become a force of geologic proportions, capable of diminishing the
entire planet's capacity to sustain human life. Then in 1864 George
Perkins Marsh published Man and Nature, subtitled "Physical
Geography as Modified by Human Action," the first scientific study of
accumulating harm.

In the U.S., "environment and health" only became a public issue in
the 1950s, starting with cancer-causing food additives and
radioactive fallout from A-bomb tests. In 1962, Rachel Carson's book
Silent Spring described widespread effects from pesticides,
offering evidence that humankind was damaging whole ecosystems.

Congress passed the Water Quality Act in 1965 because people knew
something was wrong when they saw rivers covered with mounds of foam
(from detergents). Even more people started paying attention when the
Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland in 1969.

In 1970, M.I.T. Press published Man's Impact on the Global
Environment, which estimated that the total human "load" on the
natural environment was increasing 5 to 6% each year -- thus doubling
every 12 to 14 years. (By this measure, since 1970 the total human
impact on the global ecosystem has increased somewhere between 7-fold
and 10-fold. At these growth-rates, by 2050 (just 41 years from now),
if nothing changes, the total human impact will have grown another 7-
fold to 10-fold beyond where it is today. Can you image such a world?)

Public concern, validated by scientific information, forced Congress
to pass more than a dozen new national laws in the 1970s, intended to
limit specific harms to the environment. But those laws were not
designed (or intended) to control the cumulative effects of many small
environmental impacts.

As time passed, harm to the natural world grew more ominous and a few
scientists and legal scholars began to nibble around the edges of this
"cumulative impacts" problem. However, only in the past 2 years have
we seen a real breakthrough in analysis -- thanks chiefly to the work
of Joseph H. Guth, a biochemist and lawyer, and his colleagues at
the Science and Environmental Health Network, where Guth serves as
Legal Director.

Acknowledging the problem

In his 1980 book, Overshoot, William Catton, Jr., wrote,
"Infinitesimal actions, if they are numerous and cumulative, can
become enormously consequential." [pg. 177] And he noted that, by
1973, "The world was becoming a place wherein actions that used to be
quite harmless to others became harmful to all of us." [pg. 59]

This is the essence of the "cumulative impacts" problem. Actions that
are tolerable or even harmless at the individual level can degrade the
planet if thousands or millions of people do them. One person
fertilizing a lawn near the Chesapeake Bay makes no real difference --
but when thousands do it, the Bay is degraded and the storied blue
crab begins to disappear.

People routinely cut down forests and woods, displacing habitat for
wildlife to make space for crops and domestic animals. One small farm
makes no difference, but in 1986 Peter M. Vitousek and others
estimated that the world's human population (then 4.9 billion) was
appropriating for its own use 40% of net primary productivity from
Earth's total available land. Net primary productivity on land is the
mass of plant material produced each year by photosynthesis using
energy from sunlight; it is the total food resource for land-based
life. (There is also net primary productivity in the oceans; if you
include this, then humans in 1986 were appropriating 25% of total
global net primary productivity, Vitousek estimated.)

Vitousek did not extrapolate into the future, but his finding meant
that humans would appropriate 100% of net primary productivity from
land when their numbers grew just 2.5-fold, which will occur around
the year 2050 at the current rate of population growth (1.3% per year)
if nothing changes.

In 1991, two researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee
examined 11 industrial chemicals [5 Mbyte PDF] that have
contaminated the entire globe (PCBs, benzene, mercury, etc.). Using
cancer risk estimates provided by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), they calculated that the worldwide lifetime risk of cancer from
just these 11 chemicals was one-in-a-thousand. They commented,
"Current regulatory approaches for environmental pollution do not
incorporate ways of dealing with global pollution. Instead the major
focus has been on protecting the maximally exposed individual."

This is an important point. U.S. risk assessments (used in conducting
"cost-benefit" analyses) evaluate the danger of a single risk to a
hypothetical most-endangered ("maximally exposed") individual. If the
threat to that individual is found to fall within "acceptable" limits,
then no regulation occurs and "acceptable" amounts of contamination
can be released forever after. Then another risk assessment and cost-
benefit analysis gives a green light to another "acceptable" release
of contaminants. Then another and another. No one ever asks, "What is
the total impact of all these 'acceptable' risks?" That is the
"cumulative impact" problem in a nutshell.

Now Joe Guth has analyzed this problem and offered solutions in three
scholarly papers,[1,2,3] one of which has already been published (in
the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law), and two of which are "in
press" -- soon to appear in the Barry Law Review[2] and the journal
Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems.[3]

To me, the centerpiece of this triad is the paper, "Cumulative
Impacts: Death-Knell for Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental
Decisions," though all three papers are essential reading.

In "Cumulative Impacts," Guth lays out the problem in the opening
paragraph:

1. We have always assumed that we could tolerate unlimited small
increments of harm as byproducts of economic growth.

2. But now things have changed because numerous studies are telling us
that the cumulative impacts of our economic activities are degrading
the Earth's capacity to support humans.

3. Therefore, humans will have to abandon the use of cost-benefit
analysis to justify individual environmental impacts and, instead,
focus on limiting our cumulative impact to a sustainable size.

As evidence of cumulative harm, Guth cites the authoritative United
Nations-sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA)[4] -- a
five-year study of the condition of the Earth's ecosystems, involving
1360 scientists from all across the globe.

When the Board of Directors of the MEA issued the first volume of the
study, they said, "At the heart of this assessment is a stark
warning. Human activity is putting such strain on the natural
functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to
sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted."[5]

Guth also cites the United Nations-sponsored Global Environment
Outlook (known as GEO-4), published in 2007. The GEO-4 report
concluded (among other things) that human activities now require 54
acres (22 hectares) per person globally, but Earth can provide only 39
acres (16 hectares) per person without suffering permanent
degradation. We are living well beyond Earth's means.

(For additional corroboration, see Mathis Wackernagel and others,
"Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy,"
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 99, No. 14, July
9, 2002), pgs. 9266-9271 and see the web site of the Global Footprint
Network.)

How did we get into this shape?

How did this happen? Joe Guth finds the answer in our laws, which are
the rules by which society generallly operates. If we want society to
operate differently, we've got to change the rules, change the law.

Guth examines legislative law (laws passed by legislatures, such as
the federal Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act) and the
common law (the body of law created by judges, such as negligence and
nuisance). Guth finds that both bodies of law share similar goals and
assumptions, and both assign the "burden of proof" in similar ways,
which I'll explain.

Guth writes, "Our current property and environmental law,[6] including
both federal statutes and the common law, is intentionally designed to
promote unending growth in economic activity. It harbors the
presumption that economic activity generally provides a net benefit to
society despite any accompanying damage it may cause. Grounded almost
invisibly in this starting presumption, most of our property and
environmental laws permit interference with economic activity only
where that starting presumption is proved false, that is, where a
particular activity can be demonstrated to fail to provide a net
benefit to society. These laws for the most part do not forbid damage
to human health or the environment. Rather, even when fully enforced
they permit protection of human health or the environment only where
the benefits of doing so can be proved to outweigh the costs.... So it
is that cost-benefit analysis has become the legal system's primary
tool for deciding when economic activity may be regulated in the
interest of protecting human health and the environment."

But there's more. As Guth has said, the law does not allow economic
activity to be curtailed just because it is harming someone. The law
will only allow an economic activity to be curtailed if a cost-benefit
analysis shows that the activity is creating more harm than good. 
And the law puts the burden of proof on the harmed party, or on
the government, to prove that costs are exceeding benefits before an
economic activity can be curtailed or regulated. If the harmed party
(or the government) cannot meet that burden of proof, the law defaults
to its starting presumption: it allows the damaging activity to
continue.

"This allocation of the burden of proof transforms doubt and missing
information into a barrier to legal protection of human health and the
environment," Guth writes. "This explains why industrial interests are
rationally motivated under our legal system to invest in the
manufacture and spread of doubt and confusion." [See David Michaels'
book, Doubt is their Product, describing an industry devoted to
manufacturing doubt.]

So, if information is missing, or there exists scientific doubt, then
the law presumes that an economic activity should continue -- even
when the law acknowledges that harm is occurring. The default
presumption is that the benefits of economic activity always outweigh
the costs unless a specific cost-benefit analysis can show otherwise.

This explains why the environmental movement -- which has made truly
heroic efforts since 1970 -- has been unable to stem the degradation
of human health and the environment.

Another unspoken presumption of the law is that damage to human health
and the environment can continue to grow forever. Guth shows this in
in Figure 1. The upper curved line in Figure 1 represents
endlessly growing benefits from economic activity. The lower curved
line shows smaller (but also endlessly growing) legally-permitted
harms from economic activity. The space between the upper line and the
lower line is "net benefit" or "net social benefit" or "net social
utility" -- it is the residue of good that remains after costs have
been subtracted from benefits.

The world is new: on our finite planet, ecological limits exist

What's been slowly dawning on people in the last 2 decades is that
there really are limits on how much harm the Earth can
tolerate. There are limits to the total costs the Earth can sustain
before it is permanently damaged. The lower curved line in Figure 1
(which you can think of as the growing human footprint), by growing
without limit as the law assumes it should, will eventually make the
planet unsuitable for human habitation. And since this planet is the
only place that anyone has ever found in the universe that supports
human life, the law is now allowing -- even promoting -- the
destruction of humankind's only home.

Guth's Figure 2 includes a horizontal line that represents the
ecological limits of the Earth -- the point at which the planet starts
to be permanently degraded, the point at which human damage has
exceeded the Earth's natural capacity for self-renewal. As Guth says,
"This is a limit that our current legal system is utterly blind to."
Our legal system does not acknowledge that such a limit exists.

Joe Guth continues, "Thus we see the fatal flaw inherent in our system
of environmental decision-making. Routinely allowing all environmental
impacts except those proved to fail a cost-benefit test, it permits
those impacts to grow without limit even when their cumulative effect
results in ecological overshoot. Many of these impacts occur not
because they actually satisfy the law's cost-benefit test but because
whenever we do not know enough, the law's default structure permits
them to continue."

Importantly, Guth points out a fundamental flaw in trying to use cost-
benefit analysis after we reach ecological limits: "Even [though]
cost-benefit analysis can effectively evaluate impacts when we are far
below ecological limits, it cannot do so once we exceed those limits.
Each incremental impact, if taken alone in an empty world, might have
caused cost-benefit-justifiable harm or even, in many cases (such as
carbon emissions), no harm at all. But under conditions of ecological
overshoot each incremental impact contributes to a total loss that is
immeasurable. Indeed, the permanent loss of the ecological integrity
of the Earth, since we need it to survive and prosper, might fairly be
considered an infinite loss."

If you are going to suffer an infinite total loss, your cost-benefit
analysis of each increment of damage ceases to have any meaning. Under
conditions of ecological overshoot, cost-benefit analysis is a
meaningless exercise and a diversion from what's really important --
shrinking the human footprint back down to a size that Earth's
ecosystem can tolerate, learning to live well below the horizontal
line in Figure 2.

Guth concludes, "To maintain the ecological integrity of the Earth,
we need a new decision-making structure designed not to promote
endless growth in net benefits, but to accommodate the ecological
limits of the biosphere, the horizontal line of Figure 2."
[Emphasis added.]

Summary: U.S. law is dominated by cost-benefit analysis

To summarize, then, Joe Guth has described how, in general, the law
works (both statutory law and common law):

** Its goal is perpetual economic growth, even if some damage occurs
as a byproduct

** It presumes that the benefits of economic growth outweigh any costs
(or harms) until someone can prove otherwise

** It places the burden of proof on anyone who wishes to curtail or
regulate any economic activity, even a harmful activity, requiring
them to prove that the harms outweigh the benefits. If such a showing
cannot be made because of missing information, or scientific confusion
or uncertainty or doubt, then the law presumes that the economic
activity should continue.

** Seeking endless growth in net benefit, the law assumes that both
benefits and costs can grow without limit. The law has no way to
acknowledge that there exist ecological limits that sooner or later
must be exceeded by the endless growth of cumulative costs
(because the planet has a finite size), and which we exceed at the
peril of making our only home uninhabitable for our species.

Federal laws contain a few limited exceptions (which I'll describe
below) but, as Guth says, "Taken as a whole... the federal
environmental statutes are not directed toward an overarching goal
such as preservation of ecological integrity. Instead, with some
exceptions, they are deeply committed to a highly fragmented, cost-
benefit-driven evaluation of each individual action proposed by the
government to protect human health and the environment."

The way our laws are written, government regulators are not allowed to
take into consideration, or try to control, cumulative impacts.

Joe Guth continues: "These laws do not permit regulators broadly to
take account of what is happening to the world around them. They embed
regulators in a decision-making structure that may seem scientific but
in fact is profoundly unscientific because it prevents them from
responding to the ever more detailed findings by the world scientific
community that we are overshooting the Earth's ecological capacities.
Rooted in the assumption that ecological overshoot does not occur, our
current statutes are incapable of containing the cumulative scale of
ecological damage. Their approach to environmental protection is
firmly based in the conception of the world as an empty one rather
than as the full one that is in fact arising all around us. It is an
approach that has become outdated because it is based on assumptions
that are no longer valid."

Guth then discusses the common law, showing that modern liability
doctrines -- both negligence and nuisance -- do not prohibit all
harmful impacts, but require the same kind of cost-benefit balancing
that is pervasive in the federal statutes:

"Negligence and nuisance apply broadly to many different
circumstances, including cases arising from damage to human health and
the environment. These doctrines do not seek to prevent or impose
liability for all harm to human health and the environment.
Negligence, for example, places the burden of proof on damaged
plaintiffs to demonstrate that defendants created an "unreasonable"
risk of harm in order to make them liable for the damage they cause.
"Unreasonable" is defined not as a moral principle, but in cost-
benefit terms that compare the social utility of the particular
challenged act to the risks of resulting harm....

"Similarly, nuisance, the quintessential environmental tort, now
places the burden of proof on plaintiffs to prove that the defendant's
intentional acts are "unreasonable." As in negligence, "unreasonable"
is defined explicitly by a cost-benefit test...."

By placing the burden of proof on those who are harmed, the common law
"resolves cases of doubt and missing information in favor of economic
actors, allowing their damaging activities to continue and rewarding
confusion and ignorance," Guth writes.

All is not lost: a new decision structure is possible

With a new decision-making structure, we can learn to enjoy the fruits
of modern technologies while living within the Earth's ecological
limits.

This is where the precautionary principle fits in. Because we can
never be certain exactly where the ecological limits lie, once we
understand that we are approaching or exceeding those limits, there is
only one way to avoid ecological overshoot: eliminate or reduce every
environmental impact that we can. This means applying the
precautionary principle to all activities, large and small,
that cause an environmental impact:

(a) shifting the burden of proof by assuming that every action that
causes an impact on the Earth may be harmful unless proven otherwise;

(b) always seeking, then choosing, the least-harmful alternative; and

(c) paying attention to consequences after decisions have been made,
monitoring, looking for evidence of environmental harm, and being
prepared to reverse course if necessary.

(d) This last requirement means we should favor decisions and courses
of action that are reversible, avoiding irretrievable commitments
(such as the current coal-industry proposal to curb CO2 emissions by
pumping liquid carbon dioxide deep below ground, hoping it will stay
there forever).

Hints of a new decision structure in some existing U.S. laws

In Section II of his "Cumulative Impacts" paper, Joe Guth argues that
"Our legal system already harbors examples of decision-making
structures that establish a principle or standard of environmental
quality or human health and do not rely on cost-benefit balancing. 
These examples... show that such legal principles or standards can
enable the legal system to contain the growth of cumulative
impacts." [Emphasis added.]

However, to succeed, Guth argues, we must apply these legal approaches
broadly to our entire economy: "We must subject all our actions
to a new decision-making structure designed to defend and maintain the
ecological integrity of the Earth."

One of these approaches is to establish "environmental rights," as
several states have done by amending their constitutions to give
citizens an explicit right to clean air and water, for example. But
Guth argues that judges typically balance "environmental rights"
against other kinds of rights when they conflict, so environmental
rights (like other rights) cannot be enforced to their full extent.
"Establishing these kinds of [environmental] rights is a critical and
valuable step, one that requires care if the rights are to be
effective."

Meanwhile, as work to establish environmental rights "can and must
continue," Guth argues, "both the common law and legislation are quite
capable of defining and enforcing standards of environmental integrity
and human health."

He then shows how U.S. common law in the 18th and 19th centuries
(before the modern doctrines of negligence and nuisance were
developed) was capable of controlling cumulative impacts. The older
liability rule was expressed (in Latin) as "sic utere tuo ut
alienum non laedas" ("use your own so as not to injure another").
If your economic activities harmed your neighbor, you were liable for
the harm regardless of what benefits your economic activity might
provide to society.

"The principle of sic utere tuo was built around the
presumption that material damage to property was socially undesirable,
and it imposed a rule of strict liability without regard to the social
utility of the interfering activity," Guth writes. In other words,
there was no cost-benefit balancing in the older doctrine -- you could
not harm your neighbor and get away with it by arguing that your
actions created net social benefits. (In his published paper, "Law
for the Ecological Age[1], Guth traces legal history, showing how the
common law changed profoundly in the 19th century, from "sic utere
tuo" to cost-benefit balancing.) Under "sic utere tuo" every economic
actor who contributed to a demonstrable harm could be held liable for
the cumulative results to which his or her actions contributed.

"Under rules of law that were focused on protecting defined interests
[usable water in a river, for example], rather than on whether a
defendant's acts provided a net benefit to society, the law was able
to protect those interests from the cumulative impact of individually
harmless acts," Guth says. He cites older cases in which businesses
contributing small amount of toxicants to a river were held liable for
the end result, which was a totally-polluted river. They were forced
to stop contributing even small increments to the problem. Then, as
industrialization increased, cost-benefit balancing was introduced and
economic actors were presumed to create "net benefits" and were
allowed to continue polluting unless their pollution could be shown to
fail the cost-benefit test.

Besides showing that profoundly different legal structures are
possible, this history of U.S. property law reveals an important and
encouraging fact: in the past, we have changed our law dramatically to
suit the goals and circumstances of the times, so we can change it
again.

Guth then offers some examples indicating that, in small ways at
least, some federal environmental laws are beginning to address
cumulative impacts of individual pollutants. He points to particular
provisions in the federal Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act requiring
the government to take into consideration total emissions of
particular pollutants into air and water and then allocate those
emissions among economic actors, holding the total emissions of each
particular pollutant within fixed limits. He points to the "cap" part
of the "cap and trade" system created to limit sulfur emissions in the
U.S. Acid Rain program. This "cap" puts a limit on cumulative
emissions from large industrial facilities emitting sulfur.

Similarly, once a species is designated as "threatened" or
"endangered" under the Endangered Species Act, government must prevent
all actions that contribute to the demise of that species.

These are examples of federal statutes and early common laws that are
able to control cumulative impacts, but they have been applied only to
a few pollutants or impacts on species or common-law-protected
interests, each controlled one at a time. They do not broadly seek to
prevent ecological degradation as a whole.

A broad legal principle of preservation of ecological integrity

Ultimately, Guth argues, the law will need to expand this conceptual
approach to define a broad legal principle of preservation of
ecological integrity: "For in ecology we can discover how to evaluate
ecological systems, what impacts the Earth can tolerate and what we
need to maintain and protect from degradation," he says, acknowledging
that it will not be simple or easy.

Some progress in this direction has already been made, he points out.
The Swedish government has set 16 environmental quality goals that
should be met and maintained for the foreseeable future, with many
measurable benchmarks. The Natural Step organization has defined
four principles of sustainability that aim to allow economic activity
to occur within ecological limits. Various ecological studies and
organizations have defined what constitutes "degradation" of an
ecosystem. Much more work is needed, but we're not starting from
scratch.

Joe Guth offers some new ideas of his own for how to restructure the
law around a principle of preservation of ecological integrity. In his
paper, "Law for the Ecological Age," Guth has proposed creating a
new "ecological tort," a "legal rule of the common law that would
presumptively impose liability for impacts on the environment that may
contribute to ecological degradation."

He has also proposed a "Model State Environmental Quality Act" that
"defines a threshold level of environmental impacts that would trigger
placing the burden of proof on defendants, a definition of who should
have standing to assert this rule of law, and a temporary affirmative
defense for those engaged in a meaningful search for less damaging
alternatives."

This does not exhaust the list of suggestions and proposals that Joe
Guth briefly describes in his "Cumulative Impacts" paper. The more
important point is that Guth's three papers have clearly outlined the
specific ways the law will have to change if we are to reverse the
slide (driven by cumulative impacts) toward ecological degradation and
irreversible destruction of humankind's only home, planet Earth.

He has also excavated our legal history to show that, in the past, we
in the U.S. have signficantly changed our law in response to new
social objectives and realities, and therefore we can do it again.

Joe Guth concludes,

"The American government and legal system bear a duty to respond to
the rise of cumulative impacts. The growing human ecological footprint
has made untenable the assumptions on which our current environmental
decision-making structure is based. The central goal of property and
environmental law must shift from promoting endless growth in costs
and benefits to maintaining the ecological systems we need to survive
and prosper.

"By adopting such a new goal, the law would transform the shape of the
economy. If the law contains the permissible scale of cumulative
environmental impacts, the economy would become one that continues to
develop but accommodates rather than undermines the ecological systems
our welfare ultimately depends on. Cost-benefit analysis might remain
useful as we seek less damaging alternatives in a quest to reduce the
scale of cumulative impacts, but it could no longer be used to justify
limitless increments of ecological degradation."

Now it's up to all of us to decide how best to change the law, and
then to get those changes made. The world is new -- because for the
first time in human history the regenerative capacity of the Earth is
being palpably damaged by the human economy. In this new world, many
of our old assumptions, attitudes, and goals are obsolete and getting
in the way. But we can fix all that, so let's get to it. Survival is
not negotiable.

==============

[1] Joseph H. Guth, "Law for the Ecological Age," Vermont Journal of
Environmental Law, Vol. 431 (2008), pgs. 431-512. Available at 
http://www.vjel.org/journal/pdf/VJEL10068.pdf

[2] Joseph H. Guth, "Cumulative Impacts: Death-Knell for Cost-Benefit
Analysis in Environmental Decisions," Barry Law Review, 2009. In
press. http://www.barry.edu/law/studentLife/lawreview.htm

[3] Joseph H. Guth, "Resolving the Paradoxes of Discounting in
Environmental Decisions," Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems
Vol. 18 (Winter, 2009). http://www.uiowa.edu/~tlcp/html/view_iss
ues.html

[4] Millennium Ecosystem Assessment -- a series of reports issued by
the United Nations starting in late 2005, assessing the status of
ecosystems worldwide, including (but by no means limited to) effects
on human health. The work began in 2001 and involved 1360 scientists 
http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/Global.aspx

[5] Millennium Ecosystem Assment Board of Directors, Living Beyond Our
Means: Natural Assets and Human Well Being (2005). 
http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/BoardStatement.aspx

[6] By "property and environmental law," Guth is referring to "all our
laws that control the impacts people may have on the environment, both
by altering their own lands and by externalizing impacts onto the
lands of others, or of the commons."

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From: The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.), Feb. 24, 2009
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PILOT WHO LANDED IN HUDSON SAYS HEART GOES OUT TO VICTIMS' FAMILIES

By Jerry Zremski

WASHINGTON -- The pilot of the USAirways flight that landed in the
Hudson River last month today said his "heart goes out" to the
families of the victims of this month's plane crash in Clarence, while
the flight attendants union said the Clarence crash should lead to a
new emphasis on airline safety.

"My heart goes out to all those affected by the tragic loss of
Continental Connection Flight 3407," Capt. Chesley B. "Sully"
Sullenberger III said at a House subcommittee hearing on the New York
emergency landing. "Words cannot express my sadness and grief at the
loss of 50 lives. The families of those no longer with us are in my
thoughts and in my heart."

Meanwhile, coordinator of air safety, health and security at the
Association of Flight Attendants, said the Clarence crash highlights
the differences between the National Transportation Safety Board's
approach to safety and that of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The safety board, which investigates plane crashes, "appears to favor
the precautionary principle" while the FAA, which regulates aviation,
"appears to favor cost-benefit analysis," Candace K. Kolander said.

"This tragic accident gives the aviation industry an opportunity to
revisit these differing approaches to regulating safety, and hopefully
helps bring us back toward the precautionary principle and away from
cost-benefit," Kolander said in written testimony.

The safety board and the FAA have disagreed on several regulatory
issues that have surfaced in wake of the Feb. 12 crash in Clarence.
Most notably, the safety board has suggested more stringent controls
on turboprop planes flying in icy conditions and less reliance on
autopilots, and the FAA has resisted those suggestions.

Noting that the House Aviation Subcommitee will want to discuss the
Clarence crash, Margaret Gilligan, the FAA's associate administrator
for aviation safety, said the agency mourned the loss of life in the
Buffalo area crash.

"We are fully supportive of the ongoing NTSB investigation in that
case and I want to assure you that we will always strive to provide
you with the timeliest information possible," Gilligan said in a
statement.

jzremski@buffnews.com

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From: Michigan Messenger, Feb. 17, 2009
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CANCER QUESTIONS GROW AROUND FERMI NUCLEAR PLANT IN MICHIGAN

State health report shows 31 percent increase in cancer rate among
young people in Monroe County since 1996

By Eartha Jane Melzer

The cancer rate among people under the age of 25 in Monroe County rose
at more than three times the rate of the rest of the state between
1996 and 2005, according to a report generated by the Michigan
Department of Community Health (MDCH). Between 1996 and 2000, the
average rate of cancer cases for this group was 18.5 cases per 100,000
people; between 2001 and 2005, the rate grew to 24.3 per 100,000.
Between 1996 and 2000 the statewide rate of cancer for this group was
20.2 per 100,000; between 2001 and 2005, the rate was 21.9.

Monroe is home to DTE Energy's Fermi II nuclear power plant, which
became fully operational in 1988. While industry and government
experts dismiss the possibility that local cancer rates are related to
the nuclear plant, critics of the plant and nuclear power say more
study is needed.

The new report, compiled in response to questions submitted by
Michigan Messenger, sheds new light on the issue.

In the 1980s, the cancer rate for young people in Monroe County was
below the state average. In the '90s this rate grew, and in the first
half of 2000 the cancer rate for this group in Monroe was greater than
the state average. For the period 1999-2004, there is data to compare
the Monroe under 25 cancer rate to both the Michigan and U.S
statistics. The rate was 23.5 per 100,000 in Monroe County, 21.5 per
100,000 in Michigan and 19.5 per 100,000 nationwide, according to the
Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

These numbers include all types of cancers reported for this group.

In September, DTE Energy applied for a license to build a new reactor
at the Fermi complex. Opponents of the plant say they want more
surveillance of local health issues before the project goes forward.
They point to North Elementary School (2.2 miles from Fermi) and
Jefferson High School, (2.5 miles from the power plant) as reasons for
particular concern.

"Anecdotally, there is a lot of cancer," said Michael Keegan, a social
scientist and spokesman for the group Don't Waste Michigan, which is
one of several groups that object to the development of a new reactor.
"We need to have baseline health studies done and monitor for the
occurrence of radionuclides in the environment," he said.

"That is pretty alarming," Keegan said when told about the cancer
stats provided by MCDH. "The question is what is the causal agent."

The answer is not known.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for
overseeing operations at nuclear plants such as Fermi and has "adopted
limits for nuclear emissions and exposure established by the
international scientific community," according to spokeswoman Viktoria
Mytling. Agency protocols require that plant operators submit reports
about radiation levels at the plant and carry out periodic
inspections of the plant.

Levels of radiation above those considered safe by the NRC have never
been detected around any of the state's five reactors, according to
Bob DeHaan, chief of the Radiological Assessment Division of the state
Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). DeHaan's division measures
radiation in the air, water and cow's milk near nuclear plants. Small
amounts of radioactive iodine, an isotope associated with nuclear
power plants, have been detected in cow's milk around Fermi and across
the state, he said.

"None of the environmental levels are in excess of what NRC says is
allowable," DeHaan said.

DeHaan declined to comment on the Monroe cancer statistics, saying, "I
am not an epidemiologist."

Though the radiation levels may be low, they are a source of concern
for some in the area.

"Sometimes we hear from patients that there are other people with
similar cancers in their area," said Dr. Jeffrey Taub, a leukemia
specialist at Children's Hospital in Detroit, "but it is hard to link
cancer to environmental causes."

Dr. Janette Sherman, adjunct professor at Western Michigan
University's Environmental Institute and author of "Life's Delicate
Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer," has spent her career
researching environmental causes of cancer. She said that cancer among
young people should be viewed as an indicator for radiation problems
associated with nuclear plants.

Radioactive isotopes such as iodine 131, cesium 137 and strontium 90
are passed on to people through cow's milk, she said. "They come out
of the stack and fall on the ground. They permeate the water and are
eaten in food."

Michigan cow (Photo: Technically Nina via Flickr.com)
Children are particularly vulnerable to this radiation, she said. "It
doesn't take 40 years to get leukemia if you are a kid."

Sherman said that her analysis of leukemia statistics in the United
States indicates that kids living near power plants are more likely to
get the disease.

Sherman said that the rise in cancer rates around Fermi is
significant.

"I think people ought to be concerned," she said. "We don't need to
have nuclear power. We have solar and wind and conservation."

Sherman's findings relate to those of a 2007 German study that was
touted by that country's Federal Office for Radiation Protection as
"the most painstakingly designed and most exhaustive survey
worldwide."

This study, published by the German Childhood Cancer Registry in 2007,
found that the rate of leukemia for children under 5 years old who
live within 3.1 miles of nuclear reactors is twice the rate
experienced by children in the region as a whole. But the study
concluded that the increase could not be directly attributed to
nuclear activity."People in our research division have reviewed the
study and concur with its conclusions," said NRC spokeswoman Mylting.

Dr. Rebecca Head, health officer for the Monroe County Health
Department, said that the health department is not involved with
cancer cases.

"If there really is an increase in the rate of cancer then I would
expect the state to either do their own study or call in the federal
agency associated with the CDC," she said.

The CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry "can
sometimes come in and do studies to find out what is going on and
whether they can attribute it to any factor," she said "We don't have
money to do our own program much less to take on an expensive survey."

MDCH spokesman James McCurtis said that his agency is not involved in
investigating cancer trends in Monroe County and that agency
epidemiologists generally only initiate investigations when asked to
do so by county health departments.

John Austerberry, a spokesman for DTE Energy, told Michigan Messenger
that he was unaware that state data shows rising cancer rates among
young people in Monroe.

"I had not heard of that," he said. "I don't think that we undertake
studies of that nature because it is being done by a number of
government agencies."

In comments submitted to the NRC at a recent open house about plans
for a new reactor, Joe Mangano, a New Jersey-based public health
expert with the Radiation and Public Health project, urged an
investigation of cancer rates in Monroe County.

"Those who create a poison are responsible for demonstrating that it
is safe (this is the Precautionary Principle in public health),"
Mangano told Michigan Messenger in an e-mail exchange. "But instead of
utilities and the NRC conducting studies, they set an arbitrary limit
of radiation emissions and exposure, and declare any levels below this
to be 'safe.' Neither utilities nor the NRC conducts health studies --
they don't even monitor local cancer rates near reactors -- and they
strongly criticize any studies that suggest harm."

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From: Euractiv, Feb. 23, 2009
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CHEMICALS INDUSTRY WANTS 'FREE TRADE, NOT SUBSIDIES'

Experts from the EU's chemicals industry have highlighted free trade
and the development of sustainable products as key to the survival of
Europe's chemical companies. Access to energy and raw materials are
also central to long-term competitiveness, according to a new
report.

Jurgen Hambrecht, chairman of the board of executive directors at
chemicals firm BASF and a member of a Commission high-level group on
chemicals, said the chemical industry had undergone considerable
restructuring and was not looking to be propped up by governments.

"A strong manufacturing industry is essential for Europe but we don't
need subsidies. What we need is a level playing field. We will take
care of our own restructuring," he said.

Hambrecht stressed the need for further trade liberalisation through
the reduction of tariffs and warned against creeping protectionism
within Europe and globally.

The group's report says the best way to guard against protectionist
policies internationally is through the World Trade Organisation.

"In the current Doha Development Round, this could be achieved by an
ambitious horizontal tariff cutting agreement complemented by a new
sectoral agreement for chemicals," the report states.

The EU should also pursue free trade agreements with key trading
partners, and common rules on anti-dumping practices should also be
pursed through the WTO, the high level group suggests.

The report also emphasises the need to develop sustainable products
and invest in research and development.

Key recommendations include:

* More innovation and the strengthening of networks and clusters in
order to secure competitiveness and sustainability;

* Responsible use of natural resources and a level playing field for
sourcing energy and feedstock;

* Constant efforts to improve efficiency and to provide innovative
solutions to contribute to Europe's energy-saving targets, and;

* A competitive chemicals industry needs open world markets with fair
competition to fully unlock its potential to ensure a successful
future for the industry in Europe.

Positions

Launching the report, European Commission Vice President Gunter
Verheugen , responsible for enterprise and industry policy, said it is
indispensable for Europe to have a manufacturing industry if it is to
survive the current economic crisis. However, he warned against
allowing green innovation to slip off the agenda.

"We cannot forget about the green industrial revolution during this
crisis. It will make us stronger to focus now on sustainable products
and sustainable production. We must not allow short-term needs to
jeopardise long-term objectives," stated Verheugen.

He welcomed the chemical industries opposition to protectionism,
adding that subsidies that block necessary structural changes are
damaging to competitiveness in the long run.

Milan Hovorka , a vice-minister in the Czech Ministry of Industry and
Trade , whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the
EU, said the health of Europe's chemical industry depends on its
success on international markets. "Further liberalisation is vital for
growth and the most promising way to do this is via the Doha trade
talks. European companies need meaningful access to new markets. The
lack of progress on that front is a source of particular concern."

European Environmental Bureau President Mikael Karlsson warned that
new industrial policies must not jeopardise broader societal
objectives, stressing the importance of applying the precautionary
principle to new products. "The precautionary principle does not mean
banning products or curbing innovation. It can encourage innovation."
Current policy does not do enough to stimulate energy efficiency, he
warned.

Cefic President and Solvay CEO Christian Jourquin said the high level
group's conclusions provide a vision for the long-term viability of
our industry. "We cannot, however, overlook the present short-term
difficulties which could undermine the fulfilment of this vision. We
must now work together with the European Commission and the member
states to ensure that short-term difficulties will be overcome and to
create the right conditions for the necessary investments to be made
to secure the future of our industry. Only through such actions will
Europe keep its chemical industry, an indispensable enabler for a
sustainable future."

SusChem , a platform which brings together stakeholders to boost
sustainable technology, said innovation was the key to preparing for
economic recovery. It said the High Level Group's report "puts the
focus right where it needs to be -- on innovation, which is turning
research ideas into societal value through technologies and products".

SusChem encouraged all parties in the EU and member states to put
aside segmentation and institutional barriers to build a stronger and
more sustainable future for Europe through innovation.

Friends of the Earth issued a statement ahead of the report's
publication saying the Commission's High Level Groups were "biased
towards business". It said seven groups established to advise the
Commission on key issues, including the one on the chemicals industry,
are skewed in favour of business interests and its findings are geared
towards competitiveness at the expense of other public interests.

Friends of the Earth Europe's transparency campaigner Christine Pohl
said: "The European Commission has a duty to protect the environment
through its policies so it cannot be right that it is advised by
groups dominated by commercial interests. The Commission's failure to
take into account a broad range of different views is in clear
contradiction with its own consultation standards."

Links

EU

* European Commission: High Level Group on Competitveness of the
European Chemicals Industry

* European Commission: Draft final report of High Level Group (19
February 2009)

* European Commission: The state of the European Chemicals Industry

* European Commission: High Level Group recommendations on Research,
Innovation and Human Resources

* European Commission: High Level Group recommendations on Energy,
Feedstock, Infrastructure and Logistics

* European Commission: Strategy for a strong and competitive EU
chemcials industry (19 February 2009)

Press dossiers

* SusChem: Conference material -- Stimulating Innovation through
Sustainable Chemistry (3 February 2009)

* CEFIC: Chemicals Industry -- Enabler of a sustainable future (19
February 2009)

* Friends of the Earth: Commission expert groups biased towards
business (12 February 2009)

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From: 3E-COE.blogspot.com, Feb. 19, 2009
[Printer-friendly version]

MARK SCHAPIRO AT PENN STATE

By Peter Buckland

Today Jackie Edmondson and I went to see Mark Schapiro, long-time
environmental reporter for The Nation, Atlantic Monthly, and
Harper's (the index is awesome) held at the Penn Stater. He gave a
really quite interesting talk on how the United States' lack of
environmental regulation is actually causing the U.S. to lag
economically. In short, the European Union's comprehensive rigor
regarding the natural environment is driving innovation the world
over.

The E.U. is the largest single economy in the world. With a population
of 500,000,000 people dispersed in 27 nations combined into a single
economic and political entity, they have enormous influence.
Regulators within it can transform the market by demanding that
business and industry change. They do this in a number of ways that,
so far as I understand it, fall under the "Precautionary Principle"
which assumes that a chemical is guilty until proven innocent. It is a
standard in government policy that says that we need to see ample
evidence that an action, chemical, or product will not harm humans
and, by extension, the government. At Rio in 1992, the
"precautionary approach" was worded as follows:

Principle 15

"In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall
be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where
there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full
scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing
cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation."

This wording is a bit confusing. I'll try to state it more simply:

We want to protect the environment.

We will apply the precautionary approach broadly.

However, it will be enforced according to consituent states' ability
to enforce it.

Where threats are serious or irreversible, scientific uncertainty will
not postpone cost-effective measures that prevent environmental
degradation.

The Wingspread Conference defines the precautionary principle as
follows:

"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the
environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause
and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In
this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public,
should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the
precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must
include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an
examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action."

This is more or less the opposite to what the U.S. has (more on that
some other time). In the U.S., we the public have to prove that a
chemical is guilty and we carry the burden of its costs, not the
originator of the chemical.

Yes. That's crazy.

What does this mean for us in the U.S.? Schapiro illustrated his
argument using cosmetics. The E.U. has demanded that cosmetics be safe
and free of cancer-causing agents. We do not. Who gets the cancerous
lipstick, mascara, etc.? We do. Who gets genetically modified
organisms (GMO) to eat? Us.

GMOs may be safe but their effect on the larger environment and
agriculture was not considered in the U.S. in 1992. Who eats them? Us.
Not Europe in lots of cases. Whose agriculture suffers? Ours. Who
can't eat? Lots of people who might otherwise eat American produce.
[Note: There is a lot more to this and I don't want to paint
industrial agriculture nicely here. But notice that because of GMO's,
the American farmer is further blocked from selling his goods and
subsidized by the government in a command economy scenario.] There are
more examples. Toys. All kinds of plastics.

Suffice it to say that regulators could do a lot more to drive a much
more potent green revolution in the U.S. But the whole structure of
American capital markets and the government stands in the way, from
the Department of Agriculture and its tight relationship with so-
called agri-business companies, and members of congress who are in
their pockets. The iron triangle there is behind the times and we the
people suffer for it. But if we can get good regulation, we can change
this. Schapiro paraphrased Anne Marie Slaughter from New World
Order: "Regulators are the new diplomats." Let's influence them with
sound evidence and good reasoning. Let's change this stuff. I don't
want to be a dump and I don't want my kid's world to be a dump.

As educators, I think we need to be activists and not just sit down
because the government says so. We are regulated so much that it's
painful. Educators are supposed to serve the common good for our
common welfare on our common land and in our common water. Surely
allowing us, our children, our neighbors, and our food to be poisoned
is antithetical to all of those things.

If you are interested in reading more of Schapiro (I am), you can get
his book, Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products.

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From: CommonsNews.org, Feb. 20, 2009
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LET'S TALK ABOUT THE HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE WASTE

By Anonymous*

I find it frustrating that there is always something missing from
articles about the Vermont Yankee (VY) nuclear power station. We read
that the Vermont legislature will vote (this session, or, perhaps more
likely, in the 2010 session) about whether to allow VY to operate for
another 20 years beyond March of 2012. No particular, consistent,
ongoing mention is made of VY's highly radioactive waste.

We read that the Vermont Public Service Board will decide whether to
issue VY a Certificate of Public Good. But are they explicitly
addressing the highly radioactive waste?

We read about cooling tower collapses, cracks in steam dryers, crane
malfunctions, transformer fires, leaks in feedwater pipes into the
reactor core, valves leaking "slightly radioactive" water from gaskets
in reactor clean-out pipes, metal fatigue in reactor vessel nozzles,
reduced pressure in switchyard breaker insulating gas, and other
maintenance and reliability troubles. And the highly radioactive
waste?

We read about citizens' concerns over electric rates and whether
alternative sources of energy can come online quickly enough to
replace VY's power. And if the rates aren't considered favorable, we
continue to produce more highly radioactive waste?

Vermont Yankee's highly radioactive waste, consisting of "spent" fuel
rods removed from the reactor core, will remain deadly for 250,000
years. That's 10,000 human generations. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of
Energy, and the U.S. Congress all seem to have no quarrel with the
250,000-year assessment. For a chronological perspective on that
amount of time, look back 250,000 years. Humans were just evolving
from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens.

* * *

Over the last 60 years we have not been able to devise a safe method
of dealing with highly radioactive waste.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Depository located in
Nevada is becoming a $100 billion boondoggle that might never open.
Among other problems, the DOE now tells us that there are "water-
conducting fractures" through Yucca's brittle volcanic ash composition
on the order of one billion (hardly conducive to geologic containment
of highly radioactive waste).

Drilling into deep ocean bottoms has an appeal, but what about getting
the highly radioactive waste out there? What about the inevitable
accidents during transport of the waste from 103 nuclear reactors
around the country by rail, highway, and ship?

Vernon could be hosting Vermont Yankee's highly radioactive waste
forever.

* * *

Fortunately, we can use some tools to help with this impasse. One, the
"First Rule of Holes," instructs that if one finds oneself in a hole,
the first thing to do is stop digging. Another tool is the much-
underrated Precautionary Principle, which basically says that if a
technology poses dire risks to the health and safety of people or the
environment, it should not be implemented.

If those tools don't result in the immediate closing of VY, here are
some fall-back approaches we as consumers of energy might take:

** Conserve energy and use it more efficiently, thus demonstrating
that we don't need VY's electricity. In any event, that electricity
accounts for only 2 percent of the capacity of the New England grid.

** Switch, if you can, to Cow Power from Central Vermont Public
Service (electricity from methane).

** Declare Vernon, Vt. a Nuclear Free Zone, making it illegal to use
nuclear fission to boil water to make steam to turn turbines to
produce electricity.

** Pass local ordinances throughout Windham County and the state
prohibiting the manufacture, transport, or storage of highly
radioactive waste material.

** Exercise constant vigilance over Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee's
propaganda. Beware especially of full-page color ads trumpeting Clean
Air! Zero Greenhouse Gases! and Safety! Safety! Safety!

** And finally, ponder that we live, at least theoretically, in a
democracy where governance is "of, by, and for the people," not "of,
by, and for corporations." How about if we the people -- not the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not Entergy Nuclear of Louisiana, and
not the Nuclear Energy Institute -- decide for ourselves whether
Vermont Yankee is safe, clean, and reliable?

* * *

Once we start thinking for ourselves, it should become clear that
Vermont Yankee is not safe. And that nuclear power is not safe.

Another Three Mile Island or Chernobyl is going to happen sooner or
later. An industry that produces highly radioactive waste -- deadly
for 250,000 years -- cannot possibly be called safe.

That this simple fact can escape prominence in our news reports and
our NRC and Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel hearings is
unbelievable. That we can blithely disregard the welfare of those who
will/may come after us for the next 10,000 generations is
unbelievable. That we can be considering a Certificate of Public Good
for VY (given its highly radioactive waste) is unbelievable.

That we can seriously champion a resurgence of nuclear power (with yet
more radioactive waste that we don't know what to do with) is
unbelievable.

==============

* Although this article is written in the first person, it appeared on
the web without a byline. Despite this shortcoming, it offers a
spirited and fact-based argument, and so, in this instance, we have
made an exception to our general rule against reprinting anonymous
first-person narrative. --Rachel's editors.

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  Rachel's Precaution Reporter offers news, views and practical
  examples of the Precautionary Principle, or Foresight Principle, in
  action. The Precautionary Principle is a modern way of making
  decisions, to minimize harm. Rachel's Precaution Reporter tries to
  answer such questions as, Why do we need the precautionary
  principle? Who is using precaution? Who is opposing precaution?

  We often include attacks on the precautionary principle because we  
  believe it is essential for advocates of precaution to know what
  their adversaries are saying, just as abolitionists in 1830 needed
  to know the arguments used by slaveholders.

  Rachel's Precaution Reporter is published as often as necessary to
  provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the subject.

  As you come across stories that illustrate the precautionary 
  principle -- or the need for the precautionary principle -- 
  please Email them to us at rpr@rachel.org.

  Editor:
  Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
  
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