The cost of environmentalism

By Fred Gielow

October 1, 2005

What does environmentalism cost? I mean, what price do we as a country pay in our acquiescence to environmentalist pleas, protests, and lawsuits?

I believe we pay dearly. Here are a couple of examples:

Environmentalists claimed (wrongly, it was later determined) that suckerfish at Klamath Falls, Oregon, needed more water to survive. A federal court ruled the Endangered Species Act gives fish more rights than farmers, so water flow was turned off for over a thousand Klamath Basin farmers, who also depended on water for survival. Economic loss to the farmers was estimated to exceed $200 million.

Four firefighters, who were battling a blaze that surrounded them in the Okanagan National Forest, Northeast of Seattle, radioed and pleaded over a period of nine hours, for water to be dropped by helicopter. The U.S. Forest Service was reluctant to use nearby Chewuch River water, however, because of possible harm to endangered fish. The cost of this environmentalism: four dead firefighters.

Environmentalists have prevented the drilling of oil and gas, the mining of coal, the construction of nuclear power plants, and the building of oil refineries for decades. What do we pay for this environmental activism: a price at the gas pump of $3 per gallon, which could go to $4 or $5, or more. We also pay in terms of great dependence on others for our energy.

It has been alleged that changes in the material used for the space shuttle's o-rings and foam insulation led to the two shuttle disasters. The changes were initiated for environmental reasons. The cost, in loss of life and tax dollars has been enormous.

Asbestos insulation was installed for fire protection on World Trade Tower columns up to the 64th floor. But during construction in 1971, anxious to accede to environmentalist demands, New York City banned asbestos, and an inferior insulation (or perhaps no insulation at all) was used for the columns above the 64th floor. It has been alleged that was the primary reason the towers tumbled. Decades before 9/11, Herbert Levine, inventor of the insulation, said: "If a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down." He was right. The cost: thousands of lives, and billions of dollars.

We've just witnessed the ravages of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The levee protecting New Orleans was designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. Human Events (September 19, 2005, page 7) reported: "A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project, designed to prevent a Category 5-hurricane-storm surge from filling lake Pontchartrain and flooding New Orleans, was blocked by environmentalists intent on preserving "natural water flow" in 1977." More recently, the Corps had a 1996 plan for levee strengthening. The plan would have upgraded 303 miles of levees along the Mississippi River. But environmentalists sued again, claiming insufficient study had been made of "the impact on bottomland hardwood wetlands." It took a year to settle the lawsuit, and the Corp of Engineers agreed to hold off work for an additional two years. The price of all this environmentalism: hundreds of lives, and probably more than $100 billion dollars.

Perhaps, Americans have been willing to endure these high costs, because they didn't realize the costs might have been avoided.