THE DESPERADO AND THE DEFICIT

Today's edition of the Wall Street Journal had an editorial on the "Wetlands Desperado", one John Rapanos of Michigan. Other than soliciting a quotation from the execrable Russell Harding, former director of the Michgan Department of Environmental Quality under the Engler regime (and, mind you, I offer this opinion as a conservative and a registered Republican), it was a good commentary on the lunacy of environmental law enforcement in this country.

However, it lacked an important perspective. As the federal government unjustly turns landowners into felons for improving their property, state governments are turning a blind eye to genuine environmental criminals. For example, under Harding's watch all that the Berkey & Gay developers had to do to placate the MDEQ after we had filed a complaint that the developers had spread more than 25,000 tons of hazardous waste across northeast Grand Rapids (with videotape, photographic evidence, and soil tests to prove it!) were signed statements swearing that they hadn't done it. [See photo to the right or the video images in "What's Government Good For?" below for examples of the available evidence.] End of story for Harding and the MDEQ, no matter what the hard evidence actually showed. Meanwhile, Grand Rapids residents and workers remain exposed to poisonous concentrations of lead, arsenic, mercury, and a host of toxic chemicals flowing from the developers' illicit dumping grounds.

The releases of this hazardous waste by the Berkey & Gay developers was so prolonged and systematic that their potential fines under Michigan state law, by a conservative reckoning of what constitutes a release, rack up to over $20 billion! If the federal government can abuse our environmental laws to make property owners like John Rapanos into desperados, why can't the state of Michigan merely enforce our environmental laws to collect more than enough money to cancel its deficit?

If the state could take tobacco settlement money in good conscious, it surely can collect penalties from real criminals before dunning the rest of us to pay for its overspending.