Subject: Re: Possible steel mill at Bowerman Basin NWR
Date: Sep 11 03:10:40 1997
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

Bob Norton writes:

>The advice to David Beatty to fight the mill proposal is probably
>counterproductive to conservation interests.

Bob, would it be possible for you to demonstrate how saving a wildlife
refuge and adjacent lands from industrial development is counterproductive
to conservation interests? As a birder of little brain, I don't follow.

>But like Arab terrorists blowing
>themselves up some conservationists blindly fight all proposals and do an
>injustice to their cause in the court of public opinion.

David Beatty writes:

>So what do you do when you love shorebirds?
>
>a. weep
>b. move
>c. fight
>d. make the best of it

The mildest 'Arab terrorism' I've seen in a good long time, and likely to
get David kicked out of Hamas unless he stiffens it up a bit. '-)

Seriously, tarring David Beatty with this broad and inflammatory brush
("Arab terrorists", in*deed*, Bob!) and characterising his remarks as, to
paraphrase slightly, "blindly fighting all proposals and doing an injustice
to their cause" is very unfair. His posts on the subject have been specific
and have been concerned--in both senses of the word--with the issue of
sacrifice of wildlife-sensitive habitats, even refuges, for corporate
profit. Hardly the unthinking, global reflex opposition in which you clearly
imply he's indulging. *Seriously*, you don't think the industrial
development at Bowerman Basin would stop with a steel mill, do you, Bob?
Next, the dredging for a ship channel, then more docks, then ancillary
industries spring up, etc. The same depressing sequence has happened here,
always 'just this once' and always in sensitive habitat which along with its
plants and creatures vanishes *forever*. Well, hey, we're grown-ups here, so
let's be under no illusion: the corporate oligarchies which run your country
and mine would turn Heaven itself--except the part they'd reserve for their
glorious selves--into a drive-thru burger joint for a 1.49 profit if they
thought they could get away with it.

>Here in Port Angeles Auduboners are not popular among a large segment of
>the population. I suspect in even more economically depressed Grays Harbor
>the feelings are even stronger.

And with the type of phraseology you employ to describe David's actually
very moderately-expressed position, they'll hardly become less polarised,
will they?

In WA, as in BC, the various resource extraction industries has been highly
successful at inducing their workers to scapegoat conservationists (and
often with nasty though brilliantly tactical implications of 'radical'
environmentalists attacking the roots of many workers' 'manhood') regardless
that, seen in the cold light of day, it was usually short-term and/or
incompetent corporate planning, or lack of economic diversification (more
usually, lack of it) and company-initiated automation that led to the
overwhelmingly vast proportion of job losses. No one should have to lose a
job, (and as a result of my own work a few years ago in the northern
forests, I gained much sympathy for the people--who I liked immensely--in a
drastically-changing industry), but is it possible for people (besides
politicians and bureaucrats) to insist on keeping their jobs though it
causes serious environmental damage? Any economist will tell you the
eventual costs come to grossly outweigh the benefits. If overfishing
depletes the fishery, is it radical environmentalism to point out that it
won't be able to support the same number of fishers? No, simple,
non-ideological, non-political, non-propagandistic numbers. The simple math
doesn't allow it, whatever the hair-pulling, finger-pointing melodramatics.

And what of the birds themselves? What of the ones who can't speak at the
table when the discussions occur? Who will defend their interests? If, as
happens most frequently, the first industrial development--as the thin edge
of the wedge--opens the door to further development, and when most of it's
gone, where do the birds go then? *They* have no alternative, no back-up
position. We've taken away that too. What do they do then, Bob? When, say
fifty years from now, the Basin is developed, and other sites up and down
the coast likewise, where do the birds go? This isn't a rhetorical flourish,
Bob--I really want *you* to answer this: *What do they do? Where do they go?*

>I was down in Ocean Shores this weekend and
>the local Sunday paper had a good section on questions and answers on the
>issue. There is also a 2000 bed prison being planned on the estuary which is
>being fought by the fishing conservation groups.

Holy smoke, with everything we now know about the value and necessity of
estuaries and wetlands, a decision like this seems more wilfully mischievous
than sensible, especially in combination with a steel mill next to a
wildlife refuge. Hard to believe some underlying anti-environmental
political vengefulness isn't maybe being played out here. Ah well, such
political vindictiveness occasionally happens up here, too. Heh,*there's* a
black eye for the ecofreaks! Well, let's assume for the purpose of being
civil that the sitings are where they are for reasons more to do with not
knowing the environmental sensitivity of the areas than a mean intent.

> Nucor, the company planning the plant, has three sites in mind with the
>other 2 being in OR. They are playing the two states against each other to
>see which will grant them the biggest tax break.

Hahaha! Dontcha just love the 'no-free-lunch-that's-socialism!' Free
Enterprisers in action? Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand' in its outstretched,
palm-open position. Who says Socialism's dead in the US, if the taxpayers
subsidise future corporate profit? If part of the concept of good corporate
citizenship is paying reasonable taxes to the community whose resources you
use, and Nucor is *actually* a good corporate citizen rather than simply
trying to *seem* one, then Nucor... sorry, to complete the syllogism might
be tactless to any corporation seeking tax-breaks.

> OR has the lead here as
>giving property tax relief would be unconstitutional in WA and thus would
>require a legislative action (as I understood the problem).

Aren't tax-breaks and tax-holidays (apart from being a free
market-distorting, beggar-thy-neighbor capitulation to corporate blackmail)
simply unfair subsidies mandated by the local or state governments and paid
for by the taxpayer? Is there an economist or industrial planner on Tweeters
who can comment on this?

(snip Puget Sound politics)

> There is no reason that a steel plant can't follow all water quality and
>air quality rules and be a good neighbor to a NWR if the rules are adequate
>(I don't know that they are adequate but the Clinton Administration has given
>the EPA more teeth than it had in the Reagan-Bush years).

You're right, Bob: there's no reason they can't follow all the rules, but
*will* they? The history of corporate use of the environment is not
encouraging to the optimist, but a gloomy brew for the pessimist. So, can
you ensure that they will? Can you ensure there'll be no further industrial
development in an environmentally-sensitive wetland? Can you ensure that
present enforcement regimes maintain rigor? Or that future enforcement
regimes will not be reduced to window-dressing by political interference, as
they often are in this country? Unless you can, people are right to be
concerned, whether they are called conservationists or no.

>My advice to David would be to say yes but we must be sure the enviroment
>is not degraded and monitor the proposals closely and fight for all the
>mitigation that can be obtained. We are in a battle for public opinion and
>doing rather nicely (the Republicans after the '94 election set out to gut
>the enviromental laws but backed off when the polls showed it to be unpopular
>with rank and file voters.

Yeah, Bob, same here in Canada. For years, polls have consistently show that
*large* majorities of Canadians want stronger environmental legislation and
enforcement and are *willing* to pay higher taxes to strengthen both. Just
as consistently, Canadians are betrayed in this at virtually every level by
our politicians and bureaucrats who seem more interested in the care and
feeding of the corporate community. One result, as just one example, is an
Endangered Species Act that protects species but ignores completely the need
to protect their habitats, as that would interfere with the activities of
many extractive industries, and Ottawa just doesn't want the hassle of a
court challenge from, say, the oil companies, particularly in the West where
the current federal Liberals (actually they're very slightly center-right
mostly) are weak (Canada's politics are *much* more regionalised than the
US's--at present, anyway: youse guys have some interesting times ahead,
though) and the oil companies strong, or to piss off many major campaign
contributors.

>Votes still count for something although I think
>corporation political money is more important than votes in this television
>democracy).

"Money doesn't talk, it swears" -Bob Dylan. True, then; truer now.

>Mindless opposition to all development does not help our cause.

Anybody who's in a state of "mindless opposition to all development" is due
or overdue for maturity, specifically excepting those--such as
adolescents--who have been very newly bruised by the realisation that other
people can make decisions with unfair consequences to the innocent (and what
better way to characterise much corporate use of the environment?) and have
not yet discovered the other part to that: that the issues and people
involved are not necessarily black/white and do not always admit to easy
solution--i.e., providing much needed jobs in an economically depressed
area. But smart opposition to that which is damaging to wildlife likely
might be worthwhile. I agree with you about getting the best mitigation
possible: given its, um, influence with politicians and bureaucrats, what
the corporate lobby wants it usually gets. Heh, voters should have that kind
of clout. But in the end, something like this might better relocated to a
less sensitive area.

>Besides I think OR will outbid WA and win the steel plant.

The world's entire population of Western Sandpipers, among many others, will
be watching this one and hoping desperately you're right in this prediction,
Bob.

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net