Rivers, ponds, lakes, and streams – they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do – they all contain truths. —Muhammad Ali
Water is the very essence of life, but is it ever safe to drink?
I was standing outside with the Tipster this morning waiting on her bus in the rain. As we stood there, huddled under my umbrella, she noticed the water running off the side. Being the silly little six-year-old that she is, she tipped her head back so that the top of her head was exposed to the rain.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a rather incredulous tone. As with many six-year-olds, getting her ready for school this morning was a trying set of circumstances and I really wasn’t in the mood for nonsense.
“I’m drinking the rain off the umbrella,” she giggled.
I pulled her back up under the umbrella with a warning, “You don’t want to do that.”
She’s six. She’s not going to let a statement like that go unchallenged. So, naturally, her response was, “Why?”
What came out of my mouth was, “Because the cats have been all over it,” which is a cop-out because the cats have been all over everything in our house. What I really meant, though, was something more like, “I have no idea what the Ph balance of the rainwater here is and given all the manufacturing on this side of town I’m not sure any of the rainwater is safe without some form of filtering.” That version would have gone right over her little head, though. Cats are much more relatable.
If you’ve driven around Indianapolis lately, you’ve probably seen the billboards and/or heard the radio ads from Citizens Energy, the company that manages and oversees the Indianapolis water supply. The ad campaign has been an attempt to garner public support and understanding for a proposed rate increase to water bills in the areas that Citizens covers. The situation, as presented by Citizens, sounds dier. Some pipes are over 100 years old and much of the original infrastructure is crumbling. Replacing all those pipes is expensive. The plan worked. Yesterday, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) approved a rate hike that will increase the average residential water bill by $5 a month starting in May.
The rate hike doesn’t actually ensure that the water we receive through our taps is any cleaner when it leaves the treatment facility, but that it’s less likely to be contaminated between there and your home. In short, what the rate hike does is help prevent Indianapolis and the surrounding areas from experiencing a water disaster like what happened with Flint, Michigan. Clean water passing through aging pipes is about as dangerous as, well, drinking water falling off an umbrella. All manners of nasty chemicals leach into the water supply with no means of control.
As Americans, we take the quality and ubiquity of our water supply for granted. Almost everyone alive today has grown up with running water. We are accustomed to turning a knob and having the water flow at quantities and pressures we could take for granted. That’s why Flint’s water crisis was so alarming. We, as a general populace, weren’t even aware that such a disaster could happen.
Scientist and climatologists have been warning us for years, though, that our supply of drinking water is becoming increasingly unsafe. As with most matters of earth science, no one wants to listen. The stories are of gradual decline, of a slow erosion that isn’t necessarily evident every time one looks out the window. In 1990, the Acid Rain Program was created as part of the Clean Air Act, but corporate and industrial opposition to the limits established by those laws has been severe and through continued lobbying the laws have been diminished to the point they’re hardly recognizable.
Keeping our drinking water clean is neither cheap nor easy. Earlier this month, Citizens was happy to announce that, “… drinking water produced at all of the utility’s treatment plants is safe …” but that announcement didn’t come until after the Environmental Protection Agency proposed adding an area downtown to its list of superfund sites. Being on this list allows federal funds to be used in cleaning up the area. Two of Citizens’ wellfield areas, along Riverside and 16th streets, would be included in that cleanup. Until then, anything from those wellfields has to go through extra treatment before it’s ready to be consumed.
Spring is deceptive in its ability to make everything look so clean and pure. We just assume that what we drink and sprinkle over our gardens is healthy and safe. A major effort is required to keep us as safe as we think we are, though, and your Indiana state legislature isn’t helping any. Bills attempting to eliminate or significantly limit the EPA’s rules, especially those regarding groundwater, are frequently introduced and there is a vocal lobbying effort to prohibit all EPA legislation completely.
As beautiful a state as Indiana could be, you’d think we’d value our natural resources more and want to keep them clean, but apparently that’s not necessarily the case across the board. Some would rather indulge the continued dumping of raw sewage and spew horrible chemicals into the air. What may seem harmless to some, eventually impacts us all. Rain eventually falls and little girls try to drink the rain from their umbrellas.
You would think such an act would be innocent and safe. It should be.
Time To Kill State Legislatures
The frame of mind in the local legislatures seems to be exerted to prevent the federal constitution from having any good effect. —Henry Knox
We must overhaul our state governments if we hope to preserve basic human rights and prevent stupidity from running amock
Our founding fathers could never have imagined what has happened to our state legislatures. When the United States was founded, the concept of state government was that decentralization of power would prevent a totalitarian regime, such as presented by the British monarchy under King George, from taking control. From their perspective, smaller, more local governments would be better able to respond to and appropriately address the needs of the people living within the region. The concept was one that made sense and largely worked for the first 80 or so years of our existence.
The situation surrounding the Civil War demonstrated the danger in allowing states to have too much control, however, and it became obvious at that point that some restrictions were necessary to address those issues where state legislatures might pass laws contrary to the federal constitution or in violation of other federal laws. While some laws were passed, though, the concept of states rights is so deeply embedded in our political culture that anything far-reaching that would have any real impact has always been struck down.
What our founding fathers could not have imagined is a set of conditions we currently face. We now have a population that is extremely mobile. It is quite rare for anyone born in the last 60 years to not travel more than 50 miles from their birthplace. Instead, we move all over the place, from one coast to the other, on a regular basis. Our travel, whether for business or pleasure, has us moving through, or over, multiple states at a time. We now have a society where laws passed in one state not only affects their own citizenry but can have a direct and immediate effect on those living outside the state.
Unfortunately, at the same time, we also find ourselves in a position where partisanship at the state level is stronger than it has ever been and the desire on the part of state legislators to further their own political ambitions overrides the needs of their constituents. Laws are more likely to be written by lobbyist and corporate marketing departments than any legislator or anyone actually accountable to the people of the state. The result is that state legislatures are producing a plethora of bad laws that are not only a disservice to the people in their state but in many cases they have a ripple effect for the entire nation.
Space and time prohibit me from being as exhaustive as I would like, but here are just a few of the more recent examples of state legislatures going where they have no business:
Mind you, this short list isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ridiculousness of state legislatures. They’ve done things such as prohibit even considering or researching things such as alternative power sources, mass transit options such as high-speed rail, and limitations on the dumping of chemicals into state waterways. State legislatures have literally taken food out of the mouths fo their poorest citizens with restrictions on accessibility to federal assistance programs such as food stamps. Even with the passage of federal health care laws, state legislatures have found ways to limit services and coverage for the poorest of their citizens. In all 50 states, the list of misdeeds and offensive legislation is long and sickening.
And while state governors and legislatures are quick to scream all about states rights, they certainly don’t mind exercising authoritative control over city governments. Laws passed in the past two years at state levels have prohibited cities within those states from raising or setting a minimum wage, expanding voter accessibility for city elections, protecting citizens from various forms of discrimination, and opting out of ill-conceived statewide testing for students.
We have no reason to continue supporting such a dysfunctional form of government. The condition of state legislatures across the country in no way resembles what our founding fathers intended. We need to completely overhaul the system from the very ground up and completely eliminate the opportunity for the level of legislative stupidity that has become commonplace at every state house across the union.
How might we do this, you ask? After all, it is a fool who complains without offering a solution. You should know me better than that. Here’s what I’m thinking works:
Obviously, there are details underlying those statements that need a great deal more thought and attention than I have space here to give them. Consider this a starting point in the conversation. We cannot continue to tolerate the current idiocy of state legislatures and their current construct defies any significant change regardless of who might be elected to those positions.
We no longer live in a country where people are isolated to a specific geographic region. When one state fucks up it affects us all. The time has come for a more comprehensive and nationally cohesive approach to lawmaking. Kill state legislatures. Reform the system. Move forward.
Share this:
Like this: