While the side effects of the presidential campaign may include vomiting and diarrhea, now that it’s finally over, there’s hope people will sour on federal politics for a while and refocus on their neighborhoods and homes. We need that, to an extent: too much and we risk missing some political things that aren’t front and center in the national news.
For example, state governments, like in Missouri, are expanding their jurisdiction and power to the detriment of private citizens and businesses.
Missouri bureaucrats, activists and even political candidates are pushing a radical ecological effort in St. Louis — one that even President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is skeptical of.
This most recent battle involves the Westlake Landfill in St. Louis. Study after study has shown the nearby communities are safe and that ongoing efforts continue to ensure safety for the foreseeable future. But environmental activists, including local elected and campaign officials, have decided that isn’t enough.
Protests are doing the opposite of what families near the landfill need: They’re actually slowing down the cleanup and safekeeping process. It seems like their commitment to protesting is more important than their commitment to the environment. They need to get out of the way and let the clean-up plan in place occur.
Under a previous owner, radioactive remnants from the Manhattan Project were dumped in the Westlake landfill. The EPA has designated it as a Superfund site and the EPA worked with the state, local and business community to come up with a remediation plan.
After more than a decade, Westlake is finally receiving the cleanup effort it needs and the community deserves. That is, until eco-activists started interfering.
They argue the EPA’s plan isn’t good enough. They even hosted a kangaroo court that was well-attended by environmental activists and more than a few union members (who don’t represent anyone on the site), but little to no actual members of the community. The centerpiece of the activists newest plan was to bypass the state and federal government and get the United Nations to step in.
But then activists changed their argument again and announced the state should do more testing: not on sections of the landfill that are under the state’s oversight, but specifically on the sections overseen by the federal government.
When presented with data from previous studies, the activists have almost always thrown a temper tantrum over the results. However, to date, the results show the landfill still contains a lower level of carcinogenic material than is found in kitchens across the state.
The people in the communities around Westlake need and deserve safety. The problem now is that actions of the activists don’t seem to match the conclusions of the EPA, or science generally. That means we should all ask about the motivations of these activists and bureaucrats working with them.
Charles Sauer is a contributer to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor and for an academic think tank. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
