The group seemed more than a little suspect when I first came across it a while ago, a now I know why, thanks to an article in today’s Boston Globe.
They call themselves the Smart Clean-up Coalition, and their “mission” is purportedly to support a reasonable approach to the problem of cleaning up the Housatonic River. They back something called “monitored natural recovery.” For non-native speakers of obsfuscation, this means they want to sit by and watch the river clean itself.
A little background to this might help.
For more than half a century, General Electric operated a major plant complex in Pittsfield, Mass., along the Housatonic River, merrily pumping carcinogenic PCBs into the river with no serious interference from regulators. It followed the usual pattern. First they denied there was any harm in PCBs, then denied they were doing anything wrong, then threatened to pull out of town if they were forced to clean up their act.
In the end, the town’s biggest employer did just that, leaving behind a complex of big empty buildings, lots of people out of work, and one of the most polluted rivers in the country. That was about 40 years ago, and GE has been dragging its feet on the river cleanup ever since.
Now, as the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to determine how best to clean up the next critical part of the river, this new group has popped up, with a Facebook Page, a blog, and press releases all pushing for this “less aggressive” approach. It is, coincidentally, the least expensive approach for GE. In a tortured bit of logic, they claim this will do the least ecological damage!
On paper, the “coalition” is made up of banking and Chamber of Commerce types, and when asked, they at first denied they had any connection to GE. Then a local paper discovered that GE had given them $300,000 to help them along with their “mission.”
Hopefully, as the EPA considers how best to proceed, they will realize that this so-called coalition and their bogus, benign sounding “monitored natural recovery” has been completely discredited.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/02/27/ge_donations_to_river_group_stir_controversy/http://www.facebook.com/smartrivercleanup
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