I agree with your sentiment, Eric, but speaking from another regulatory
perspective (not underground oil tanks), the reason you get more and
more regulation is because each time you leave a loophole for someone
just trying to do it right not to get bankrupted, the bad actors pour
through that loophole. Since you can't selectively apply (at least on a
large, documented scale) the full force of the regulations just to those
bad actors, the smaller, honest individuals suffer.
Not that that makes it right, but that's been my experience dealing with
regulations and regulated entities. And having never been the regulator
myself, I can tell you that if I can see the logic, there must be at
least a little something to it.
We had a similar situation here to the one described in another post--a
small gas station had a leak in a tank. We sit right on top of the
Floridian aquifer--supplying drinking water to millions of people. The
contamination was estimated to be so severe that there was literally no
remediation possible. The owners knew of the issue and just let it
ride. When you have that sort of thing happening, I'm not sure you can
assume good intentions too often.
Scott
On 8/9/2011 7:17 AM, eric at megageek.com wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we don't need to take care of the
> environment. But I think we pasted the 'happy median' a long time ago.
>
> It is too the point now that most people can't risk pulling a tank. The
> clean up is way too expensive. Do we really need to regulate everything
> to the Nth degree that doing the right thing is just too expensive?
>
> Why can't I pull my own tank (with an inspector present) and remove any
> contaminated soil myself? When I was talking with the remediation
> contractor, he told me about how each year, there is a new layer of red
> tape, bs or other regulation that just makes the work more expensive
> without it being any more effective.
>
> I agree with a regulation that says you have to pull tanks, but make sure
> you can affordable remediate the site instead of just bankrupting the
> people that are trying to do right.
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