Hundreds of EPA Workers Leave in Recent Days | Hacker News Reader

Hundreds of EPA Workers Leave in Recent Days

wsj.com

75 pointsuptown47 comments

I see some comments noting that the EPA needs "serious trimming" and "some serious cleaning" and is an agency that needs to "focus on its core mission" (the implication being that the EPA is currently NOT focusing on it's core mission).

I spent about half a decade working in the solid waste/wastewater residuals industry (2008-2014) where the EPA plays a significant oversight role on facility operations. Further, the EPA plays a significant role on new facility development and design (my focus).

I found that the EPA staff I worked with were almost invariably helpful, well informed about the potential environmental impacts of our proposed activities, and adept at navigating the variety of systems/approvals required to comply with EPA regulations borne from laws passed by our representative government.

I was not always happy with the requirements imposed, but this was almost always because of a difference between the EPA and myself concerning risk assessment - and I can't blame the EPA for being less risk tolerant concerning environmental damage, that's their job.

More recently I have had a wonderful experience with the EPA's hazardous materials program which provides guidance and some funding for the identification and remediation of hazardous materials in old buildings. In the case of buried petroleum tanks, common here in New England, they even assist monetarily to get these environmental hazards removed when discovered (many have been abandoned for decades, unmarked). This program is invaluable for small, old communities who have the legacy of poor environmental decisions made during our industrial revolution literally built into their environment (lead, PCBs, asbestos, etc.).

If you have had direct contact with the EPA and it's gone poorly - share your story. But generalized mudslinging at EPA staff seems mean spirited and likely the product of several decades of media narratives aimed at destabilizing our country's already limited focus on environmental protection.

Turning the US into the kind of country where it is unsafe to drink the tap water.

I feel like these things go in cycles and things are going to have to get worse before people notice and push for something better.

great, I'm looking forward to the next Love Canal.

I know this is no time to joke but your sarcasm did made me laught.

Turning? Wasn't it true already with cases like Flint?

And Flint is just the tip of the iceberg

"63 million Americans exposed to unsafe drinking water"

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/14/63-million-am...

Apparently it's already unsafe to drink the tap water in parts of the country. No turning needed.

Sometimes bureaucracies need a cleanout. They can then be rebuilt more effectively later.

There are still 14,400 EPA employees left. Are you saying that this many EPA employees are not sufficient to ensure safe drinking water?

If that's literally the only thing it did, with zero management structure, that means a scant 4-5 people to assure clean water per county in the US.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm. Clean water is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

How do you explain the existence of the Clean Water Act? Waterways don’t end at county or parish borders.

by that logic hurricane repair is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

or taken to the stupid conclusion, war is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

>or taken to the stupid conclusion, war is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

Well no, I think that one is quite literally spelled out in the Constitution as a function of Congress.

Waterways normally cross state lines so that is also spelled out in the Constitution as a responsibility of the federal government.

The federal govt is expected to resolve disputes between states in the Constitution. Waterways and pollution clearly falls under that.

The federalist papers also expect the federal govt. to offer some protection from more local governments when they disregard public order.

Yes they have a role, but most water management happens at a local level.

Not sarcasm. The comment I replied to made the argument, likely hyperbolically, that 14,400 people should be enough to make sure water is safe. Taking that literally, according to the mighty Google, we have roughly 3,142 counties (or similar organizational units) in the States, meaning that even if clean drinking water was it's only function (which it obviously isn't) that gives you 4.58, or between 4 and 5, EPA representatives per county in the US to oversee clean drinking water. And again that is assuming there is no management structure, no supervisors, no coordinators, no managers, and that clean drinking water is their only function which it isn't.

Basically I'm taking the hyperbole and showing that it's not even that hyperbolic, and while 14,400 sounds like a lot of people, when you're talking the task of protecting the environment in all 50 states, that's really not that many.

You realize the EPA has its own fully supplied SWAT teams and everything? The EPA has gone waaaaay past just the drinking water thing. Also they ensured crappy drinking water by mass dumping a bunch of waste and ruining one of the rivers in southwest CO.

Government agencies in the US need very serious trimming. Too many friggin bureaucratic power mad lifers running around who don't give a rat's ass about all those "little people" stuck with their obamacare.

So: EPA BAD

I agree that there's way too much regulation in the US, too much rent seeking and regulatory capture. Deregulation is one area I have extremely mixed feelings about Trump about: in some ways I don't think he's going far enough, and in other ways I feel like he's going too far.

However, this EPA cutting is one of those cases where context is everything. If Trump were trimming the EPA but maintaining its core mission and not letting the foxes guard the henhouse, I might feel differently. And lauding Trump for cutting the EPA SWAT teams even while he lets municipal police--who have ample daily opportunities for abuse--stockpile military supplies seems disingenuous.

"The EPA has gone waaaaay past just the drinking water thing. Also they ensured crappy drinking water by mass dumping a bunch of waste and ruining one of the rivers in southwest CO."

I assume you're referring to the accidental leak of contaminated mine water into the Animas river. The private sector is free to clean up after itself instead of abandoning mines in a hazardous state. Unfortunately they don't always do that. The EPA is charged with managing hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines of which tens of thousands threaten to contaminate groundwater. Sabotaging and underfunding the organization with this responsibility can't end well.

As a staunch conservative, this attitude mystifies the shit out of me. "$organization does a shit job at what it's supposed to do, so let's cut their funding so they have fewer employees and resources!" How on Earth are they supposed to fix anything if you keep reducing them to a skeleton crew?

>You realize the EPA has its own fully supplied SWAT teams and everything?

...And? When they find a massive crisis like Flint and need to swoop in and gather evidence you want them to what... send a form letter? Of all the agencies of government that SHOULD have a SWAT team, they're at the top of the list. If they're doing their job properly they're investigating both private business and other government agencies. NOT having a "SWAT" team means their potential targets have more than enough time to destroy evidence. If my options are giving the DEA 200 SWAT teams or the EPA 1, I'll vote for the EPA every time.

When something like Flint happens, they'll blame EPA for letting it happen on their watch and exploit the situation to call for _further_ cuts to EPA. If this sounds disingenuous, its because it is.

> you want them to what... send a form letter?

Obtain a warrant empowering the police to enter and secure the premises, before the agency staff enter to obtain evidence.

That's how we do it in Europe at least, where environmental protection agencies don't run around with M4s and tear-gas.

If it makes you feel any better, it may no longer be safe to drink tap water anywhere.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/plastic-...

Similar things are happening at the State Department. Trump's budget calls for a ~30% reduction, the professional staff is being ignored and shut out of policy by Tillerson (and Trump), veteran high-level talent is leaving, and hiring programs have been stopped - they are even reneging on people already in the programs. Imagine if you read about that happening at an SV company ... except at the State Dept, the stakes are war and peace, freedom and oppression.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/31/how-the-trump-administra...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/sunday/trump-till...

https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=state%20department%20resignati...

“We’re giving long-serving, hardworking employees the opportunity to retire early..."

Tech companies need to up their game when it comes to euphemism.

the EPA is killing it..

Mirror: https://archive.fo/Hp48r

Thank you very much.

Here's the historical EPA budget and employee count from 1970 until now: https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/budget

$8B/yr doesn't seem like that big of an investment to keep 320 Million people healthier and safer.

Who wants to help setup a hackerspace next to the EPA HQ to scoop up all the newly-available talent?

Good point. No-one will take you up on that, because as much as we hate to admit it, we know the newly-available EPA talent is good for some other org to take in, not our org, heavens no.

As others have noted in other comment threads, EPA needs some serious cleaning. It is an agency that has gotten so large that it is no longer effective.

Our drinking water and rivers and lakes and air are becoming unsafe everywhere. We need EPA to focus on its core mission.

Trump is a results-oriented guy. If EPA is in charge of clean water, and you have Flint... the course of action is clear. Trump is a simpleton: just produce the results you are supposed to produce, and he'll go find some other heads to lop off.

Predictable action from a simple-minded guy.

Any good tech for home water filtration or testing? Our sewage line up here in Twin Peaks (SF) broke a few weeks ago, mud in my sink. Been sketched out by my water since, interested in the latest and greatest in home water tech. 5 stage filter system on amazon for <$200, but too big for my studio apt. Would be cool to test my home water somehow, see how it scores.

A friend of mine has this in their apartment http://a.co/4GZcGdC but I'm guessing that's the one you're talking about.

That same amazon page has this for testing http://a.co/dVZweID which I've seen come up a lot when doing research, but it'll only tell you if something is in the water, not what.

I usually skim thesweethome.com for things like this, too.

http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-under-sink-water-filter... http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-water-filter-pitcher/#h...

That RO system is overpriced and undersized (3 gph). Buy better kits from wholesalers that use standard parts (50-200 gph) for the same price. (200 gph can be tankless and generate product water on-demand) http://www.wateranywhere.com/index.php?cPath=23_411

Thanks to your link, I just bought one of the testers!

For $15 it will be fun to play with, and roughly compare water sources like my home waer vs X-stage filtered water at Manylabs. No biological test tho, or identification of molecules.

Maybe create an open source dataset and protocol for enabling mapping this data globally?

(Email me if you want updates on my tinkering - tito@impossiblelabs.io)

How did the sewage line breaking cause mud in your tap? black/white water lines should never be mixed.

For my second sink in my kitchen I have a 5 stage filter system. It goes through a UV light to kill living things, then a 3 charcoal filters, one for large particles, another for removing chlorine and the third for removing small particles. Then it does reverse osmosis before heading to the tap. As far as size, it takes up about 1m x 0.5m x 0.5m

Oop, I meant water line!

Sounds like a solid system, ever tested it to see what difference it makes on a molecular level?

Re: air quality, my understanding is the EPA has a badass network of air quality sensors. Here's one project that maps them and the data streaming off of them (example shows a sensor in SF):

http://aqicn.org/city/california/san-francisco/san-francisco...

> It is an agency that has gotten so large that it is no longer effective.

What makes you think the size of EPA is the cause of cases like Flint?

Can you clarify what makes you say that the EPA is "so large that it is no longer effective"? Everything I've heard about the situation inside the EPA makes it sound more like they're desperately short on staff and funding and they're doing the best that they can within those limitations. The problem isn't lack of focus; it's lack of resources.

It's not as if the EPA has been growing unchecked; conservative politicians have been doing their best to gut its funding or render it toothless for decades now, going back at least as far as Reagan. If you're not happy with the current situation, it seems unlikely that continuing down the path of defunding the EPA will improve it.

Could you provide a non-paywall link please?

Go to the linked page then click this bookmarklet:

javascript:window.location="https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u="+encodeURIComponent(window.l...;

It was posted in conjunction with the initial submission:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15188891

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