How Environmentalists Lost the Battle Over TCE

In Vartabedian’s LA Times article he pitches the EPA against the defense complex in a battle over TCE exposure and cleanup. Although this is an excerpt, so I can’t speak to the full article, it doesn’t seem to establish just how carcinogenic the substance is. Although it says it is 40 times more likely to cause cancer than previously believed, but 40 times zero is still zero. The findings seem intentionally glossed over. I’m not suggesting that letting carcinogens be released is a good thing, just that the alarmism over what might amount to a relatively minor threat may not be warranted. At a couple points NASA – themselves scientists – are pointed at as propagators of the malady, but conventional wisdom would suggest that if they are as enlightened as the EPA they would be onboard to help the cleanup. NASA suggests, along with the Energy Department, that greater proof is required that these substances are harmful before costly cleanups are launched. Obviously this is a politically charged scientific debate, the problem with the article proper is that there isn’t enough actual science presented for a reader to take a side, their side is already presented for them without the ability to choose for themselves. It is unfortunate that this is the paradigm politico-scientific debates are presented in popular media. Issues such as this deserve a more balanced presentation of the facts rather than an obvious ploy to create a lopsided debate with a clear slant. The issue at the heart of this is one that deserves attention, but not as a sob story for the EPA and how they are being bullied by other departments of the government, they’re all part of the same government and should be treated and held accountable as such.