Editor:
Unfortunately for the readers of The Daily Utah Chronicle, Michael Chidester’s Nov. 28 opinion piece, ” Navigating Environmental Waters With Local Action,” on water regulation seemed to consist primarily of knee-jerk, right-wing ignorance and little else. A quick review of the facts tells a much different story than Chidester’s.
In March 1999, the National Academy of Science published a study on arsenic in drinking water funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA proposed a 5 parts per billion (ppb) standard for arsenic and requested comment on 10, 5 and 3 ppb. After further review of the data, the new standard was set at 10 ppb. Three reports in support of the rule came from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Drinking Water Advisory Council and the EPA Science Advisory Board.
What is especially galling about this piece is Chidester’s obvious lack of research in compiling his facts. To characterize this rule as a last-minute, Clinton-political move pandering to radical environmentalists is irresponsible and smacks of Limbaugh-style journalism, where facts are manufactured and the consequences be damned. All of the above facts I cited are public knowledge and can be accessed on the EPA and NAS Web sites. This begs the question, why was none of this discussed in his article? Is it willful ignorance or simply intellectual dishonesty?
To suggest local control is an effective measure is pure ignorance. Local control is what gives us poor airport security, cancer-causing drinking water and creationism in schools. I have had my fill of local control.
Gordon Swift, Junior, Biology