The Golden-Brown Rule

I sometimes suggest to my students that, if they want to be sure of jobs in these uncertain times, they should bet on poop.  Death and taxes aren’t the only inevitabilities in life; excrement, too, will always be with us.

I’m not sure that this sales pitch has ever made a convert. Effluent has an image problem that no marketer has been able to solve.

Except, perhaps, in Whatcom County.

Today’s Bellingham Herald featured an article on poop.  “Whatcom County Council Skeptical on Need for Tougher Septic Tank Rules,” says the headline. 

Tougher rules?  What rules?

It turns out that voluntary inspection leads to minimal inspection.  Outside of the Lake Whatcom and Drayton Harbor watersheds, there are no deadlines for septic tank inspection and no penalties for failure to inspect in Whatcom County.  The County does send reminder postcards. So does your dentist, probably.  If householders pitch the postcard, what happens to them?  The same thing that happens if you ignore your dentist's postcards:  nothing.  Your dentist doesn't come after you, and neither will Whatcom County.

This leads to a compliance rate for voluntary septic tank inspection of 22%.  And so, as the Herald notes, “some failing systems continue to operate.”

Read further into the article, and you’ll find this quote from a County employee:  "Quite routinely, we still do find failing systems with straight-line pipes that discharge into roadside ditches."

I don’t know how you react to that sentence.  “Yech” is one natural reaction .  “P.U.!” might be another.

Unless you’re on the Whatcom County Council, apparently.  The next sentence, the very next sentence, states: “Council member Sam Crawford said he has never been convinced that septic system problems are causing health or environmental problems serious enough to warrant the regulatory crackdown.”

Now, I grew up on a farm in upstate New York – and if you aren’t aware that New York exists outside of New York City, plug 2655 Depew Road, Stanley, New York into the satellite portion of Google Maps.  If it looks like any part of Whatcom County, it would be the part north of Badger Road - -not the sin-stained metropolis of Bellingham., much less Manhattan.

Anyway, I grew up in rural New York, and my father and men of his generation had a saying about uppity people that comes to mind.  In its sanitized version, it would go something like this:  “They think their excrement doesn’t stink.”

And perhaps that’s the problem with Whatcom County.  We know that we are special people who live in a special place.  We are people who are so special that, unlike anywhere else on earth, our excrement only makes our special water even more special.

Mr. Crawford did not, of course, make this claim.  He justified his skepticism by pointing out the absence of data demonstrating that rigorous enforcement around Lake Whatcom and Drayton Harbor has resulted in “measurable improvement” in water quality in those waterbodies. 

If you expect to see “measurable improvement” based on septic tank inspection, you would have to have very accurate measurement that excludes inputs of all other sources of, er, nutrients. 

Do we have that?  No.  And I think that the assumption that those data must exist before we take action reflects two problems.  

The first is a variation of the “CSI Effect.”  Prosecutors complain that juries are less likely to get convictions in criminal cases these days (here’s an article on this), because juries have unrealistic expectations about evidence.  Based on TV, they expect that a high-tech machine will match every fiber with a precise garment, every piece of soil with the garden across which the perp had scampered.  All you have to do is put the sample in a machine.  Neon lights glow, and voila!  A computer screen pinpoints the precise result.

Unfortunately, these high tech machines are – I hate to break the bad news – fabrications.  Or very expensive, or not as accurate as the shows would have you believe.  Real life is far messier and more uncertain than TV.  Evidence is far messier and more uncertain than on TV.

I saw a crime show once where two attractive young women with frowns on their faces gathered around a screen.  An adjacent contraption buzzed and whirred, lights flashed across a screen, and then a map appeared.  It showed the precise locations of all pollution sources in a harbor, with all of the pollutants listed.  Frowns gone!  The investigators found the exact location where a body had entered the water, because another of those infallible machines had identified pollutants on the clothing.

Why don't we just buy one of those machines and have it report on septic tanks!  Except that, well, if the machine actually existed, somebody would still have to get all of the data and input it into the machine, and it would have to be kept up to date.  How many tax dollars would that cost?

So problem number one is that, no, we don’t have a high-tech machine that perfectly pinpoints every source of pollution.  We have some monitoring data and we have the known fact that more poop in the water leads to worse water quality.  And we have the known-but-ignored facts that Whatcom County has a large aquifer with some of the worst nitrate pollution in the state, and 77 stream reaches that are impaired, and two harbors restricted for shellfish growing and gathering. . .

Problem number two is the cumulative impact problem.  There are many sources of pollution affecting our water bodies – and many sources of poop.  People, farm animals, deer and geese.  As the children’s book says, “Everybody Poops.”  And so, it’s easy to say “Well, a few leaking septic tanks won’t hurt anything.” 

Nor will a straw break the camel’s back.  Except when it does.  (That’s the significance of the picture up top.)  

Conversely, it is undoubtedly true that inspecting and correcting leaking septic tanks won’t cure all of Whatcom County’s water problems.   To do that, all the various sources will need to be addressed.

So why pick on septic tank owners? 

Remember the Golden-Brown Rule. Do unto your own poop as you would have other do unto theirs.  

Now, bearing in mind the Golden Rule, I do think that we should ensure that low-income householders are not impoverished by having to inspect and, particularly, clean up their septic tanks.  

We need to make this subsidy mindfully, however, rather than simply subsidizing septic tank owners across the board.  That's what we are doing when we turn a blind eye to leaking septic tanks. 

It takes an ounce of inspection to avoid a pound of poop.  And sorry, but I am not, under any circumstances, going to search Google Image for an illustration of this saying.  It probably is vivid enough in your own mind's eye.

The Nice Young Men From the Gateway Pacific Terminal

Red Skelton as the Fuller Brush Man, 1948

I had a nice chat today with two door-to-door salesmen for the Gateway Pacific Terminal.

Like most people who work at home, I’m not usually excited about interruptions.  I went to the door only because I thought that it might be a delivery.  And it was, of sorts – delivery of a sales pitch.

Although this blog has convinced at least one of our readers that I’m a kind, grandmotherly soul, I’m actually too young to remember door to door salesmen.  My mother and grandmother used to talk about the “Fuller Brush Man” – apparently Fuller brushes were darn good brushes.  And my grandmother, come to think of it, used to get “Charles Chips” in large round metal cans.  Potato chips, that is, sold by a traveling chip salesman.  Imagine a time when junk food came to you!  And the can was reusable.

Where was I?  Sales.  I was interested to see how a door to door salesman would pitch a product other than a political candidate or a religion. 

The two young salesmen had big official name tags that said their names and “GPT.”  I’m not going to use their names because I don’t want to get them into any trouble.  They really don’t deserve to get into trouble.  They were sweet.  They were well-groomed, and they made eye contact except when they didn’t know something (then they looked at each other), and they really didn’t do anything wrong.

Every now and then, they said something wrong, but they didn’t mean to.  That mostly happened when they were improvising.

Here’s what they did right:

• They did not deny that coal would be exported.  Their immediate sales pitch was for a terminal exporting potash, grains, and a long list of other commodities.  When I asked them how big their contract was for grains and other commodities, one of them said “We have a contract for coal, so that will definitely be there.  Grains are standing by, waiting to see what happens.”  They said that the terminal could handle 50 million tons at buildout. Pretty close.

•  They said that "Panamax" ships would transport the coal (close enough), and that “1½ ships per day” would stop at the facility.  No understatement there.  The GPT “Project Information Document” says that 487 ships per year will be using the pier at buildout, and 1 ½ ships per day comes out to 540 ships.  I guess that 487 sounds big, but 1 ½ per day sounds manageable.

•  We chatted about the fact that three coal trains have derailed in the past few days.  (If you haven’t heard about this, here’s an article describing the three derailments).    When I speculated that the reason might be that more coal is being transported long distances by train, they nodded their heads enthusiastically and one of them said “Could very well be!”  So they agreed with the customer.

There were a few questions, and a few topics, that they didn’t seem to have anticipated.  That’s where they floundered a bit.

•  I asked if the fact that three coal trains derailed recently is a cause for concern.  One of them replied, “It’s just coal – it’s not like a toxic substance or something.  You just sweep it up and it’s gone.”  I asked if it would not be a problem if a train derailed as it passed by a water body – for example, if the derailment happened along Chuckanut.  He said, “It’s not like the Gulf of Mexico with oil spilling everywhere.  You can see it, so you can clean it up.” 

Time out:  My husband, a water chemist, howled when he heard this.  I guess that toxicity related to coal, especially in aquatic systems, is not unheard of. 

Also, what is this fixation that coal terminal supporters have with being able see/not to see coal dust?  You can’t see coal dust along the tracks, so the train isn’t a problem.  You can see coal dust when it spills, so it’s not a problem. The visible/invisible metric for gauging hazards.  Where did that come from? 

OK, back to the conversation.

• Speaking of being able to “see” coal, I asked if the large coal storage piles on the site would be enclosed in structures.  No, they said, but there would be “mists and sprinklers” to water down the coal.  Besides, “you should see the trees out there.  They’re really big.  You won’t be able to see anything.”  There we go again—the “coal dust only matters if you can see it” thing.  Also, I couldn’t help but think of the ghosts of trees past at Cherry Point (past, but not converted).  

• Speaking of exporting grain, one of the gentlemen pulled out his map of train routes and showed me the route that goes through Bellingham, into Canada and over to the Westshore Terminal at Roberts Bank.  “If there’s a terminal at Cherry Point, there’s no reason that the trains would keep taking the grain on up to Canada,” he said.  I wanted to make sure I’d heard right, so I said “Are trains taking American grain to Westshore to be exported?”  He paused for a beat, and then said “Yes.”  I don’t think that’s right, and I wasn't convinced that he knew one way or another.  When in doubt, sometimes punting might be the best response.

•  When I asked how many permanent jobs would be created, one of the salesmen said confidently “1,200.”  When I looked stunned, he added “At full buildout.”  I said “Are you sure?” and he said “Yes.”  Well – the Gateway Pacific website says “294-430 permanent direct jobs,” and it seems unlikely that this is a conservative figure.  But I think that the problem is that the spoken word lacks asterisks.  The handout that he gave me states:  “A number of studies and estimates show that the Gateway Pacific Terminal will create . . .  .between 850 and 1,250* new jobs through its operation.”        * Includes direct and indirect jobs generated.   It’s the multiplier effect.  

This blog has a multiplier effect, by the way.  While I write it, I often drink coffee.  Somebody had to make that coffeepot.  The coffee was grown by somebody, somewhere, and a local person at the grocery store checkout made sure that I paid for it.  The coffee contributes to the volume of wastes processed at our wastewater treatment plant, which employs people.  If you add up all those parts of jobs, I’ve created a couple of jobs (indirectly) right there.

Now, multiply that by the number of people who need blood pressure medicine after they read this blog.  The pharmaceutical industry provides well-paid jobs, as does the medical profession.  Those jobs undoubtedly pay well in excess of $100,000 a year.  Therefore, this blog alone creates 4-6 jobs paying an average of $75,000 per year (It’s only fair to assume that that the coffee bean picker and the grocery store clerk bring down the average wage).

It’s so easy being an indirect-job creator.  More people ought to try it.

But wait a minute.  Should I get the credit for those jobs?  Or does the credit go somewhere else – to the entity that was even more indirectly involved in creating the jobs? 

That brings us to the final point:  the Gateway Pacific Terminal is already creating jobs.  Perhaps the two young gentlemen that I met today are what the signs have in mind – the ones that say “Good Jobs Now.”  Two young salesmen, a coffee grower, a grocery checkout person, a wastewater treatment plant operator, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and a physician or two. . .