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July 3, 2000
by Ted Mooney
I gave up smoking 20 years ago and get asthmatic around tobacco
smoke, so I'm as happy as anyone to see the increasing restrictions
on smoking.
But we non-smokers have to be honest enough to admit that at least
a little bit of the pleasure of a smoke-free environment comes from
the perverse fun of imposing an inconvenience upon smokers. This is
apparent on its face and I won't waste my breath arguing with those
who would deny it.
Now that the smoke has cleared on the recent
"your-treatment-system-is-a-nitrate-factory" issue, it's time for
similar honesty.
Frank Altmayer's "Advice & Counsel" in this month's Plating
& Surface Finishing explains how to perform these worthless
and silly nitrate "calculations". It is apparent on its face that one
of their purposes is to afford the environmentalists and the EPA the
perverse fun of imposing a hardship upon business, and I won't waste
my breath arguing with those who would deny it.
The EPA is currently facing a crisis in confidence over
the
MTBE disaster they mandated. Now is the time for the EPA to be
asking for help and understanding from the nation's engineers. It is
most certainly not the time for the EPA to be demanding that
engineers perform makework "calculations" that are an embarrassment
to us, which achieve little but harassment of our clients, and which
breed despair for the EPA's ability to undertake any effort--such as
MTBE remediation--that requires science.
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