Open Reservoirs and Governments
This edition of Democracy Here explores the difference between engineered- and informed consent of the governed using the context of Portland’s current plans to take open reservoirs off-line and replacing them with new underground storage tanks.
The plan to bury the reservoirs is controversial: the city says they are forced to spend a half a billion dollars in order to comply with a federal regulation, while citizen groups say that the water bureau is fast tracking projects to the same cozy consultants who wrote the regulation and that the water bureau could work more earnestly on obtaining relief.
This edition of DemocracyHere! features:
Interviews with public health and infectious disease specialists;
Sounds from the earth-day rally at city hall in support of our natural water system;
Information on how lower income citizens will be affected by the increase in water rates;
Interviews with Floy Jones for the citizen-activist perspective and Kent Craford for an alliance of local businesses;
and
Voices of government officials ranging from Portland Water Bureau Administrator David Shaff to the EPA administrator Lisa Jackson.
Engineering techniques to look for in the interviews include:
Emotional appeal trumps reasoned argument;
Government is your daddy;
and
Hurry up, its an emergency
leading to
Its a done deal!
- KBOO