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NYC Wants to Limit Your Right to Test for Hazardous Materials
On 9/11, a massive, toxic smoke plume flooded over a large part of the city. This toxic plume contaminated the lungs of tens of thousands of citizens, including some 9000 first responders from all over the country who came to help NYC.
The EPA tested and KNEW the WTC smoke plume was toxic. Bush and Giuliani ordered them to lie...yes LIE (a term I use and tonight David Yassky used) about the toxicity of the smoke. The rescue workers were told by the EPA that they did not need respirators even though the EPA had clear evidence that the smoke was toxic. By contrast, no one was allowed near the Pentagon without respirators 24 hours after the attacks. It took two months before respirators were issued at the WTC site.
This is but one example of how government testing for hazards is not sufficient. Many, many other examples can be cited. Erin Brockovich might have something to say about official stories about the toxicity of our homes, our drinking water, our environment. Go back further and Rachel Carson might have something to say about the official story about the safety of the communities we live in.
Now, average citizens like you and me have a chance to test our own water, air, soil. We can check to see whether our environment, our homes, are safe.
NYC doesn't like that. A proposal to the City Council, Intro 650, wants to require permits for private citizens to use atmospheric, biological, chemical and radiological detectors. My wife, the climatologist's, first reaction was "what...do I have to have a permit to use my atmospheric thermometer?!" My reaction was, do we need a permit to have a Geiger-Muller counter in a lab?
But my second reaction, and a reaction echoed by David Yassky and several members of the Independent Neighborhood Democrats, was what about the 9/11 smoke plume.
Private citizens should have the full right to test their personal space for whatever toxins they are concerned about. The government, which has at times either been squirrely about, or, as the case with Bush and Giuliani and 9/11, outright LIED aboout risks to our health, is our first defense against toxic exposure, but cannot be trusted to be our ONLY defense. Private citizens should freely be able to test their own environment.
NYC wants to require permits for private citizens to purchase testing devices for detecting atmospheric, biological, chemical or radiological hazards. The government would have to issue a permit (at a fee, I am sure!) for you to have the right to test the air, water or soil that you and your children are exposed to. To get a permit, you would have to go to the very government that has at times misled or outright lied about the safety of our environment. That is just not right.
Hal Friedman, First VP of Independent Neighborhood Democrats, first brought this to the attention of the club. But it came up again as David Yassky was discussing a legislative agenda (which I hope we hear more about soon!). Yassky described the process to date of the proposal. The NYPD came to the City Council to propose this measure and did a good job of convincing the City Council taht it was necessary to prevent so-called "false alarms" interfering with police business. The police had gone a long way to convincing the City Council. But Yassky attributes a change to Scott Stringer. Stringer (along with the United Federation of Teachers and faculty members of Hunter College Scool of Heath Sciences) basically pointed out that this proposal was insane. It takes away the right of private citizens to ensure the safety of their own living, schooling and working situations at will. It would give the sole right of determining who can test our environment for hazards to the government, who would either do it themselves or would give permits to private citizens to do it themselves.
Some at IND commented that maybe it was just another revenue producing scheme by the city...but I think it is all about development and responsibility. We know that there are toxic sites in the city, some connected with 9/11, some connected to sites developers want to build on. We also know that some development in the city has little in the way of environmental impact research behind it. If private citizens can gather their own data and challenge the city (and its developer supporters!), then there might be some developer projects that have problems.
But fundamentally this proposal limits OUR ability to test the safety of our personal, and our family, environment. When David Yasky was asked about it, he called the proposal crazy and credited Stringer with revealing the problems with it. I agree...it is crazy and it seems obvious from the first reading that it is crazy. Private citizens should have an unrestricted right to test the safety of their environment. The kits available for such tests should be subject to regulation in that they should be tested for reliability. But ANYONE should be able to use a reliable kit for testing the safety of their personal space.
Write your city council member and the mayor and tell them that you OPPOSE Intro 650 and support the right of an individual to test their personal environment for hazards.
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -- George W. Bush Jr.
Why do you want a machine that tells you how much ionizing radiation there is in your neighborhood? What would you do with that information? Why are you so interested in ionizing radiation?
Well..
First off, I work in a lab. We use radioactive isotopes and need detections devices. Now we can purchase such devices without having to get police approval. Why add another level of bureaucracy to the procedure needlessly?
Second, the bill isn't just G-M counters...it also includes the kind of kits people routinely use to test their drinking water. In some communities it has been home testing of water that revealed dangerously high levels of lead or bacteria. Regular citizens taking responsibility for their communities have detected problems that the government missed or ignored.
Third, as the WTC smoke plume tells us, there are circumstances where the government does NOT reveal a danger to citizens. Had someone tested the WTC smoke themselves rather than trusting the government, they could have alerted the rescue workers who then could have avoided the severe health risks that the government failed to warn them about.
Back to raioactivity, maybe it is a good idea for normal citizens to be able to detect that kind of thing. If a terrorist wanted to contaminate an area, no one would pick it up until people started getting sick. Maybe a concerned citizen would detect it like they detected lead levels in water, etc.
Finally, you really are asking the wrong question. We should not question why we have a given right, but rather question why it should be taken away. Sometimes there is a compelling reason to limit a right. But no one has offered such a compelling reason for limiting our rights to these devices that detect hazards to our health and lives. Without a compelling reason, no right should be limited.
A weird rationalization
Section 1 of the bill (as with most bills) outlines the reason for the bill. In this case, there are some odd leaps of logic.
This section states that, "certain instruments designed to detect the presence of certain chemicals, biological agents, and radiation in the environment ... should be deployed and operated only with the knowledge of the Police Department and other appropriate City agencies." That statement is made with no line of reasoning to back it up.
Only after that statement does the bill read, "Moreover, the City has an interest in the reliability and effectiveness of these instruments so that their deployment will not cause excessive false alarms and unwarranted anxiety that a large-scale public emergency is occurring."
In other words, the bill says that safety devices should only be used with the knowledge of the Gestap-- excuse me, the "Police Department and other appropriate City agencies," and only after that does the bill give a purpose of avoiding false alarms.
This begs the question, why should safety devices only be used with the consent of Big Brother?
To read their critique of this nutty bill by the NYC Central
Labor Council and NY Committee on Occupational Safety & Health, click here