Today in the Wall Street Journal we have a fairly caustic editorial about the EPA and its determination to make the city of New York pay for a 1.6 billion dollar cover for a Yonkers water reservoir, whether NYC wants to or not. Which the city of NYC does not want to do, partially because they don’t have the money, and partially because the specific problem that the EPA is demanding that NYC address isn’t actually a problem for the reservoir. And what is this specific problem?
Why, it’s the scourge of cryptosporidium (or ‘crypto’), of course.
Cryptosporidium.
Cryptosporidium.
- It’s a water-based parasite that causes diarrhea. Sure, it’s one of those things that people with decent immune systems typically shrug off… but! Water-based parasite! Diarrhea! Children might get it! Better to put that cover on!
- …What? Oh, the city typically reports about 100 cases per year, according to the WSJ.
- …What? Oh, you can treat the symptoms of cryptosporidium infection with an anti-diarrhea medicine like Nitaoxanide.
- …What? Oh, the numbers here are the best that I can find regarding cost. High-ball it at $100 for the prescription.
- …What? Oh, $100 x 100/yr = an outlay of $10,000/year from the city of New York to pay for the medication for all the reported crypto cases out there.
- …What? Oh, at current levels of infection it’d take about 160,000 years or so for the city of New York to find it more cost-effective to put a lid on the reservoir. But, hey, there might be an epidemic! We could see a hundred thousand cases a year, if that happened!
- …What? Oh, it’d still take 160 years for NYC to hit the cutoff point, then.
Still. Water-based parasite! Diarrhea! Children might get it! Better to put that cover on! And never mind that the EPA is not so much not taking criticism from the relevant NYC authorities well as it is not taking criticism seriously at all. And, really, why should it? – The administration that they’re being a stalking horse for is comfortably aware that NYC will vote Democratic anyway.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: This note is for the New York business community: as I understand it, all y’all keep giving lots of money to Senators Chuckie Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand so that they’ll go down to Washington and keep their fellow-Democrats from actually following through on their party’s decidedly anti-business rhetoric. How has that been working out for you folks? – because from where I’m sitting, those two Senators haven’t been doing a blessed thing to help you out recently.
Now, I’m not telling you to start giving money to Republicans running in New York Senate races – although you should, of course – because I figure that it’s wasted effort. I am telling you that giving money to Schumer and Gillibrand is even more of a wasted effort, so you should stop doing that.
The EPA must be Destroyed!
Why would they do that? They have an exit strategy – just move to Florida which hasn’t yet been screwed up by Democratic leadership, and will probably take a decade or two to do so.
In 1993, about 403,000 people became ill from crypto. About 1% of them were hospitalized, and about 69 died. (from Wikipedia.)
So an outbreak could be pretty darn nasty.
The problem is that the EPA refuses to admit that prevention costs money. And further refuses to admit that our money supply is limited. I have personally known people at the EPA. They never admit that anything the EPA does is excessive–which is as good a reason as any to kick them permanently out of government and force them to earn an honest living.
“swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”