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Which Would You Find More Acceptable in Your Back Yard, a Toxic Waste Dump or a Murder of Crows?

Are you kidding me? Who would want a toxic waste dump in their back yard? However, who cares about crows anyway? Crows are noisy, dirty birds. They are omnivorous. They eat anything that comes along. They can devastate a garden or a crop of corn before it can be harvested. Few people worry about eliminating these nuisances from their backyards. Right?

This fourth post in my NIMBY series is the second example of a first pick alternative.  More of that a little later. I begin by explaining the second half title of this post. “A murder of crows” is an expression that goes back to at least the 15th century. It is a poetic expression that refers to a group of crows. The phrase was included in “The Book of St. Albans”, a compendium of collective nouns, published in 1486.

The term murder of crows may have come from several traits of crows. They will eat anything that they find available, especially carrion. However, if they come across a nearly dead or helpless animal, no matter its size, they are not above picking the animal to death. This includes their own species. When crows are sick or dying, their companions will pounce on the poor brother to finish him off, and then make a meal of him.

The second trait that might suggest calling a group of crows, a murder of crows, is their annoying, raucous calls. This is especially true when a group of them seem to be taunting each other with the calls. How many times have a group of kids playing noisily been chastised by a parent, yelling at them, “Knock off the noise! What are you trying to do, kill each other?”

A 1998 movie written and directed by Rowdy Herrington, named “A Murder of Crows” is part of the inspiration of the title of this post. In his suspenseful thriller, a disbarred lawyer steals the unpublished book of a dead man and publishes “A Murder of Crows” as his own work. The book tells the story of the murder of five unscrupulous lawyers. The title is derived from a reference in the book to the murdered lawyers as crows.

I have indicated that this post will deal with a choice between toxic waste dumps and a murder of crows. Where am I getting this comparison? It comes from a joke on one of the late night television shows. I don’t remember which show, but I do remember the joke. The comedian began his routine by referencing two national reports.

The first listed the location of all the toxic waste superfund sites by state in 2011. New Jersey topped the list with 116 sites. The next closest was California with 98. The 116 sites in New Jersey equaled the total sites for the 25 states with the fewest superfund sites. The second report was a 2012 report of the American Bar Association listing the number of lawyers per capita in each state and district of the United States. Probably not surprising, Washington, D.C. topped the list with New York in second place. What might be surprising is the difference. In D.C., there are more than 800 lawyers per 10,000 residents, or one lawyer for every 13 residents. In New York, there were 84 lawyers per every 10,000 residents, or one lawyer per 120 residents. Thus, in D.C. there are almost 10 times more lawyers per resident than in New York.

After giving out these statistics, the comedian ask the natural question: “Why should New Jersey have the superfund waste dumps while Washington, D.C. has the lawyers?” The quick, obvious answer was: “Washington won the coin toss, but deferred, just like they do with every other decision, until the second half. That gave New Jersey first choice and they took the waste dumps.”

There is a very logical reason why Washington, D.C. has the highest number of lawyers per capita in the country. The main business of Washington, and even the reason for its existence, is to be the legal center of our country. Almost every thing in the city revolves around laws. From writing laws, enacting laws, enforcing laws, interpreting laws, and adjudicating laws, who is better qualified than lawyers? The facetious answer to this question might be, “Anyone, but a lawyer.” The United States is a country of law, governed under the rule of law. Throughout history, the world has seen many examples of what happens when a society descends into lawlessness. This makes lawyers indispensable. However, I’m tempted to paraphrase a line from “Fiddler on the Roof.”  “May God bless lawyers, and keep them out of my back yard.”

There are also very logical reasons why there are so many toxic waste dumps in New Jersey. They begin with the history of New Jersey. For many years, New Jersey’s economy has been very heavily dependent upon dirty industries. By dirty industries, I mean manufacturers involved in the production and distribution of potentially harmful products and products with potentially harmful byproducts. New Jersey is the home of a number of refineries, paint and solvent manufacturers, chemical companies, building material plants, automotive-related industries, and electronic-based businesses. In the face of the high industrial concentration in the parts of the state,  New Jersey is additionally the home of many farms which can also be major polluters.

Just because the products associated with the pollution are located in New Jersey, why should the waste also be sited in New Jersey? There are three main reasons. The first two are economics and convenience. It is so much cheaper and easier to dispose of waste near to the location it was created. The third reason is actually a form of the NIMBY argument. “Why would other locations want to take New Jersey’s dirty waste? I don’t want my neighbor’s waste and junk in my back yard.” Thus New Jersey was stuck with its own waste.

I’m not sure I have helped you answer the question: “Which would you rather have in your back yard, a toxic waste dump or a murder of crows?” As a country, both have provided many benefits. Personally, I am leaning toward a murder of crows. Dealing with a bunch of dirty birds is more appealing to me than trading potential health hazards for financial prosperity .

My next NIMBY post returns to scriptures. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is under fire from a hostile lawyer pressing him on the issue what was necessary to inherit eternal life. Jesus turned the question back on the lawyer by asking him, “What does the law say? How do you read it?” After a testy exchange, the lawyer asks Jesus directly, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the post “Who is My Neighbor?” I will discuss the implication of the parable for NIMBY debates in today’s world.

With all the negative interactions in scripture which involve lawyers, I’m having second thoughts about my first choice. It reminds me of an old joke:

Q:   Have you heard any “good lawyer” stories recently?

A:   I didn’t know there were any?

Do I really want a whole of bunch of loud, obnoxious  lawyers arguing in my back yard, spewing their poisonous venom into the air? Maybe the toxic waste dump in my back yard isn’t so bad after all? Is there any difference?

You caught me. I am guilty of hyperbole. Obviously, I have fallen into the trap of dumping all lawyers into the same trash heap. I know, as well as you, that not all lawyers are bad. Many are good, decent human beings, whose work is absolutely necessary for the well-ordered operations of our communities and country. These lawyers should be honored. It’s the bad apples that need to be identified and eliminated.

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What Makes a Better Neighbor: a Prison or a University?

In February 1980, one of the most horrific prison riots in US history occurred at the Maximum Security State Prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Several years later, at an academic gathering in the beautiful conference setting of quaint Santa Fe, the dinner discussion turned to the question of why the main branch of the state university was located in Albuquerque, while the maximum security state prison was located in Santa Fe. An administrator from a college in New Mexico, replied, “As State Capital, Santa Fe had first choice.” When I first heard this comment about 30 years ago, I thought it was a joke. However, I immediately recognized that this one-liner could come in handy in future discussions. Thus, I filed it away in my memory to pull out at an appropriate time.

I will admit that over the intervening years, in addition to employing it myself, I have heard others use the “first choice” quip on more than one occasion in discussions of seemingly anomalous situations. My next post, “Which Would You Find More Acceptable in Your Back Yard, a Toxic Waste Dump or a Murder of Crows?” represents such an occurrence. 

When I started this series of posts on the NIMBY syndrome, I figured it was time to pull out this old story and look at it more closely. I thought of three general questions that I should answer. Firstly, are there other state capitals which may have chosen prisons over universities? Secondly, what are positives and negatives for a community having a prison within its environs? Thirdly, what are the benefits and detriments that an institution of higher learning imparts to the community in which it resides?

I quickly discovered that arriving at the answer to the first question was much more time consuming than I expected it to be. I first ascertained that all 50 state capitals had jails, prisons, and/or detention centers of some stripe within their metropolitan boundaries.

Surprisingly, trying to determine how many state capitals hosted state-supported universities also proved a little trickier than I thought. I began by settling on a definition of state-supported university. For my purposes, I looked at institutions of higher education that: 1) called themselves public colleges or universities; 2) offered four-year baccalaureate degrees as the core of their undergraduate academic programming; 3) offered primarily full-time, traditional, residential programs; 4) offered campus housing to students; and 5) garnered a significant slice of their general operating budget from direct state appropriations. In my search I found 41 states that had institutions that met all five of my conditions. Besides New Mexico, the other eight that did not were Iowa, Maryland, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The higher education options in the capitals of these nine states present an interesting mix. All nine of the state capitals have for-profit institutions offering non-traditional degree programs for adult students. Four of the state capitals do not have any private colleges or universities that offer traditional four-year baccalaureate programs.  These are Des Moines, Iowa, Pierre, South Dakota, Montpelier, Vermont, and Cheyenne Wyoming. Only two of the state capitals, Annapolis, Maryland and Pierre, South Dakota, do not have public two-year community colleges.

Although Annapolis, Maryland does not have any state supported four-year school, it is the home of the United States Naval Academy. As a national military academy, it is not the typical college. First students do not pay tuition. They “pay” for their education by a military service requirement after graduation or separation from the academy. The admissions process is also quite complicated, with the student completing a normal academic application and a nomination application to those individuals or groups that are authorized to nominate students to the national military academies.

Thus, Pierre, South Dakota seems to fall completely outside the normal pattern of educational opportunities in state capitals. There are no traditional college options, either public or private, in Pierre. Students just graduating from high school must leave Pierre and go elsewhere to attend any college.

Therefore, the data suggest that most state capitals have not picked prisons instead of colleges or universities. While 96% of state capitals had state supported, two-year technical or community college, a hefty 82% were also home to state supported universities. Thus, most state provided their state capitals with both prisons and state supported higher education.

Although most economic impact studies give the edge to universities over prisons in providing economic benefits to the surrounding community, there are a few negative blips on the radar screen. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the two unrelated trends of an economic downturn in rural America and the epidemic-like increase in U.S. prison population caused some rural communities to turn to prisons as a basis for economic development. While most economic and employment impact studies look at the increased revenue produced by the universities and prisons, they do not take into account the added costs of increased services required and social disruption.

With all the economic, cultural and educational advantages that colleges and universities provide communities, why would any community embrace a prison before a college or university? There are some economic reasons, but many of the reasons seem to be social. Whereas a college or university is likely to drastically change the culture of a community, a prison is very unlikely to cause any such changes. Colleges may attract a diverse student body that is very different from the community. This can cause tensions among the students and the local residents. Faculty and students are also by nature activists and push for change, while the local residents may be very content to remain in their status quo. College students are also generally free to move about.  I once read a newspaper account concerning a community resident complaining about a wild party which spilled over from a college into the surrounding community. It described the scene by saying, “The inmates were running wild.” With prisons, the inmates almost never run wild in the local community. Prisoners are locked up and have little or no contact with the surrounding community.

Once a prison is built, there are few extra demands on public safety services or transportation infrastructure. Once a college is built there are multiple extra public safety or infrastructure concerns. Colleges and universities have numerous, large events with a concomitant influx of visitors, which must pass through the community to get to the campus. Communities are left with the big question of who is going to pay. Since all public and most private colleges are tax-exempt organizations, they do not pay state and local taxes to cover the cost of the common public services that communities must provide like public safety, transportation infrastructure like roads and bridges, and utility infrastructure concerns like water and sewer. To get around the tax questions, some communities have asked college and universities and other tax-exempted organizations to pay user fees to cover what might be considered their fair share of the cost of providing community services.

One other concern with a number of college communities is the disruption that the expansion of a college causes the local neighborhoods. From personal experience, I have seen neighbors very upset with the way colleges have bought up properties and changed the nature of the neighborhood. With public institutions, the use of eminent domain can further alienate the locals.

 Why are prisons sometimes considered better neighbors than college and universities? Colleges and universities change the nature of their neighborhood. They are a disruptive force, costing more than they are worth in the opinions of some neighbors. Once prisons are built, they usually just sit there and have no interaction with the neighborhood.

 

 

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Never Underestimate a Group of Irate Senior Citizens

The US DOE seems to be a slow learner. In the early 1980’s in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, they counted their chickens before they hatched. When the DOE attempted in the late 1980’s to build a nuclear waste dump in Allegany County, New York, they were outflanked by a group of irate senior citizens.

During 1988 and 1989, the DOE had settled on the rural Allegany County of Western New York as the site for a new nuclear waste dump. It seemed to be an ideal location. There were no large population centers in the county. There were few companies with large numbers of employees that would relocate away from a nuclear waste dump. The geology of the area showed no signs of instability. The county was primarily farm land or forests, and hence large plots of land would be relatively inexpensive to acquire.

In early 1990, when the news about the proposed dump started circulating around Allegany County, the local citizens began protesting. On April 5, 1990, those protests made the national news, and put the DOE on the hot seat again.

The DOE had picked an actual site for the dump. A number of DOE officials scheduled a visit to survey the location on April 5th. Such a visit can never be kept secret. When the word leaked out, the leaders of the county protesters planned a reception for the DOE officials.

The DOE officials arranged a small motorcade to visit the site and see the surrounding area. This information somehow got into the hands of the protesters. Knowing the location of the site, the protesters could easily determine the route that the motorcade would have to travel. It required the visitors to cross a bridge over the Genesee River. This would be the place that the protesters would confront the DOE visitors.

Knowing the date and time of the visit, the protesters knew when they had to be ready to greet their visitors. They also knew they needed to document the event. Thus, they had notified the local news outlets of their intentions.

On the appointed day, a group of Allegany farmers and ranchers mounted their horses and blocked the approach to the bridge. The Allegany protesters knew full well that the DOE would call the State Police to break up their equine barricade. Therefore, the Allegany protesters had a back up plan.

A number of Allegany protesters were elderly and could not comfortably ride horses. These senior citizens would form a second line of defense. The protest group strung a heavy chain across the bridge roadway and six of the senior citizens handcuffed themselves to the chain. They then conveniently lost the keys.

When the DOE motorcade approached the bridge, the scenario went as scripted. The State Police escorts called for reinforcements. When these extra police arrived, the riders and their horses were ushered off the roadway. The motorcade then proceeded only to find the road blocked by the human chain of old folks.

Momentarily stopped and not knowing what to do, one of the police officers called for additional help from the State Police in the form of a “Jaws of Life” tool. The message was mistaken for an emergency call. Headquarters sent several sets of first responders to the scene.  This caught the attention of the reporters at the scene, who started calling in their stories. Suddenly, this was no longer simply a local interest item. It was news.

Television crews captured pictures of the State Police using the “Jaws of Life” to cut the chain between the senior citizens and ordering them to leave the bridge. When they refused, the Police started carrying them off the bridge. One particular picture made the national news. A small, feisty 87-year-old lady is picked up by a burly police man, who carts her off. She was yelling, screaming and kicking. This made a great feature on all the national news shows, “State Police officer picks on frail 87-year-old woman.”

With the bridge finally open the DOE and State Police thought their passage to the site was unobstructed. To make sure, they sent a scout on ahead to check the road. When the scout reported back that the road was clear, the motorcade started on their way again. However, the protesters were not done.

Down the road several miles from the bridge around a sharp curve, the road passes through a valley created by two steep hills. In early April, Allegany County usually still has snow on the ground. In the winter of 1989-1990, there was a particularly heavy snow fall. The two hills on either side of the road were loaded with loose snow. The locals knew how to take advantage of this. After the police scout had passed the valley and the motorcade started toward its destination, the protesters jumped into action again.

At the top of the hills, they made large balls of snow, and rolled them down the slopes, creating huge balls of snow that completely blocked the road. When the motorcade rounded the curve and saw the road blocked, the State Police called in snow plows to clear the road. Since the television crews were still in the area, they began filming again. This event also made the national evening news shows. By the time the motorcade finally reached the proposed dump site, the DOE officials were exasperated with the whole mess.

This was the final straw. The DOE decided it had to find another site for the dump. When the DOE announced this, the Allegany folks claimed victory . However, the locals took no chances. For more than a year, there were signs everywhere in Allegany County that said, “Allegany — No Dump” or “Bump the Dump.”

I remember driving through Allegany County, during the Easter weekend of 1991, a whole year later. There were still “Allegany — No Dump” signs on lawns.

My next NIMBY post is entitled What Makes a Better Neighbor, a Prison or a University? The answer given by some people may be surprising. The rationales for their answers may be even more surprising.

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Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

Before I focus on the NIMBY scenario in which the United States Department of Energy and the residents of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, faced off against the State of Tennessee, I would like to provide a little background on the title Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch.

I was surprised to find that this quip is approximately 700 years old. It can be traced to a 14th century French, oral fable about a milk maid on her way to the market. In this tale, the young girl is day dreaming about what she’s going to do with the eggs she’s planning on buying with the money she’ll receive when she sells the milk in her pail. Unfortunately, she is paying more attention to her day dream than where she is walking. She trips and spills the pail of milk. Since she has nothing to sell, she runs home. She falls into her mother’s arms out of breath. Her eyes and cheeks are red from her crocodile  tears. Her mother tries to calm her down and find out what’s wrong. The young maid finally composes herself and blurts out the whole story. At this point, there are two possible morals to this fable. In the first one, a consoling mother says, “Be more careful, and pay attention to what you’re doing. However, when there is an accident, there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk.” In the other, an angry mother says harshly, “Pay attention to the task at hand! Confine your thoughts to what is real.”

Although the phrase “Do not count your chickens before they hatch.” has been around for approximately three-quarters of a millennium, there are variants of the story with similar morals that are almost three millennia old.  One Indian version is from the Panchatantra, a set of Sanskrit parables for children, from the 2nd century B.C. It is the story “The Brahman Who Built Air-Castles.” It is about a poor man with a wife and child who are given a jar of grain. The three get so excited about planting the grain, reaping a large harvest, and then reinvesting the gains in animals and more grain. In their imagination, they go through numerous cycles until they are very rich and have built imaginary castles. The child is jumping all around playing in their new imaginary home. The father yells at the mother to calm the child down. When the mother doesn’t follow the father’s instruction, he takes a real stick and begins to beat the child who starts running away from the father. The child in all the excitement runs into the real jar of grain, breaking it. This spills the grain all over the ground outside their real hut where chickens and wild birds begin to gather and eat the grain.

A similar Jewish fable from an earlier period of time is called “The Dervish and the Honey Jar.” In this story, a poor man begs for handouts of honey at the Jewish temple and market every day. When he finally has a full pot of honey, he is so excited, he puts the jar next to his bed so no one can steal it. HIs excitement carries over into his sleep. He dreams of what he is going to buy with the proceeds from selling the honey. In his sleep, he dreams robbers try to steal his newly acquired wealth, so he tries to fight them away with his staff. In swinging the staff around in his sleep, he breaks the honey jar spilling the honey all over his dirty floor. When he hears the jar break, he jumps up quickly and walks through the honey on the floor mixing more dirt with the honey.

What do these fables have to do with the confrontation between the Department of Energy,and the State of Tennessee? As noted in a previous post, the DOE had already built a nuclear lab and power plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. With every nuclear lab and power plant, there are nuclear waste products which must be disposed of properly. The cornerstone of the economy of Oak Ridge was the atom. The majority of the residents of Oak Ridge dealt with nuclear materials every day. They knew the dangers and the precautions that had to be taken to handle such materials safely. The residents of Oak Ridge were perfectly comfortable with having a nuclear waste dump in their neighborhood.

The DOE expected the approval process to build a waste dump in the Oak Ridge area to be a walk in the park. However, the DOE didn’t count on the resistance from the remainder of the state of Tennessee. This resistance came primarily from three sources and came in three forms.

The first source was a very broad segment of the State’s business community. Arguably, the biggest economic player in Tennessee is the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA is a federally owned corporation created in 1933 to provide  flood control, navigation, land management and electric power for the Tennessee River system and the surrounding region. Since its inception, the TVA has been extremely successful in doing that job.  As a result of those successes, farming, recreation and the sale of electricity became three of the most profitable industries in the region. The coalition of these three industries didn’t want anything upsetting their apple cart. The possibility of nuclear power became a threat to the goose that was laying golden eggs for them.

The second source was the general population of the rest of the state of Tennessee. Since so little was known about nuclear dangers, it was easy for opponents to raise fears in the uninformed. Protests against nuclear power, laboratories and waste dumps were held in all parts of the state. Residents cried for their local officials to protect them from the nuclear dangers and the DOE which they saw as an encroaching enemy. These cries were not unheard in the halls of the state government, which lead to the third source of resistance.

The third source was the state governmental complex. When the federal government established the Oak Ridge laboratory and power plant, it did not involve officials from the State very much at all. It used its federal clout to “just do it.” This affront turned off the members of the executive and legislative branches of the state government. They were angry and suspicious of the federal government, particularly the DOE.  They were also afraid of their local constituents who were demanding action and protection. This resulted in a number of laws which greatly restricted the placement of nuclear facilities and the movement across the state of nuclear material. Not only did local governments have to approve such placements or movements, the State Legislature had to formally approve any new facilities and movement of nuclear material anywhere within the state.

When the proposal for a nuclear waste dump in Oak Ridge became public, the Tennessee State Legislature quickly passed a resolution prohibiting the establishment of such a facility. The DOE attempts to appease the legislature were met with complete contempt and rejection. When the DOE attempted to bypass the state and proceed with their plans, the State of Tennessee took legal action against the DOE. This road block complicated the DOE’s plans greatly. The DOE lost the first round of the battle in Tennessee courts, but eventually won the war in federal courts. However, this victory was costly. The delays cost years and millions of dollars. In addition, many residents of Tennessee are still suspicious of the federal government and fight it over very minor matters that have nothing to do with nuclear material.  

So one would have thought that the DOE learned its lesson about the reaction of local residents to their plans about nuclear plants and waste facilities. The DOE was still counting its chickens before they hatched when they went to locate a nuclear waste dump in Allegany County in New York. I relate that story in my next posting, Never Underestimate a Group of Angry Senior Citizens.

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Facing Down the NIMBY Dragon with Humor and Scriptures

Although most NIMBY situations are very serious affairs to the local communities involved, individuals outside of the fray can often find humor in the midst of the tension and fiery passions of the antagonists. My next four posts are NIMBY scenarios with some of their humorous aspects front and center. I have tried to be humorous or witty even in the titles of the posts. The first two posts present real NIMBY scenarios with which Inhaber deals in his book, Slaying the NIMBY Dragon.  The second two posts concern NIMBY situations which are not real, but are realistic enough to sound real. I did not originate these two scenarios. I have done an exhaustive search for the originators. However, my searches have come up empty. If someone knows from where these scenarios came, please let me know so that I can give credit or blame to whom it is deserved.

I know full well that humor is not always the most appropriate way in which to deal with problems. Therefore I will end my series on NIMBY situations with several posts that look at NIMBY through the lenses of scripture and faith. What do scriptures say about the NIMBY attitude? Is it ever justified to invoke a NIMBY approach?

My first humorous NIMBY post is entitled: Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch. It concerns the State of Tennessee against the United States Department of Energy over a low-level nuclear waste dump to be sited near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oak Ridge was already the site of a nuclear laboratory and a nuclear power plant. The whole economy of the Oak Ridge region was built on nuclear science. The overwhelming majority of the residents of the Oak Ridge area were in favor of placing a nuclear waste dump in their town. Where did the Department of Energy hit a snag?

My second humorous NIMBY post is entitled: Never Underestimate a Group of Irate Senior Citizens. It deals again with the United State Department of Energy attempting to build another nuclear waste dump. This time the proposed dump is in Allegany County, New York, a very rural area, that had few populated areas. It seemed perfect for a nuclear dump. The DOE did all their homework. There were no geological problems which which they needed to be concerned. The land was only farm land and therefore should be cheap to acquire. What went wrong?

My third humorous NIMBY post is entitled: What Makes a Better Neighbor, a Prison or a University? The seed for this post was planted many years ago during a dinner conversation at an academic conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I don’t remember the names of the participants. However, I know one was an individual from a New Mexican institution. Another attendee at the table made the observation that there were no four-year state colleges or universities in Sante Fe, the capital of New Mexico. The person from New Mexico chuckled and said that this was an ongoing debate in the state that degenerated into a very biting joke. The joke was: “Why did Albuquerque get the state university and Santa Fe the prison? The answer: Santa Fe got first pick.” In this post I will dissect the advantages and disadvantages of both prisons and universities as neighbors.   

My fourth and final humorous NIMBY post is entitled: Which Would You Find More Acceptable in Your Back Yard, a Toxic Waste Dump or a Murder of Crows? I know many of my readers are saying “Who would want a toxic waste dump in their back yard?’ Many are also saying “Who cares about crows anyway?” This question turns on a play on words in the phrase, “a murder of crows.” The scientific term for a group of crows is “flock.” However, the literary or poetic term for a large group of crows is a “murder.”  But the play on words doesn’t end there. The word “crow” is a derogatory word for a lawyer. The seed for this post was planted by a joke on a late night television show just after the super fund toxic waste dumps were identified. The joke started out with the comedian reminding people that New Jersey had the most super fund toxic waste sites. He then continued by pointing out that the District of Columbia had the highest concentration of lawyers anywhere in the United States. He concluded the joke by asking, “How come New Jersey has the largest number of toxic waste dumps and Washington has the highest concentration of lawyers? Obviously, New Jersey got first pick.” In this post I will analyze why New Jersey leads the nation in toxic waste dumps while Washington leads the nation in lawyers.

Although laughing at the foibles and silliness of others may make us momentarily feel good, it is ultimately not the best solution. Not every problem can or should be solved with humor. Sometimes we must be serious, and go back to the foundational values of our culture. Christians are suppose to turn to Scriptures to find their values. God’s Word should be the basis for our actions. There are three passages of Scriptures that jump out at me in terms of talking about how we should treat our neighbors, and who are our neighbors. I will divide these lessons into three posts.

The first post will deal with the familiar parable of the good Samaritan. The second post will consider another of Christ’s lesson about how we should treat the poor and unlovely. The third post considers the passage about the two Great Commandments.

My final post on the teaching of Scriptures concerning NIMBY situation examines the question, “Are NIMBY and Scriptures completely incompatible?”  Is it ever okay to stand up and say, “Not in My Back Yard”? We will look at a couple of Old Testament examples and a very prominent one from the New Testament involving Christ’s actions in the Temple.

 

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Slaying the NIMBY Dragon

NIMBY is the well-known acronym for “Not In My Back Yard.” Whenever a community faces potentially controversial land use issues, it is common for the NIMBY dragon to rear its ugly head. When it does, it typically divides the community into seemingly irreconcilable sides. Former friends can become fierce combatants. It can pit neighbor against neighbor. It can involve many of the residents of a community facing off against their duly elected or appointed community officials. Discussions can degenerate into outright fights. NIMBY confrontations can be very ugly.

This past spring and summer there were three South-central Pennsylvania events and one national  event that just screamed NIMBY to me. The national event hit the television on July 1 and 2, 2014, just before the Independence Day Holiday. Every television news program was carrying pictures of the residents of Murrieta, California, blocking the main street of their city yelling “Not in Murrieta!” What did the residents find so upsetting? They were trying to stop buses carrying illegal immigrant detainees before they reached a Border Patrol station in their Riverside County city.

The first local event was a battle that began in Lancaster County in February, 2014. In April, the battleground switched to Lebanon County. The battle was over the placement of a proposed natural gas pipeline through the two counties. The pipeline was to be part of the 178-mile Atlantic Sunrise pipeline. This pipeline would bring natural gas from Marcellus shale regions to markets up and down the east coast. One of the Lebanon county leaders of the pipeline opponents was quoted as saying “What’s happening in Pennsylvania is revolutionary…This initial pipeline is a harbinger of things to come. In ten to 15 years, the area will be honeycombed with pipelines.”

In mid July, a story from Fort Indiantown Gap created a major stir around South-Central Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veteran Affairs announced that it wanted to purchase 220 acres of land on the north slope of Blue Mountain, adjacent to the National Guard Training Camp to expand a safety buffer for a firing range at the base of the south slope of Blue Mountain. The owners of the 17 parcels have all received letters that offered negotiated purchases. If the owners choose not to negotiate, the DMVA said it was prepared to use eminent domain to force the sale of the land, if necessary.  Many local residents have expressed fears of what the next expansion of the camp would entail.

The fourth story returns to the problem of illegal immigrants. On August 7, 2014, a chartered flight landed at the Harrisburg International Airport. It parked on the tarmac, far away from the terminal. An access stairway was rolled out to the plane. A number of Hispanic children, most of whom appeared to be teens, got off the plane with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents They all got into vans and drove away. The passengers, including the ICE agents talked to no one on the ground. HIA officials said they didn’t know anything about the purpose of the chartered flight. ICE wouldn’t confirm or deny what they were doing.  A local politician, Lou Barietta, issued a statement saying, “I believe that each community and each state should be notified at least 30 days prior to any individual being sent…to our area.”

I began looking for anything that I could read about the NIMBY problem. One of the first books that I found was Slaying the NIMBY Dragon by Herbert Inhaber. It turned out to be a winner. It is a must read for everyone involved in controversial land use issues. Inhaber, a risk analyst by training, has the unique gift of being able to speak to all parties involved, whether they are community activists, elected or appointed officials, or just concerned citizens. Inhaber offers an unusual even-handed analysis of both sides of the issue. He then offers a simple, understandable approach to solving an intractable problem. No matter on what side of a siting issue a person sits, this book provides helpful information and strategies. 

Inhaber is a number-crunching technologist who speaks the language of scientists and industrialists. However, he also understands the emotional side of these intense, flammable issues. He can speak on a personal level to non-techies.

In Slaying the NIMBY Dragon, Inhaber draws on the historical record of a number of high profile NIMBY cases. He then offers a surprisingly simple solution for communities to climb out of the quagmires that surround NIMBY cases. It is called a “Reverse Dutch Auction.” In such an auction, the role of the buyer and seller are partially reversed. For a siting opportunity, the siting price begins at an opening offer. The price rises at fixed intervals until a reserved price is reached, or a location accepts a bid for the siting opportunity.

In effect, this siting process plays to two diametrically opposite ideals. The first ideal is a sense of altruism, the sense of common well-being, or putting the common good over one’s own self interests. Everyone knows that the object or function to be sited needs to be somewhere. The question is, “Where do we put it?” To slay the dragon, someone comes forward and says, “I’m willing to accept it for the common welfare of the whole community.” The second ideal, which is in direct conflict with altruism, is the seemingly selfish attitude of “Show me the money!” People are asking, “How much money or other benefits can I get for accepting the right to place the questionable object or function in my back yard?” Many times the price will go high enough for someone to cave in and say, “For that price, I’m willing to place the dragon in my backyard.”

I find myself concurring with Inhaber. The process of a Reverse Dutch Auction can often provide a site for a project that has already been determined to be in the ultimate good for the larger community. However, the question of the ultimate good for the larger community must be answered at a different level. It must be debated at the most comprehensive, applicable level. For example, the energy needs of the nation are not an item to be debated at the local level. Once the larger question is answered, local communities must debate whether they will help with a geographic solution, or are they willing to help to pay to site the solution elsewhere. Inhaber’s book does not really address the first part of this issue. It only deals with the second part, the local aspect of the issue.

The contents of Slaying the NIMBY Dragon include the following chapters:

1.  A NIMBY Overview: How it prevented the Establishment of Needed Facilties

2.  A Personal Story: How I Went from Nerdism to Devising Siting Solutions

3.  What Doesn’t Work in Siting Unwanted Facilities

4.  What Can Work – The Reverse Dutch Auction Slays the NIMBY Dragon

5.  What the NIMBY Literature Tells Us

6.  Perception and Psychology of Unwelcome Guests

7.  Economics of Auctions

8.  Compensation and Its Relation to Auctions

9.  Some Examples of How Dollars and the Environment Can Be Compatible

10. The Rich and the Poor: Will an Auction System Discriminate against the Latter?

11. The Reverse Dutch Auction Offers an Exit from the Maze

In my next post, Facing Down the NIMBY Dragon with Humor, I turn to humor to present four NIMBY situations. The first two of the scenarios are real and mentioned in Inhaber’s book. The other two situations are not real. However, they are based in realty. They sound as if they could be real, and hence they make great material for politicians and stand-up comics.