“Historic landmark vs. the EPA”

Knute Berger is one of our favorite writers. A reliable and incisive Pacific Northwest voice in the Emmet Watson tradition, we frequently link to his stories since we’ve followed his work for years, from the Seattle Weekly to Crosscut . Yes, you could describe Mossback as an inspiration for DTE, especially when he takes on growth. (We also recently discovered his sister wrote a children’s book from our toddler days, “Grandfather Twilight.” Everybody altogether now: Aww. Coincidentally, we just finished Berger’s “Pugetopolis.” ) So there was a funny jumping off the couch moment at DTE headquarters when perusing Crosscut: He mentioned our series on a waste repository near Cataldo Mission. Oh the weird and wonderful blogoshpere.

In a post titled “Historic landmark vs. the EPA,” Berger argues government is more often the problem when it comes to analyzing historic sites: “Few people like state, federal, or for that matter private sector, bureaucracy. But the rules and process for consideration of heritage and cultural issues are well known. Yet in the realm of preservation, public agencies often steamroller history as a mere inconvenience. The public sector is supposed to be, by law, a paragon of heritage sensitivity, but, for many regulators apparently, only when it suits.”

On Thin Air Radio last week, co-host Mike Petersen asked us why regulatory agencies occasionally do more damage than good, like our doomed wastewater plant on the Spokane River and regional inconsistencies with the Federal Clean Water Act . There’s no easy answer. But in the case of the Eastern Mission Flats Repository , the EPA simply saw the location as convenient to the I-90 freeway and Canyon Road for dumping mine waste, completely oblivious to the fact that Cataldo Mission was within view. As we mentioned before, construction is currently underway even though the EPA Inspector General said the site was flawed, located in an inconvenient floodplain. For the last two years, when EMF comes up in conversation, people laugh in disbelief at the situation but the running joke is running dry.