Tag: sewage

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Bleaching the Bay

In economics, it’s called an “unintended effect”; in pharmacology, a “side effect.” In plumbing, it’s one heckuva stink.

Yes, it’s time again for a perennial Common Sense subject: Government messing around in our toilets.

The push to “save water” gushed into a number of proposals over the years, the closest-​to-​consumer one being the many government edicts demanding that toilets use less water. 

Governments can make a regulation and process lawbreakers. But they can’t change the laws of liquid dynamics. Federal legislation for smaller-​reservoir toilets yielded a generation of poorly flushing toilets — demanding double flushing to get solids down. It took years for inventive engineers and entrepreneurs to redesign toilets so that they could actually do their job right.

But Congress’s intrusion into your bathroom wasn’t enough for busybodies in San Francisco. They had to go further, with low-​flow toilets that used even less water.

The consequence has now become pretty obvious: Too little water in the public sewage system, leading to slow-​moving masses of ugh, clogging pipes, and, well stench.

San Francisco has proved that “well-​intended” government regulation into our bathrooms quite literally stinks.

Frisco sewerage officials have stocked up on $14 million worth of bleach to “act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city’s water before it’s dumped into the bay.” Environmentalists are predictably and, well, understandably concerned. 

What begins as an environmental concern ends as an environmental disaster.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders political challengers

The Accidental Citizen Legislator

Humor writer. Mom. And politician?

That third item wasn’t in Susan Konig’s life plan. But six years ago, her fellow residents of Westchester County, New York, were having trouble with a local waste company. Susan wondered what she could do about it. Someone suggested she run for office.

But she wasn’t a politician, just a writer — and not even a political writer. And where was she going to find the time?

Still, Susan agreed to give it some thought. Then she got pregnant with her fourth child and stopped giving it thought. Then sewage backed up into her house. Twice. So she ran for the board of trustees as a Republican in a dominantly Democratic town, and won. She worked to curb taxes and spending. She got rid of the irresponsible waste company.

She narrowly lost re-​election. After agreeing to run at the country level, she narrowly lost to a Democratic incumbent who had won by a large margin in his previous race.

Susan Konig doesn’t see either electoral loss as a tragedy, given the cage-​rattling she accomplished. She learned that a great many people in both parties are sick of runaway taxes and spending. She also learned that even where political establishments are corrupt and calcified, opportunities remain for citizen legislators to do something about it. 

Of course, she learned that lesson by proving it, herself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.