Yes on Question 2

Do you favor a $7,000,000 bond issue for the following purposes: (1) $3,350,000 to construct water pollution control facilities, providing the state match for $10,000,000 in federal funds; (2) $1,000,000 to protect the public health and safety and the environment by providing funds for the cleanup of tire stockpiles; (3) $1,150,000 to investigate, abate, clean up and mitigate threats to the public health and the environment from hazardous substance discharges, and; (4) $1,500,000 to construct drinking water system improvements that address public health threats, providing the state match for $7,100,000 in federal funds?

Another election, another lengthy bond request for environmental cleanup, another reminder that it is often more cost-effective to prevent pollution rather than try to clean it up later. Too late to think about that last point now, however, because Maine’s aging and substandard water-treatment plants, its mountains of tires and sites contaminated with hazardous waste already exist, making the $7 million requested in this bond a small downpayment against pollution statewide.

The money, if history is a guide, will be well-spent. Voters have approved bond issues year after year to allow the state, mostly through the Department of Environmental Protection, to reimburse communities for landfill closure, to upgrade water-treatment systems and to clean up after defunct companies that were less than careful about where and how they stored hazardous waste.

In this year’s proposal, nearly half the money would go toward construction or improvement of waste-water treatment facilities. The $3.35 million set aside for these projects, unfortunately, only begins to pay for the upgrade because many of the facilities, built during the first wave of Clean Water laws in the 1970s, are beginning to crumble. The DEP estimates that it will need $29 million over the next five years to help these projects.

Similarly, removing tire piles, worth $1 million this time, is expected to cost a total of $30 million through fiscal year 2004. The cleanup and shredding of the millions of remaining tires is necessary, however, because they are significant fire hazards and threaten public safety, air quality and groundwater.

There is equal reason to spend the $1.15 million on hazardous waste spills, which threaten groundwater and render sites unusable. The drinking-water money, under the direction fo the Department of Human Services, would go to a revolving loan fund to help communities meet rules in the Safe Drinking Water Act. Voters properly have supported the fund for many years.

But to prove the investments in environmental repairs aren’t endless, the DEP estimates that it will soon complete landfill closures and its overboard discharge program, two perennial bond requests. So there is good news on the environmental horizon. Now if Maine could only get people to stop finding new ways to pollute.