What once might have looked like this…

…often ends up looking like this.

Via Twitter feed this morning, several people have linked to this article in the Vancouver Sun:

http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/jordan-river-salmon-wiped-out-by-copper-tailings

There are abandoned mine and petroleum drilling  sites that continue to dot the landscape and continue to do damage to the environment for decades or longer. This is a sad fact, but compounded by the increasing frequency of these disastrous incursions into the common living space. It would seem that there is rarely any serious and competent remediation that takes place, and the regulation of this phenomenon that does so much damage to what belongs to all of us doesn’t speak well for the people who are elected to look after the best interests of their constituents.

What is missing is a sense that those who broke it ought to be fixing it, and the power of the law should ensure that those who profited from mines and such should also figure in the costs of putting the land, sea, and air right before they move on to the next project. It appears that a set of moral values is not enough to see that this takes place, and, oddly, there seems not to be a process in law for bringing about the necessary remediation on the part of the perpetrators. This happens largely because of the laws regarding incorporation under which the law limits or absolves the miners (et al) of any downstream liability for the consequences of their actions. The standard line from the corporate sector is that these are externalities that have no business on the balance sheet, and that nothing would ever get done were the principal actors and shareholders held to account for ongoing damages.

Perhaps that is a message we ought to take more seriously: if a project can’t profitably be completely remediated, then the project isn’t profitable. Under current law, it is profitable, given that the wealth extracted goes to the principal actors and shareholders who are then allowed to walk away and leave the damages to the public. In the most dire cases, the corporation just declares bankruptcy and bids the whole affair adieu, or manages to gain a bail-out or subsidy of some kind from the government, again putting the commons in the bag for the consequences of private acts.

Dare we contemplate a slower, more broadly rewarding economy where no one escapes liability and accountability and where fewer of these projects happen without a complete plan for protection of the environment? Seems even the thought is beyond the powers now calling the shots, but perhaps as the consequences of fouling our nest become more apparent and unavoidable, a light will begin to shine, though probably too late to ensure a decent living space for all things great and small.