More off-the-cuff remarks on the environmental profession's inability to deal with the media ­ given at the Consulting Engineers of Ontario's annual conference May 13, in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The engineering profession, with some notable exceptions, has not dealt with the news media very well. Journalists love anecdotal articles which, for example, might link a child's rash with the opening of a new factory. No engineer or scientist would dare to base evaluations on such evidence which is anathema to scientific research. The two methodologies are dramatically opposed. Yet anecdotal introductions are now the very feedstock of contemporary journalism.

Environmental professionals have a poor record in dealing with the news media. One organization's media office reminded me of the old Maytag commercials where the repairman was "the loneliest guy in town". The room looked more appropriate for a monastic retreat than a room dedicated to extrovert, deadline-driven media types.

The cost of the engineer's voice being muted during public policy debates costs society hundreds of millions.

Personally, I have usually been generously treated at environmental meetings. One amusing exception comes to mind. I was invited to cover a conference in Ontario's Muskoka region. The invitation invited me to do photo coverage but pointedly stressed the invitation did not include lunch! As I did not fancy sitting in a corridor eating snacks from a vending machine while the engineering aristocrats dined inside, I declined the invitation. So their wise words were lost to posterity. As a comparison, if a toilet gets blocked at the Odeon Cinema, would you charge the plumber eight bucks to get inside the building to fix it?

When reporters seek data for drinking water or pollution stories, they seldom approach environmental professionals ­ the real experts licenced by law to address these issues. Instead, the media approach Greenpeace, Pollution Probe, or other groups who enthusiastically and expertly collaborate with the media. It is interesting to note that some protesters would be forbidden by law to design or operate the treatment plants they so readily pontificate about ­ yet politicians often give their views credence.

This is a tragic issue really, but not without its farcical side. One activist ­ while debating zero pollution targets ­ was told his proposals were against the laws of organic chemistry. Unabashed, he said that this law must be changed. I am still not sure if he was displaying brilliant repartee or a profound ignorance of analytical science.

In another case, someone was trying to explain how rapidly our northern tree line could advance during a warm season. He wrote that "a sexually active tree might move as much as a hundred metres in a single season". Perhaps the tree in question was running from an active dog, probably one sexually aroused by the bark.

The costs of the engineer's voice being muted at public policy debates can be calculated in the hundreds of millions. There are many examples. Cement companies could have harnessed the thermal power in PCB wastes using high temperature rotary kilns while actually making cement ­ saving millions. Rigorous tests under scientific methodologies had proved that the kilns were an almost perfect solution to PCB waste disposal. Cement kilns could also dispose of other waste chlorinated hydrocarbons as well as waste tires. The project to use cement kilns this way was abandoned after heated protests. Instead, imported coal was used which is both expensive and dirty.

Then there was the Ontario Waste Management Corporation which spent 140 million dollars over a 14 year period ­ yet did not manage to treat a cupful of PCB wastes. Ironically, the OWMC also proposed to use a rotary kiln to burn the PCBs. No one seemed to notice that the proposed kiln would incinerate the wastes without making cement. OWMC was begun under the Bill Davis conservatives, continued under the David Peterson liberals, and saw the first rumblings of discontent under Bob Rae's NDP government. It was finally abandoned in the early days of the Mike Harris government. The OWMC outlasted three successive governments without treating any wastes.

Ruth Grier, when NDP Environment Minister in the Bob Rae government, created the Interim Waste Authority to deal with Toronto's garbage. After spending $85 million (plus another $15 million spent by municipalities opposing the move), the project was cancelled and Ruth was reshuffled to become Minister of Health. I dedicated a headline to mark her passing from the environment ministry to the health folio: Red Queen seeks solace in Blunderland. (The five cities and one borough which comprised Metro-Toronto, were amalgamated in 1998 into a single city ­ Toronto.)

Ruth Grier in effect, had dictated that Toronto must look after its own garbage. Incineration was not even to be considered; but then we should note, primitive cultures have often been afraid of fire.

Almost all of the potential sites examined by the Interim Waste Authority were actually outside the former Metro Toronto borders. This made a mockery of the idea that municipalities must look after their own garbage.

Large volumes of goods such as food, clothes, timber, furniture, and textiles flow into Canada's richest city from all over the world by road, air and rail. In the IWA plan, Toronto was supposed to ingest these huge volumes then somehow, in the medical sense, develop the means to evacuate the residuals within its own boundaries. Some of the sites considered, inadvertently would have placed landfills among some of the most fertile areas of Canada, outside Toronto.

The ministry also ruled out a proposal to ship Toronto's garbage north by rail, where the worked-out Adams mine was deemed environmentally suitable as a repository for Toronto's garbage.

Had the proposal been implemented, huge amounts of garbage could have been transported by rail instead of hundreds of heavy diesel trucks criss-crossing Toronto, before travelling across some of the most scenic farmland in Canada surrounding the metropolis.

The ruling that municipalities must look after their own garbage made no sense. Clearly there was little opportunity for garbage disposal in Toronto.

It has been estimated by the Canadian Water & Wastewater Association that $65 billion will be needed simply to repair and maintain our current infrastructure. But the madness continues as we head toward the millennium. While our water and wastewater infrastructure is crumbling, federal and provincial energies and monies are focussed on trivialities. There appears to be no end in sight. The madness has continued since my address to the consulting engineers conference.

In Regina, June 5, 1998, Federal Environment Minister Christine Stewart called for Canadians to come together under the banner of the Millennium Eco-Communities Initiative to help set and achieve results on priority environmental issues. The community efforts would focus on goals of clean air, clean water, a legacy of a healthy natural environment and action on climate change, complementing federal environmental activities already underway. Her 'feel good' approach was more redolent of Martha Stewart, TV's queen of gracious living.

Minister Stewart said the Internet will be the hub of Environment Canada's Millennium Eco-Communities Initiative. The web site will feature an honour roll of communities that set environmental targets and make significant achievements. It will provide a tool kit of information on environmental issues and allow participating communities to report. Ideally, this should be followed up by a TV show called Name that Toxin.

Tougher regulations, not the internet, would really clean up the environment. If leaking watermains and sewers were as visible as potholes, there would be no need for the environmental internet.

Will these participating communities ever understand they were built atop a crumbling water and wastewater infrastructure which was installed before Bill Gates was even a viable fetus? Despite a $65 billion backlog in water and sewer rehab work alone, remedial work on our treatment plants and infrastructure has actually slowed down as we approach the millennium.

It takes the expertise of engineers, chemists and scientists to design and construct treatment facilities. Instead, the Federal Environment Minister hopes to make us feel good through what is in effect, a giant electronic video game, as we march towards the millennium over an already creaking, leaking infrastructure that is rapidly deteriorating.