Editorial Comment by Tom Davey
The United States of America has an astonishing diversity of mountains, lakes, rivers and deserts. In a single day, one can drive through the snowbound northern states to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Another day's drive reveals lush palm trees and vivid blue ocean at the beaches of the Carolinas, Georgia or Florida. Diversity par excellence.
But now a deadening sameness is creeping throughout US interstate highways as signage proclaims a soulless chant of low, low prices Sale, sale, sale Save, save, save. Factory outlets, sprouting up like rectangular weeds at intersections, take up the pallid visual assault proclaiming low prices and sales, like some fiscal tribal rites. Under the stars, as the intersections flash by, it seems like some giant relay race is taking place with a celestial baton of mediocrity passed on from town to town. Indeed, an alien Mr. Spock, sighting these flashing signs across North America, might logically presume they were the scriptures of a widespread religious sect.
The emphasis on saving money is so great that copywriters frequently forget to name the manufacturer of the product. Burgers 99 cents, screams one sign while a few miles down the road, another sign screeches triumphantly: 89 cent burgers. But even in the land of Thomas Jefferson, not all burgers are created equal. What about cleanliness, hygiene, and service? Long orphaned from these frenzied sales pitches are the words: quality, durability and reputation, once the trinity of commerce.
There was a time when the very first adjective on new storefronts was quality, usually positioned right after the owner's name. As a boy, wandering around the main street of my hometown in England, I recall seeing the word quality preceding a wide range of goods and services. Whether the stores were selling meat, fish, game, poultry, footwear, hardware or clothing, invariably, the vendors stressed the quality in products.
But in our frenzy to save at any cost, two words quality and value have been devalued by a marketing ethos which deems that saving money is a much more attractive option to consumers than the actual value of goods or services.
On a recent trip through the US, I read Robin Cook's book Toxin. Dr. Cook, author of Coma and other novels, is an MD who mixes scientific reality with his fiction. Toxin is a fictitious story of how meat can cause death or serious illness if contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 and not cooked thoroughly. Properly butchered, aged and inspected meat is quite safe and I still enjoy burgers in restaurants with a reputation for quality and hygiene. But Toxin posited a horrifying scenario in which carcasses are processed in dubious packing plants while government inspectors looked the other way. After reading this book, I wondered if the focus on low prices had even detracted buyers from the realities of quality .
It is ironic that we must go from literature to Tinseltown to get some economic common sense. While Hollywood is synonymous with lavish film sets and astronomical salaries, there is one quote which should be inlaid in the entrances to council chambers: "Don't economise any more," pleaded Otto Preminger, "I can't afford it!" The famous director made his plea after being highly dissatisfied with the second-rate results of cost-cutting during filmmaking. Who would have thought that economic wisdom could emerge from Hollywood?
The environmental industry has been beset with the twin problems of protecting public health while catering to the low bid ethos. For consultants, manufacturers and laboratories, price has too often been the deciding factor. Yet the life cycle benefits of superior pumps, valves, and piping can last half a century, often more. Both in economics and treatment effectiveness, well designed environmental facilities can yield real savings for years. Amortize any savings from inferior engineering over a decade and savings, if any, are likely to be miniscule. Specify equipment on quality and you could get reliability as well as significant savings. Add innovative engineering and you could be saving millions.
It must be recorded that environmental professionals have usually been exemplary in protecting the public health. Wherever well engineered treatment facilities and infrastructure are in place, both death and disease rates are low. Where such skills and infrastructure are absent, the results are tragic, the death rates often surpassing the casualties of war. But back to economics. No wonder they call it the dismal science.
Assessing value
Analytical laboratories, some of which can find toxins at parts per quadrillion, are especially vulnerable to the low bid ethos. Their space age technology must be matched with stringent chains of custody and elaborate quality control systems. Over the last decade, many laboratories were started up in response to growing awareness of toxic real estate, biological impacts, and industrial effluents. Some labs were set up with the splendid premise of providing quality data that would be legally defensible.
Huge investments were made in anticipation of a genuine need for quality environmental data. However, some superbly staffed and equipped labs were repeatedly undercut by poorly equipped labs, with the contracts often going to the lowest bidder, rather than the best qualified. The result has been a triumph of price over quality.
Environmental labs and consulting engineers might tell clients to go to their video store to see a list of Otto Preminger's movies. None will be titled: The Low Bid Ethos. The basic script of low bidding does, however, contain all the ingredients for both tragedy and comedy.
Many of Tom Davey's editorials were compiled into a book, For Whom The Polls Tell. Readers who purchase a one-year subscription of Environmental Science & Engineering for $46.15 (includes GST) or $45 US, can get a free copy of this book. Two-year subscriptions are: $74.90 Cdn. or $70 US. We regret we can only accept orders from Canada and the United States.