By Francis P. Koster
For the Salisbury Post

Sen. Don East, Republican co-chair of a legislative budget committee (and retired police officer), wants the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources to be “a kinder, gentler agency … a help, not a hindrance to business and industry.” To that end he wants to cut their budget — kind of like cutting the sheriff’s budget during a crime wave in order to be “kinder and gentler.”
It is not smart to allow our society to be poisoned from outside or inside. Weakening these defenses sickens our children, our nation, increases spending on health care and harms the most vulnerable among us. It is, frankly, unwise and not in our nation’s best interests.
 Governor Perdue’s 2011-2012 budget totals roughly $20 billion, or $2,100 per citizen per year. The total state funding devoted to protecting our basic life support systems through the N.C. DENR budget is 5 cents a day per citizen. Really.
 And Senator East wants to cut it. 
Let’s take a quick look why a “kinder and gentler” environmental protection department is a bad idea. I will focus on water pollution, but a similar list could easily be published for air and food:
 • The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services recently estimated “at least 13,677 children per year” are born in North Carolina with blood mercury levels that place them at risk for lifelong learning disabilities, fine motor and attention deficits, and lowered IQ. Blood mercury is caused in part by burning coal without adequate pollution controls.
• Due to surface water pollution, pregnant women and children are currently advised not to eat the kinds of fish we all gloried in catching with our grandfathers. The very agency Mr. East wants to reduce funding for has investigated this problem and warns that in many parts of North Carolina eating black crappie, catfish, jack fish (chain pickerel), largemouth bass, warmouth and yellow perch can harm pregnant mothers, their fetuses and children of all ages. Perhaps the Right to Life supporters are feeling “kinder and gentler” on this issue? 
• At Camp Lajeune, for more than 30 years young pregnant military wives were exposed to chemicals known to cause birth defects, conveniently supplied to them through base well water. The chemicals also exist in wells in other areas but are not monitored for in North Carolina unless someone becomes suspicious — the same test that was applied at Camp Lajeune. The medical and human suffering cost to our military families is shameful.
 Approximately half of all N.C. citizens get their drinking water from wells. In 2006, Mr. East voted against an N.C. bill requiring that a newly drilled well be verified safe for human consumption. He lost that one — but his attitude explains why things like the Camp Lajeune contamination can occur. 
While it is a double disgrace that we mistreated our Marines and their families, this lack of vigilance is only the tip of a large nation- impacting iceberg. The problem is caused by the deliberate creation of chemicals designed to last a long time. Once used in homes, agriculture and industry, they get thrown away but don’t go away. They collect, concentrate and cause biological impacts in humans, most noticeable, but not limited to, the pre-born and new born. Monitoring these chemicals should be the job of the nations’ environmental cops — who either are not funded for the job or are outright forbidden to do it. This creates the problems we have today:
• Only 43 percent of the hundreds of chemicals produced in volumes of more than 1 million pounds per year have been tested for potential human toxicity, and only 7 percent have been studied for impacts on human development. Almost none are monitored for in either air or water.
• More than 140 contaminants with no enforceable safety limits are known to be found in the nation’s drinking water.
• While the U.S. government regulates the levels of pathogens in drinking water, there are no rules or regulations for pharmaceuticals or other compounds except one (the herbicide atrazine). So we have no idea what is happening to our water supply (and population) as the third of American women who take estrogen-based birth control flush the not-completely-used drug into the water supply. This may also explain why testosterone levels in American men have been documented to be falling for the last quarter century. Ever ask yourself why gender confusion seems to be rising in our society? (This may not raise too much anxiety; Prozac is also found in many water supplies.) 
 Environmental pollution is now linked to the rising number of birth defects involving the brain — autism and ADHD — as well as asthma and a host of other ailments – all of which raise unsustainable health care spending for our nation.
 And while the state of North Carolina’s public health budget of 5 cents per citizen per day is under threat from its own legislature, the U.S. House just passed a bill to reduce the EPA’s budget by a third.
Our air, water and food are our basic life support systems. They are in worse shape than most Americans realize. They need protection, and based on just a few examples outlined above, drawn from a much larger tragic public record, we need a stronger environmental sheriff’s department, not a “kinder, gentler” one. And we should not be trying to reduce the 5 cents a day we each give our environmental cops’ budget to keep our families safe.