LEAKING PCBS A REAL CONCERN
Fairfax County, Virginia firefighters responded to a fire involving two electrical capacitors filled with fluid containing PCBs. The building was evacuated and ordered closed until the hazard could be checked. Fifty-one firefighters and civilians were decontaminated.
The General Services Administration (GSA), which leases the building occupied by units of the Department of Commerce, announced that it found no evidence of PCB leakage or smoke-spread contamination.
A Commerce Department spokesperson, asked whether the Fairfax County Fire Department had overreacted to the PCB scare, replied, “Perhaps there was an overhealthy sense of cautiousness.”
The Fairfax County Fire Department is headed by Warren Isman, a nationally recognized authority on hazardous materials. It’s about time fire departments challenged public officials who make asinine statements with the simple question: “Could you qualify to give an opinion on this subject as an expert in any court?”
It has been said that an ambassador is a person sent abroad to lie for the f good of his country. My lifetime of experience with the U.S. government has taught me that a government “spokesperson” is an ambassador for his/her agency.
“Divert attention from the hazard, make the locals look like yokels” is one technique that falls short of lying but is sometimes more effective. In logic, this is known as an “argumentum ad hominem”—avoid the substantive issue; attack the person.
Had the incident resulted in serious contamination, as happened 10 years ago in a New York State office building that is still closed and suffered a loss of S20 million, the tune would have been different but the motif would be the same.
Some years ago when the Washington, D.C. Fire Department discovered leaking PCBs in the Smithsonian Institute, the attitude of the Smithsonian management was: “How dare the fire department inspect us?” Government agencies sometimes confuse themselves with foreign embassies, which have extraterritorial rights.