A front-page article in today's SDUT describes the bureaucratic process involved in holding water polluters accountable in California.  The case at hand is the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board's twenty-year effort to enforce the cleanup of an underground chemical plume in El Cajon. 

This week, the Board deferred consideration of a $2.3 million fine in the case, which involves the Ametek facility on Greenfield Drive.  Although no health problems have been linked directly to the spill, which contains chemicals such as tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene, it apparently threatens a municipal well in the El Cajon Valley.

Information in the article implicates both the Board and Ametek in the extraordinarily long delay.  The Board has been faulted for following a policy of cooperation, opting to work with Ametek instead of fining the company.   Ametek has been accused of "foot-dragging over the years with litigation and low-quality work."

The El Cajon case "hasn't been the water board's top priority because it hasn't contaminated existing wells," according to the article's paraphrase of remarks by John Robertus, the Board's executive officer.  Robertus described the Board's work process as "'a kind of ballet that we do on an annual basis.'"  The Board must "'decide . . . which (cases) we're going to work on and which ones we aren't'" because it does not have "'enough staffing to keep up with all'" the polluted sites in its jurisdiction.

A larger issue is the structure of California's water-pollution control system, "which consists of nine regional boards and a state panel."  According to Little Hoover Commission Chairman Daniel Hancock, "No one is holding regional boards truly accountable for protecting and improving water quality.  Regional boards, in turn, are overwhelmed by their tasks."

From a center-right perspective, this story is an illustration of the failure of government environmental regulation.  Undoubtedly, many California taxpayer dollars have been spent on water-pollution control system, which has not lived up to expectations.  Clearly there is a need for reform.

However, it is also an example of how businesses can unwittingly encourage the development of more extensive, intrusive, and expensive regulation when they choose not to face up to the responsibility of cleaning up their own messes.  This creates an opportunity for free-spending, big-government Democrats, in the ascendancy in both Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to advance their anti-business and pro-environmentalist agendas, while at the same time growing the regulatory bureaucracy.

There is a conservative alternative to state-enforced environmentalism.  It's called conservation, which was championed by President Theodore Roosevelt and endorsed by President Ronald Reagan, especially while he was California's Governor.  At its most basic, conservation involves judicious use of America's natural resources, with an eye towards preserving them for future generations.  In contrast to environmentalism, conservationism does not seek to bar citizens and businesses from entire areas of the nation on the grounds of environmental hazard.  It does not envision an extensive government regulatory apparatus.  It does require Americans to take responsibility for maintaining the nation's natural resources.

Unfortunately, environmental regulatory bureaucracies like California's water-control system cannot be reduced to their proper size and scope if those who seek the goal of limited government do not advocate and live by the principle of personal responsibility, a core value of the center-right.  Personal responsibility applies to corporate entities as well.  It should be exercised by their officers.  It's time for companies like Ametek to start cleaning up their messes expediently, on a voluntary basis, before the environmental Leviathan has a chance to grow larger.