DILUTION MAY BE THE "SOLUTION" TO POLLUTION BUT LEAKAGE & HORSE MANURE WORKS EVEN BETTER

Pretend that hydraulic containment is the panacea. Pretend that the cheapest, least expensive solutions are also the best. Hire the most credentialed experts and consultants to peddle your mish mash of wishful thinking, junk science and self-serving conclusions. Then add to the mix uneducated, unsophisticated, ignorant, small town wannabies who want to be big shots but secretly know in their hearts just how unqualified they are for the job. The job of municipal councillors that is. At best what most of them are is actors and actresses who know how to pretend. Pretend to care, pretend to understand, pretend to be nuetral and unbiased and finally pretend to act in the public interest. Most of them are simply too uninformed to have a clue what the public interest really is. They therefore are extremely receptive to the real bigshots around town who are informed, knowledgable, wealthy, powerful and influential.

Our local politicians, in general, want to emulate them. Therefore they give them much to much credit for their opinions and advice. You'll notice I haven't said that the real local big shots give a whit for the public interest. They know what it is but it is often in conflict with their private interests. Afterall that's what successful entrepreneurs and businessmen excel at, namely conflating their interests with the public interest. That is how they get the zoning they want. That is how they get government grants. That is how they peddle their "trickle down" theory of economics.

Thus our local politicians suck up to these powerful people. Even if the politicians know they are being manipulated, most don't care. These big shots are both donors and fund raisers towards election campaigns. Other equally ignorant people listen to their opinions no matter how biased and self-serving. Newspapers quote them and politicians further up the provincial or federal foodchain want to be seen with them at media events. It's all a self-realizing, self-fulfilling prophecy whereby sincere voices of the people interested in the public interest are drowned out by all the background noise. And our people and our society suffers for the benefit of the few as it's always been regardless of the name of the type of government.

Polluters are rich, powerful, influential but generally disgusting human beings. Apparently the first three characteristics overpower the last one.