Opinion: Who should bear the cost?

Feb 8, 2023

To the editor:

The recent effort to impose septic system upgrades by private property owners calls to mind a comparable situation whereby underdeveloped nations are being enlisted to participate in environmental and climate mitigation actions at their own expense.

For low income property owners the proposed regulations are devastatingly expensive and would be imposing upon them, who through no fault of their own, are being subjected to environmental regulations that mandate compliance with costly improvements or remediation.

In some ways, on a micro scale, this is similar to the pressure put upon newly developing countries that are being called upon to join the climate mitigating programs that are beyond their financial capability by more affluent industrialized countries that have caused the environmental crises.

And so too the property owners who may have to install newer more efficient septic systems to alleviate a water contamination that they did not cause is being enacted by legislators who, in most cases can bear the expense if they are affected by this regulation.

The Bliss Corner property contamination is yet another example of imposing possible responsibility, and great expense, on property owners whose soil may contain dangerous contaminants that were  historically dumped on their property, prior to their  ownership, or without their knowledge or permission.

The universal efforts to counter the life threatening environmental and climate disasters that are occurring  with increasing ferocity and deadly consequences are encouraging, but the expense cannot be born equally by all nations or individual property owners.It is stupendously inequitable to force underdeveloped countries that are blameless, and in many cases previously exploited, to participate by financing, and foregoing  access to necessary resources for development, without greater assistance from the major industrialized nations.  And it is similarly unfair to victimize owners  to subsidize mitigating improvements to their property.

Perhaps it is the nations, regional governing bodies, private industry and polluters who can be identified for causation, that should pay the cost of improving  and safeguarding the environment and removing hazardous pollutants from the atmosphere and the water sources.

Betty Ussach, 

Dartmouth