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TODAY Wednesday 18 March 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Toilet Heresy

Last night I was listening to the radio and there was a report from NPR about a toilet controversy in Washington. Some House Republicans were going to introduce legislation that would repeal a 1992 law that stipulated that henceforth all toilets sold in the United States would have to meet a "low-flow" standard whereby not more than 1.5 gallons of water per flush could be employed.

Many new toilet buyers have been dissatisfied with the performance of the nationally-mandated models. Often three flushes are required to remove healthy deposits. Dave Barry wrote a column mocking the new toilets and the idiot bureaucrats who make us use them. A brisk black market has developed for illegal high-flowers, and plumbers are slow to throw old models into the landfill. This is craziness, the Republicans aver: We're not saying that you shouldn't use low-flow toilets, we're just saying that the federal government shouldn't force you to use low-flow toilets.

I think they're right, which, according to the "balanced" story on NPR last night, puts me in the anti-environmentalist camp. The environmentalist spokesman -- valued Lib Tree contributor Dan Becker of the Sierra Club -- said that the new new toilets work better than the old new toilets and that in any case the 1992 mandate has conserved literally hundreds of millions of gallons of water. Members of Congress would be better advised to promote low-flow toilets to their constituents rather than roll back a notably successful national undertaking.

One of my difficulties is that I don't see why this has to be a national problem and why enviros have to be so frequently identified with national. solutions. Fresh water is a quintessential local/regional issue. A farmer in Aroostock County, Maine could flush a water closet all day without worrying about the depletion of a precious resource. In Arizona and California, where such behavior could be considered fundamentally anti-ecological, the legislatures of those states would probably be well advised to impose maximum-flow requirements on any toilets sold within their borders (though far bigger conservation gains would be achieved by removal of public subsidies for agricultural irrigation).

This is not like electrical-efficiency standards. There is no national water network comparable to the national electricity grid. The extravagant use of water does not impel fossil fuel imports which pollute interstate atmospheres. Appliances that conform to national energy standards perform as well as appliances that use energy wastefully. Et cetera.

As it turns out, the toilet manufacturers -- like American Standard and Kohler -- are lukewarm allies of Dan Becker. They don't care what the national standard requires, actually, just so long as there is a reliable national standard. They don't want to undertake the difficult re-tooling obligations of offering varied flow-level models to suit the changeable dictates of 50 different governments (a similar argument to that made by auto manufacturers resisting state-by-state standards).

I don't care, particularly. The market is pretty good at sorting out this kind of stuff (my guess is that the authorities in California and her neighbors would agree on a uniform arid-West standard, toilets for which could then be sold to Easterners at a more attractive price than they would have to pay for a water pig). It's just that I think it's good for the environmental movement every once in a while to stand conspicuously for decentralism and consumer choice. And I would never want to be in an argument with Dave Barry.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

If you're serious about wanting to know all about water issues -- quantity, quality, availability, implications for national security -- move to our High Fives section and check out the websites recommended by Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute and international consultant on all things aqueous.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

3/17: St Patrick and Your Asteroid Insurance
3/16: Rebellion in Tennessee
3/13: Good News from the Senate
3/12: Children and Cancer
3/11: Save Our Beaches!
3/10: Die Gruenen und der SDP
3/9: In Search for the Holy Grail of the Forests
3/6: My Doom, Your Gloom
3/5: The Great D. P. Moynihan
3/4: "An Earthquake in Insurance"
3/3: Salmon Farming
3/2: Our Friends the Duck Killers
2/27: Trust El Nino
2/26: That Darn Triple-A
2/25: Cutting a Deal on Endangered Species
2/24: Fire? Again?
2/23: Garbage
2/20: Population Rebellion in the Sierra Club
2/19: The Trouble With Cattle

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.