Category: Good Government On The March, Mon Valley Miscellany, Our Far-Flung National Correspondents || By

The Mon Valley may soon have its very own Centralia Borough --- a town all but abandoned to the elements because of an underground environmental problem.

At the very least, the natural gas, methane and other toxins leaking into basements in Versailles Borough are likely to seriously depress property values and generate controversy for years to come.

According to the Associated Press, the cost of venting the gases under Versailles may exceed the total value of the property there.

"In many cases, implementing the solutions suggested in the report would cost half and sometimes more than the property's value, leading some residents and experts to wonder whether it would be more cost-effective to compensate the owners and allow them to leave," writes the AP's Ramit Plushnick-Masti.

The dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide under Versailles are about 100 times the level that's considered safe, a expert on hydrogen sulfide's effects on the human body told Plushnick-Masti. "I don't think there's any doubt this is a very serious, bad thing to expose people to," Dr. Kaye Kilburn told Plushnick-Masti.

. . .

A Dissenting Voice: One problem, as you will read only at Tube City Almanac, is that Kilburn is a somewhat controversial figure. A former professor of medicine at the University of Southern California, Kilburn now runs a company called Neuro-Test Inc., which sells home testing kits for hydrogen sulfide, mold and other pollutants.

He's also made a career for himself as a paid medical expert testifying on behalf of plaintiffs in various lawsuits against chemical companies and other organizations. According to QuackWatch, a federal district court in Nevada threw out Kilburn's testimony in a 1996 lawsuit on the grounds that his "novel" theories were "unsupported by research extraneous to the litigation."

A few years later, the Minnesota Supreme Court, examining Kilburn's testimony in a case involving the pesticide Dursban, upheld a lower court ruling that his methods were "contrary to generally accepted scientific practice," "not generally accepted" and "not scientifically reliable" (See Goeb v. Tharaldson, 615 N.W.2d 800, Minn. 2000.)

Kilburn (surprise) writes books and edits magazines that focus on the damage that chemicals in the environment may cause to the brain.

. . .

More Light, Less Gas Needed: That doesn't mean that Kilburn is wrong about the situation in Versailles. It only means that I'd like to hear from someone who carries less baggage. Asking a paid medical expert if you might have a medical problem is like, to quote Gene Weingarten, "asking your kid if you need a puppy."

Meanwhile, an engineer who has been consulted on the methane problem in Versailles since the late 1960s tells the AP that the issue is serious but could be dealt with "at a cost lower than the $1 million spent" by the federal government surveying gas wells in the borough.

"I think you can make the community livable for a lot less money then what is suggested in that report," said John Stillwagon of Heath Consultants in Houston, Texas.

. . .

Manageable Risk?: I claim no expertise in gas leaks, beyond the hot air I vent at the Almanac and the methane releases that I cause myself.

But it seems to me that since Versailles has lived on the McKeesport-Versailles gas field for almost a century without any obvious ill-effects, the problem, though serious, is not catastrophic.

In fact, since we need to tap alternative energy sources, it seems to me that sinking some gas wells in Versailles again might actually produce some revenue that could be used to fund environmental remediation.

In other words, we're talking about manageable risk, not Love Canal or Chernobyl.

In situations like these, it would be helpful to get some non-partisan, unbiased, clear-headed scientific advise from our federal government ... which (via the Department of Energy) has dragged its feet on releasing any information about Versailles to local elected officials or the general public and, once again, "did not respond to repeated phone calls" from the Associated Press or answer a list of questions sent by email "at the department's request."

Heckuva job, Bushie! Maybe radical Islamic clerics should take up residence in Versailles. That might get someone's attention.

. . .

From The National Affairs Desk: Meanwhile, President Bush yesterday rebuked Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, telling him to "take off his military uniform." (Voice of America, USA Today)

"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," Bush said.

Yeah, Gen. Musharraf. Next thing you know, you'll be putting on a flight suit and landing on an aircraft carrier.

Whoops! My irony detector just exploded.

Or maybe that was a methane pocket in Versailles. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.