County Councilor Tom Mielke — never one to make much sense — had something important to say at the end of Tuesday’s meeting.
He was coming off a huge, embarrassing loss a few days earlier in his bid to win the county chair position. In the wacky world of county politics, the phrase that comes to mind is, “He was beaten like a rented mule.”
I was thinking maybe he would say something like …
“The voters have spoken loud and clear, and I obviously was not what they were looking for. They voted for a change, and I will take that as a directive that I should change, as well.”
Or, maybe, he would avoid speaking about the election and talk about the need for more low-income housing, transportation and health care.
Then I came to my senses. This is Mielke, for goodness sake! This character has never — ever — been able to string two sentences together that make any sense. As football coach Steve Spurrier once said (but I would never say) about an opposing coach: “If you spotted him the ‘C’ and the ‘T,’ he still couldn’t spell cat.”
So let’s hear what Councilor Mielke had to say when it was his turn to speak:
“We are aware that the Department of Ecology at the state level has brought to our attention that in the ink that’s printed on newspapers that we have PCBs and I hope that we ask staff to follow up on that with the state to find out how much, what is there, is it a dangerous amount and so on.”
Huh?
They brought it to your attention, did they? What, they called you up out of the blue and said, “Hey Tom, if you don’t have anything better to do, maybe you should take a look at the PCB levels in the ink at that pesky Columbian that seems to keep poking you.”
Is that what happened, councilor? Ah, no.
“And so on,” indeed, councilor. “And so on,” indeed.
Punishing us
Oh, wait. Now I remember. You don’t like The Columbian much, do you councilor? I mean, I get it. You have a limited skill set. Yet you somehow landed in politics with a big salary and a sweet pension.
Life was good until The Columbian began looking closer at your shenanigans. You and your buddy, Councilor David Madore, were turning the county upside down and we were on you like flies on … well, you know.
Our reporting was fair and objective, and my column — well, it has been just a bit tough.
Still, you thought we didn’t matter. You thought no one paid attention to The Columbian. You thought your base in your district would carry you to victory.
You thought wrong.
Not only did you lose badly in this countywide chair race, if you look at your district — your supposed power base — you came in last. Dead last.
Punishing.
That’s important, because even though you lost this latest election — getting only 6 percent of the vote — our wacky laws allow you to stay in office. But if you run for re-election in about a year, only residents in your district will vote. And they weren’t too happy with you.
You’re mad. I get it. Guys like you don’t blame themselves. You need a scapegoat. That’s us.
I get it.
So now — out of the blue — you bring up PCBs in newspaper ink. Of all the products out there that possibly could carry PCBs, you landed on newspaper ink. You funny councilor.
You probably remember a year ago when you had Don “Boss Hogg” Benton try to put a pollution fee on The Columbian? The county’s environmental services director claimed The Columbian was mucking up the local environment. He said all the newspaper litter was piling up.
One small problem: It was a lie. So the county meekly said maybe we should study it more before we get our behinds sued and lose more money from doing stupid stuff. The study missed its deadline and was just released. I give it an F. After more than a year, it looks like the county Department of Environmental Services Googled a bunch of stuff and grabbed a few charts. I see little analysis of the quality of our local stormwater and what may be causing stormwater pollution here. As far as newspapers being a big player in the problem? Nada. If this is the best the DES can do after a year, why are they even around?
So now, councilor, you’re on a PCBs-in-newspaper-ink kick. OK, well, let’s take a look at that.
Without going into a long history, PCB is an acronym for polychlorinated biphenyl. It was mostly used as a coolant and lubricant in electrical transformers and other power equipment. PCBs were banned in the late 1970s.
So do some newspaper inks still contain PCBs? Yes. But when you’re looking at the world and you stack newspaper ink up against all the other PCB pollutants, how do we rank? I asked Tom Cusack, a hazardous waste specialist at the state Department of Ecology. His answer? Newspaper ink is not a major player.
“Probably not an issue,” he told me. He went on to say the parts per million of PCBs coming from newspaper ink wouldn’t come anywhere close to exceeding any limit.
But more specifically, what about The Columbian’s ink? I asked our production director, Marc Dailey, how we stacked up:
“Our ink is broken down as follows: Color inks have 30 percent to 40 percent soy oils. Black inks have 10 percent soy oils. The other ingredients include dyes and pigments. The manufacturer’s Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) filing shows our inks are classified with no ingredients that are hazardous to health or the environment.”
Let me repeat something for you, councilor, because there are times when you don’t grasp complicated stuff:
“Our inks are classified with no ingredients that are hazardous to health or the environment.”
Councilor, I guess there’s always the possibility you were talking about other local publications that use ink. But I doubt it.
Now, councilor, I know you claim you don’t read The Columbian, but maybe you can take a peek just this one time. You might learn something.
And so on.
