Today the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued a press release stating that it had fined Del Monte Corp. nearly $3,500 for industrial wastewater violations last fall at its plant in South Centre Township, Columbia County.
Think about this process. Nearly every week PADEP issues a similar announcement. After weeks and weeks of behind the scenes work involving scientists, engineers, administrative staff, lawyers and then finally the PR people they announce this huge event. Probably the costs for the involved lawyers alone exceeded $10,000 in this one example and its not unreasonable to believe that after every government worker got involved they expended $50,000 chasing this down.
But take a look at the numbers. Del Monte had $3.7 billion in revenue last year and was fined $3,500 - How about putting that through the canine smell test?
Pretend as a fully employed citizen you have an income of $45,000 per year and were fined a similar percentage. What would that fine be? It would be .00000094 times your income which equals $0.0423 Yes that's a FOUR CENTS equivalent
Now if you get caught speeding, roll through a stop sign or make a left where you can only go right the total fines often exceed $150 and that hits your budget. That's close to 20 % of your weekly take home pay.
Here polluters get caugt and end up paying the equivalent of $ .04 - we need to fix the system.
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