Case: Mere Technicality?

Mere Technicality?

I
You have been assigned the position of environmental engineer for one of several local plants whose water discharges flow into a lake in a flourishing tourist area. Although all the plants are marginally profitable, they compete for the same customers. Included in your responsibilities is the monitoring of water and air discharges at your plant and the periodic preparation of reports to be submitted to the Department of Natural Resources. You have just prepared a report that indicates that the level of pollution in the plant’s water discharges slightly exceeds the legal limitations. Your supervisor, the plant manager, says you should regard the excess as a mere "technicality," and he asks you to "adjust" the data so that the plant appears to be in compliance. He says that the slight excess is not going to endanger human or fish life any more than if the plant were actually in compliance. However, he says, solving the problem would require a very heavy investment in new equipment. He explains, "We can’t afford new equipment. It might even cost a few jobs. It will set us behind our competitors. Besides the bad publicity we’d get, it might scare off some of the tourist industry, making it worse for everybody."

What are your basic responsibilities as an environmental engineer in this plant? How do you think you should respond to your supervisor’s requests? What ethical questions does this case raise?

II
Consider the same scenario as above, but from different perspectives. Look at the situation from the standpoint of:

the plant manager of the company
the chief executive officer of the company
environmental engineers from the competing companies
plant managers from the competing companies
the Department of Natural Resources
local merchants
parents of children who swim in the lake
those who fish in the lake (or eat fish from it)

Do you ideas about how an environmental engineer ought to deal with a situation like this change as you take into account these different perspectives? Now, looking at the case from an "all things considered" perspective, go back to Part I and discuss what you, as environmental engineer, should do (and why).

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