Eighteen people showed up to address Asheville City Council about contaminated water in Buncombe County. The item wasn’t on the agenda because Asheville has no jurisdiction over something like that happening outside its boundaries.

Now, I am not a scientist. There is nothing scientific about me. I did, however, get a B.S. from Lyman Briggs College, the distinguished science school at Michigan State. It was one of the innovators in a course of study now known as Science & Technology Studies (STS). The curriculum was designed to train graduates to be more than geeks, but to be savvy about the interface of science and public policy. The lesson to be learned was it was insufficient to have a good idea, one had to overcome superstition and charismatic opposition if they wanted to see it come to fruition.

The reason I mention this is, from the onset, the CTS scare has been played out like some of the scenarios from the STS courses, replete with the post hoc ergo proper hoc death list. Certain samples of well water show ever-increasing and astoundingly high levels of trichloroethylene, even though the plant accused of contaminating the groundwater has been gone for years. Both Buncombe County and the EPA are struggling to reproduce appreciable levels of contaminants.

That the EPA appears to prefer getting sued for allowing a whole subdivision to die, rather than pleasing the president by throwing Superfund dollars at the site, could mean CTS has given them more money than the federal government could, or, more likely, the contamination appears more the product of tampering. A scientist might suppose the scientists at the EPA are merely trying to establish scientific controls. If they truly believed there was a threat, I think they would err on the side of caution, especially in an age when everybody is scrambling for porkulus to buy Homeland Security wizmo-gizmos.

Could it be somebody in the neighborhood wants city water without having to pay city taxes? Councilmember Robin Cape offered to take the citizens up on an offer made by one: They could voluntarily annex into the city and help pay for the water system, and then the city would be happy to extend services.