Christie DEP Says Your Life is Worth $404,103

Gov. Christie Inaugural - just who and what did he swear to protect?

Don’t let Sarah Palin and her Teabagging Death Panels get wind of it, but it’s Official:

After prudent deliberation, the Christie DEP just decided that your life is worth less than $404,103.

Impossible? Hardly.

The DEP itself highlighted the point in explaining why DEP had refused to set a drinking water standard for radioactive contamination:

“The state should not be sitting on this information,” said Bill Wolfe, a former DEP official who is the group’s New Jersey director. “Officials need to warn affected homeowners that they may need treatment systems or that they have the wrong systems.”

DEP spokesman Larry Hajna rejected the suggestion that the agency has been sitting on the information. The report was part of an ongoing process, with information posted on the DEP website, while the private well data results from a state law, he said.

“We definitely know there’s a problem,” he said. “We’re developing this information and working to protect the public.”

He pointed to the report’s cost-benefit analyses for various levels of stringency. The 800 picocurie standard would cost an estimated $404,103 per life saved.

[click on for full story: “Radiation rampant in New Jersey well water“]

Since his first day in Office, when Governor Christie signed Executive Order #2, which, among other things, mandated that cost benefit analysis (CBA) be applied to all DEP regulations, we have been writing to warn the public about how that would undermine protection of their health and environment.

Those warnings have been completely ignored by not only the press, but by NJ’s environmental advocates.

Worse, some so called advocates, including but not limited to Dave Pringle of the NJ Environmental Federation, have actually praised the Governor for his cost benefit analysis policy and welcomed its implementation at DEP.

Well, now that DEP itself has confirmed the use of CBA and illustrated the real consequences of what had previously been largely my theoretical critique of what CBA means, perhaps those folks might reconsider.

Let me be blunt here: DEP says they would rather knowingly let you die a painful death of cancer, than require treatment to remove radiation from your drinking water if it costs more than $404,103.

At a 70 year lifespan (the exposure time-frame used for DEP risk assessments), that amounts to just $15.81 per day, or 66 cents per hour!

That’s not even close to minimum wage, dude!

Talk about Death Panels.