It's satisfying to have a big, especially foreign, corporation to demonize but doesn't the “It’s far worse to stand next to a roadway.” quote apply to Saint Gobain also? and it would be helpful to know how much of particulate matter in the Puget Sound area comes from industry and how much from cars and trucks (you and me). If Saint Gobain produces .1 percent of the air pollution (particulate matter) hereabouts that's pretty big figure; but it's way less than that isn't it? I am glad to hear that glass is recycled locally.

Can you say cap and trade? This is an example of what we'd get. When fines for behavior like this are low enough to constitute nothing more than a cost of doing business (are they deductible?), behavior doesn't change. Cap and trade would likely work the same way. The pollution would still be there, we'd just be paying for it since those trading it would be building their costs into ours for the products we buy from them.

While I disagree with the drill, baby, drill, philosophy, it does have the attractive feature of honesty. I applaud these writers for outing this company and our ineffective regulators.

mspat; in the case of the fines at least the money collected goes into the taxpayer's account. In the Cap and Trade legislation that was before congress earlier this year that was not the case; money would simply go to the lesser polluters. And, no, fines and penalties (like traffic tickets) are not deductible. The fine is tolerable to St. Gobain because the cost of that last reduction in particulate matter is so high. The cost of compliance is always and issue, comparable to the challenge of like getting everyone into the low emission vehicles that we all should drive but some of us can't afford and some of us just don't like. As the article implies the cost of bringing the West Point Sewer Treatment Plant into compliance is just too high so the author lets us off by saying it's better than "..standing next to a roadway", well, why not say that about St. Gobain? because we all own WPSTP? and if it were brought into compliance we'd all have to pay for it? well that's letting us off easy isn't it? if St. Gobain pays for it we want the best, if we pay for it maybe a compromise is in order.

Kieth -- You asked a very good question about what proportion of pollution comes from St. Gobain (and industry generally) compared to other sources. Industrial sources have been controlled *much* better than other sources, especially traffic-related air pollution (particularly diesel exhaust) and the burning of wood to heat homes. And while there's a feeling among air pollution regulators that the cars, trucks and wood stoves are a bigger problem, I have not seen that quantified. More than one editor asked that question as we prepared this story. Last summer I interviewed Michael Yost, the UW researcher who headed the study referenced in the paragraph where we talk about non-industrial sources, in which he measured air pollution levels in south Seattle. Yost told me that it would be possible to do the kind of source attribution you (and me and my editors) would like to see. As far as I know, no such study has been funded, or even contemplated. Thanks for your interest in this story.