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Occam's Razor Never Met Folk From Oakstead

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By TOM JACKSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 22, 2008

Fans of the movie "Contact" who endorse its battle-line philosophical premise will reject out of hand the conclusion drawn by This Space regarding the breathlessly awaited Progress Energy disclosure of proposed routes for new high tension power lines.

You remember the whipsawing Jodi Foster's character took after her apparent visit to the far reaches of the galaxy produced no corroborating evidence. Remind me about Occam's Razor, says James Woods' national security adviser, to which Foster's scientist ruefully explains: All things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best.

What, then, would Occam's Razor say about the power company's Pasco-avoidance policy for links between its proposed nuclear-powered generator in Levy County and some 300,000 customers in Central Florida? Easy: Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

This modest sliver of the newspaper does not deny that those central Pasco residents who were staring down the barrel of unpleasant additions to the local skyline, not to mention the possibility of some eminent domain nastiness, stirred an urgent and substantial ruckus.
Tipping The Scales
But noise goes with the territory of being a necessary evil in the business of keeping America energized. The day billion-dollar utility companies back down from best-case scenarios based solely on unharmonious squawks from flocks of NIMBY fowl is the day the rest of us better lay in a lifetime supply of candles and flashlight batteries.

Which is why we say, "Occam, schmoccam" to the squeaky wheel theory. Indeed, community activists who embrace it to the exclusion of all other factors do so at the risk of some future common good taking a path straight through their living rooms.

Beyond the fuss was the size and effectiveness of the organization, hastily slapped together though it was. Three thousand names on a petition gets politicians' attention; when pols come alert, those whose activities are influenced by government and regulated by government boards are obliged to focus.

It also helped that the opposition was rich with veteran activists who know effective argumentation. At bottom, certainly, was the NIMBY factor. But how much someone paid for his or her piece of Pasco paradise and what their expectations were at the time of closing make no never mind in the real world.

And for every argument about impacts on property values a project may evoke, the experts can produce a dozen studies to show how it just ain't so.

Not Just Weepy Moms

Instead, opponents were wise to blend courtroom arguments - the availability of existing rights of way, the cost to the company and its ratepayers of prolonged condemnation battles, the likely blowback from local and state lawmakers - with tugs at the emotions of unaffected observers who, in the Big Scheme, could come to represent the there-but-for-the-grace-of-the-Public-Service-Commission coalition.

The NIMBYs got their way, all right. This time. And the casual observer may be tempted to think a bunch of weepy moms lapsing into paroxysms of electro-magnetic paranoia turned the tide. Occam's Razor hints as much.

But the all-things-being equal theory couldn't explain 18 hours of static on star-tripper Ellie Arroway's (Foster) video recorder, and it sure doesn't account for Progress Energy's veerage. Some phenomena demand a closer look.

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