Swimming Upstream
McIntyre v. Microsoft presents our area with environmental questions that will inevitably be answered in a political realm: If a company appears environmentally responsible, or simply claims to be, is it still necessary for governing bodies to investigate the ways in which said company is altering its environment? Is it absolutely necessary for a complaint to be filed against the company before an investigation takes place or can we somehow nip damaging practices in the bud?
I've often heard Microsoft employees rave about how different this company is from all others they've worked for. They say discrimination of any kind is not tolerated. They tell me Microsoft goes all-out to use products made from recycled goods and to recycle as much of its own waste as it possibly can. In order to ensure there weren't throngs of people driving off campus for lunch (causing pollution and traffic) the company scattered numerous cafeterias throughout its main campus and food prices there are subsidized. The health concerns of vegetarians are catered to and the drinking water on campus is filtered of chlorine and lead. Microsoft literally spent tons of money making the campus look as if it belongs in a residential neighborhood with community park-like trees, greenery and open fields.
Microsoft's 'politically correct' conscience seems to effectively ease the minds of the company's more soulful employees, but the environmental destruction the company has caused in the McIntyre case greatly tarnishes this soothing image of 'a company that cares'. One of Microsoft's neighbors is figuratively in quicksand the company itself created. The giant wants to prove in court that it doesn't have to throw their tiny neighbor a rope.
Microsoft is in a neighborhood and there's more to satisfying your neighbors than mowing your lawns and keeping your surroundings visually appealing. Certainly Microsoft's commitment to keeping their buildings below the tree line and to maintaining a pleasant looking landscape is in some way commendable, but this is all superficial surface-level tinkering. The damage they've caused in the McIntyre case is underground where the average pedestrian or commuter cannot see it. In fact, the only Environmental Impact Study recommendations Microsoft did follow are those which involve the appearance of compliance. Specific eco-system EIS requests were ignored along the way, and now the campus is so big it has altered nature's course and a trout farm down the street has suffered as a result.
When local governments issue an Environmental Impact Statement, public construction projects are required to follow the recommendations proposed within it. If the public projects have to follow the rules, shouldn't the private projects have to follow them as well? Do the power and influence of local companies exempt them from following the rules?
If the McIntyres were not here to point out how the stream they depend on has been crippled, would we even know that this stream was dying today? What are we referring to when we say 'environmental protection' if not streams and aquifers? Are smaller eco-systems beneath concern?
Microsoft not only owes the McIntyres an apology, they owe us all an apology. Perhaps when this is over and the McIntyres have been paid their due, we can politely ask the software giants in Redmond to create an educational "How to Make the Earth a Better Place" CD-ROM program so they won't forget what planet they're on. Maybe the production of such a program should be required as part of the settlement.
-Matt Robesch
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Contents on this page were published in the June/July, 1994 edition of the Washington Free
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