2: You are an environmental engineer for one of the many local plants. That plant discharges effluents into a lake in a flourishing tourist area. Although all the plants are marginally profitable, they compete for the same customers. Your responsibilities are to monitor the water and air discharges at your plant and the periodic reporting to Dept. of Anti-pollution. You have just prepared a report that indicates that the level of pollution in the Plant’s water discharges slightly exceed the legal limits. Your supervisor says you should regard the excess as a mere ‘technicality’, and he asks you to ‘adjust’ the data so that the data appears to be in compliance. He says that slight excess is not going to endanger human or fish life any more than if the plant were actually in compliance. However he says, solving the problem would require a very heavy investment. He explains, “We can not afford new equipment. It might cost even a few jobs. It will set us behind our competitors. Besides, he says that many of the competitors are doing the same and the bad publicity we would get might scare off some of the tourist industry, making it worse for everybody". What are the ethical issues in this case? How will you respond to your Supervisor’s requests?
Caselet 2: You are an environmental engineer for one of the many local plants. That plant discharges effluents into a lake in a flourishing tourist area. Although all the plants are marginally profitable, they compete for the same customers. Your responsibilities are to monitor the water and air discharges at your plant and the periodic reporting to Dept. of Anti-pollution. You have just prepared a report that indicates that the level of pollution in the Plant’s water discharges slightly exceed the legal limits. Your supervisor says you should regard the excess as a mere ‘technicality’, and he asks you to ‘adjust’ the data so that the data appears to be in compliance. He says that slight excess is not going to endanger human or fish life any more than if the plant were actually in compliance. However he says, solving the problem would require a very heavy investment. He explains, “We can not afford new equipment. It might cost even a few jobs. It will set us behind our competitors. Besides, he says that many of the competitors are doing the same and the bad publicity we would get might scare off some of the tourist industry, making it worse for everybody". What are the ethical issues in this case? How will you respond to your Supervisor’s requests?
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