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Friday, June 29, 2007
Polls, studies: you never know what yer gonna get
By Tim Wiederaenders, Managing Editor
Friday, June 29, 2007
One would think the government, or at least the residents/voters, would have learned by now: a study is like a poll, it all depends on who paid for it, and you don’t always get the results you want.
Recall for a second the political polls that have said Sen. Hillary Clinton is outpacing Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the Democrats’ 2008 presidential nomination. Polls also have said Sen. John McCain is falling to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (and others) for the Republican nomination.
Few of those polls are unbiased. Some say Gallup is the best, others believe AP-Ipsos and Pew are the most trusted. However, most, if not all, polls show bias toward one side or one view because of how they ask the questions or look at the data.
OK, now that you know what to think of those polls when you hear their results on the radio, TV or in print, consider studies. Generally, they are like polls; they follow the same theory that if you want to do something, pay for a study.
And, very few of the entities that conduct those are unbiased either.
Enter into the equation a federal study of the Verde River headwaters. One consultant says that the U.S. Geological Survey used the wrong information to conclude that the Big Chino sub-basin supplies 80 percent to 86 percent of the headwaters’ baseflow.
Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley paid this consultant about $30,000 to review the two recent USGS reports. They do not like that the USGS concluded with the 80-86 estimate, so … they paid for a study.
The kicker is their consultant said it’s “widely accepted” that about three-fourths of the headwaters’ source is from that sub-basin.
That 75 percent is not as low as they hoped the number would go, I figure, based on my poll-study theory. The question now is will the Big-Chino-pipeline and the protect-the-Verde-River entities finally get down to mitigation of the pipeline’s possible effects?
Seventy-five percent is not 86 percent, but it also is not a green light to laying a pipeline.
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