Before a guest enters your house, you probably try to spruce it up a little. Maybe vacuum, wipe the mirrors, dust a tad as well. Its not big deal, it costs nothing, and it takes little time. Hopefully, you will be rewarded with a warm compliment over how nice your house is.

But when a State wants to encourage people to visit its home -- its capitol city -- spruce up costs can run into the millions. Especially when it is that city's lakes which are being restored.

This kind of house cleaning is taking place right now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And this is more than a story about house cleaning, it is also a story about how environmental cleanup dollars are prioritized. In this case, pure embarrassment over the condition of the three lakes in the capitol city, called the Capitol Lakes, led to the decision to clean them up. Not much science, but humiliation.

The project began in January 1993 when then Governor Edwin Edwards issued Executive Order EWE 93-3. That Order established a special Capitol Lakes Rehabilitation Project Commission, expressly appointed to cure these sick lakes. The lakes had long been victimized by heavy industrial chemical dumping, as well as non-point runoff discharges.

The new Commission was charged with working with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The DEQ, and all other state agencies, were expressly ordered to cooperate with the new Committee in meeting these rehabilitative objectives.

Now, four years after the Commission began this undertaking, fish and soil samples are being taken under the DEQ's supervision for the purpose of identifying what hazardous substances have polluted the lakes. $290,000 has been allotted for sampling.

The DEQ is looking at three possible cleanup options. Option A: leave the lakes alone. Option B: Perform some dredging. Option C: Completely dredge the lakes. Heath-risk assessments now being prepared will help determine the ultimate direction of the cleanup project.

And why is money and effort devoted to these particular lakes? Apparently, because the capitol city politicos are embarrassed. One state representative was quoted as saying that it is inappropriate to have a waste site located at the center of Louisiana state government. And a DEQ official opined that the lakes cannot be left unattended because Legislators do not want a hazardous waste site located within the State capitol.

In the United States, a small and finite amount of money is allocated to performing cleanups of polluted property and water. Ideally -- in a perfect world -- scientists would inventory all of the sites that need to be cleaned, determine which pose the greatest dangers, and prioritize the sites in a manner that objectively makes sense.

Probably more often than not, this is not what happens. Instead of scientists leading this important charge, politicians usually do. And the scientists are left shaking their heads in disbelief.

Which brings us full circle to the Capitol Lakes. We will never know whether those lakes really warranted priority treatment. But it certainly appears that much of the basis for cleaning them was politically motivated, as compared to scientifically motivated. With few dollars generally available, and so many important projects competing for those dollars -- that is a bad way to make these kinds of decisions.

Governments must refrain from politicizing environmental agendas and allow qualified scientists to determine what needs to be cleaned, and what is and is not a true priority.

The information provided in this column is written by Stuart Lieberman,a practicing environmental attorney, and is for general information purposes only. It is not legal advice and should not be used in place of legal advice.

Stuart Lieberman, Esq., and IRED.Com, Inc., will not accept any responsibilty for any reliance on the information in this column or any damages whatsoever resulting from reading this column.