CE195 – Civil Engineering Laws, Contracts, Specifications and Ethics

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1. 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”

A. What are your basic responsibilities as an environmental engineer in this plant? How
should you respond to your supervisor’s requests?

B. What should you do, from “all things considered” perspective as environmental engineer?

2. Jack Strong is seated between Tom Evans and Judy Hanson at a dinner meeting of a local
industrial engineering society. Jack and Judy have an extended discussion of a variety of
concerns, many of which are related to their common engineering interests. At the conclusion
of the dinner, Jack turns to Tom, smiles, and says, ‘‘I’m sorry not to have talked with you more
tonight, Tom, but Judy’s better looking than you.’’

Judy is taken aback by Jack’s comment. A recent graduate from a school in which more than
20 percent of her classmates were women, she had been led to believe that finally the
stereotypical view that women are not as well suited for engineering as men was finally going
away. However, her first job has raised some doubts about this. She was hired into a division
in which she is the only woman engineer. Now, even after nearly 1 year on the job, she has to
struggle to get others to take her ideas seriously. She wants to be recognized first and
foremost as a good engineer. So, she had enjoyed ‘‘talking shop’’ with Jack. But she was
stunned by his remark to Tom, however innocently it might have been intended. Suddenly,
she saw the conversation in a very different light. Once again, she sensed that she was not
being taken seriously enough as an engineer.

How should Judy respond to Jack’s remark? Should she say anything? Assuming Tom
understands her perspective, what, if anything, should he say or do?