something fishy
Posted by Brent Finnegan on October 9th, 2007
The trees in front of Cally’s on Court Square could certainly be considered an environmental issue. City Council will be discussing it tonight at 7:00.
This is also the evening for the Candidates’ Public Forum on Water Quality at the County BoS building at 7:00. Thanh posted about this two weeks ago. The quality and condition of the Valley’s waterways is arguably far more important than two trees in the city. Just yesterday, the Shenandoah Riverkeeper posted a news release on his blog, stating that “Shenandoah is the third most contaminated park in the national park system” due to acid rain.
The list of invited candidates reads like a who’s who of Valley political players. I don’t know if all (or any) of those candidates have been confirmed.
Odd thing is that the list of board members and “ex-officio” members reads like a who’s who of suspected polluters. Coors and Merck? Merck’s name was just in the news yesterday, stating that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s standards for wastewater output are too strict.
There’s something awfully fishy about that.
yeah, i checked out the water forum website out a couple weeks ago, and drew the same conclusions about the members of it. hopefully there will be some hard hitting questions asked tonight.
Merck is being asked to do what everyone else is asked to do – meet their legal waste limits. These limits were carefully prepared from taxpayer funded studies to meet Potomac drainage water quality standards. So if Merck wants more than their share, other dischargers, including taxpayer/ratepayer sewage treatment plants will have to limit their own discharges.
It is a basic fairness issue, and Merck saying that they slept through the public review process that established their share of the waste load is a weak moan. I guess Merck really doesn’t care about the Shenandoah River, or the Chesapeake Bay.
I would encourage Mercks Barbara Wunder to explain Merck’s poor showing on this important issue concerning the health of the Shen.
Here’s some footage of the Forum from WHSV, http://ww2.whsv.com/global/video/popup/pop_playerLaunch.asp?clipid1=1823915&at1=Homepage&vt1=v&h1=Water+Forum&d1=142134&redirUrl=http://www.whsv.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage
Although I have heard from different people that they were surprised that the canidates knew as much as they did about water issues, I’ve heard from others that felt that the canidates didn’t know enough. I wasn’t able to attend the forum, although I was planning to, because I was at Council waiting to hear about the fate of the trees in front of Court Square Theater, Downtown Wine, and Cally’s.
By the way, Council will decide the ultimate fate of the trees at this coming Tuesday’s meeting on October 23. Whatever your opinions on the trees are, you should contact the Councilmembers and let them know how you feel. (I’ll be honest here and say that I hope the trees stay – for economic, business, neighborhood, community, stormwater management, energy savings, to cover the non-architectually noteworthy building, and provide shade to people who come downtown for events in the hot summers – however, I have my doubts that they’ll be there for much longer.)
I meant to post this article I found a month ago on hburgnews, but I forgot. I just found it again.
The Chesapeake Bay: Our Shame and Our Hope by Chad Logan and Donald Litten for Virginia Business August 22, 2007 -
http://www.gatewayva.com/biz/virginiabusiness/ideas/misc/20070822_bay.shtml
- Donald Litten is of Litten & Sipe in Harrisonburg, VA.
The story gives a good background on issues (source, legal, costs) with the Chesapeake Bay and nutrient reduction needs. Here are some quotes that caught my attention:
“While some attempts at stemming this non-point source pollution have been made, success has been severely limited by a lack of funding and political unwillingness to regulate agricultural runoff. Instead, many lawmakers have opted to implement incentive programs to reduce water pollution, but these are habitually under-funded and under-staffed.”
“Additionally, sprawl around the urban centers in the Chesapeake Bay has further fueled nutrient runoff. Often, sprawl takes place on virgin land, clearing acres of trees and farmland in favor of housing developments. Even though farms are sources of nutrient pollution, increasingly housing developments are becoming even greater sources of runoff and nutrient pollution.”
“And so the cause of the problem is evident. As the beloved Pogo once remarked “we have met the enemy and he is us”.”
“As seen in figure 2 below, while water treatment facility upgrades have great potential for reducing nitrogen loads, they are the most expensive reductions to achieve per pound. Why then, did the state choose to promote this reduction above the others suggested in the report?…”
[The story goes on to explain why.]
Another great example is Lake Shenandoah. People wanted to live by the lake because of its natural beauty, but in the meantime, their property and the runoff they produced have severely destroyed the shallow life of the lake. The natural springs that feed the lake can only do so much to refresh the water.
Nothing fishy about this! Please don’t forget the COC forum
at TA TONIGHT at 7:00pm. If you want to sumit any
questions, you should be there around 6:30.
Benny, Richard, and Dave:
Take it elsewhere. I won’t allow you to hijack this thread with petty insults.