Here are other comments on some recent Providence Journal articles. And by the way, there are a lot of environmental issues and wouldn't it be great if Projo produced many more!
Current events can be complex, and we count on news reporting to be balanced, or at least to start shining light on issues. Not having conducted my own research on these topics, I don't have positions on them, but there are basic principles that come from common sense, and most of us share these principles and sense. Having started this paragraph by noting complexity, life is nonetheless simple as well.
DEM & Tiverton
HEALTHY HOMES AND [MILLION] DOLLAR BILLS: Several recent Projo articles have reported on the RI Department of Environmental Management's contract with an out of state law firm to bring its case against Southern Union, which now owns Fall River Gas. None of us would like to discover that we own property that we are forbidden to dig in because of toxic chemicals being deposited there 50 years ago. And Rhode Island taxpayers cannot be happy about the costs involved in this lawsuit. We expect state employees and elected officials to manage money wisely.
CRMC & CLF
KEEPING THE BIG PICTURE IN MIND: Another Projo article reported that The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) is asking for an investigation of the Coastal Resources Management Council's (CRMC) decisions in 18 cases. Agencies like CRMC hear proposals to override existing regulations, and surely the requestors and their lawyers can make good cases. But in regard to our coastal lands, when you make one exception, then it's a little easier to make another exception, and then another.... So before long, so much shoreland can be developed or altered that the entire Narragansett Bay will be unable to cope with a major storm surge during a hurricane. Folks, that undeveloped shoreline is the natural flood plain for the high water of occasional megastorms. This very problem was a contributing cause to the New Orleans disaster, wasn't it? The shore buffer zones and regulations preventing shore development have a sound basis. And who knows? If Rhode Island kept to a conservative shoreline development policy, that could have a positive impact on the problem of rising insurance rates or no available insurance for shore properties.
Invasive Species
PREPAREDNESS: Besides news in the paper, there are the editorials and commentaries, the op-ed pieces. One recent commentary by David W. Gregg of the Rhode Island Natural History Survey (RINHS) negatively compared Rhode Island to Massachusetts when it comes to dealing with invasive species:
"...Rhode Island, by contrast [with Massachusetts], has only a rudimentary invasive-species education program, a patchwork of prevention regulations, and neither a coordinated monitoring system nor a rapid-response plan...."
Are there other dimensions or sides to this problem? Comment on this post! Do you know anything about RINHS's Invasive Species Preparedness Strategy for Rhode Island? Here is the link to the RINHS page for the Rhode Island Invasive Species Portal.
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