The fact is that the new CAOs will change everything for our community, but if Janet is genuinely interested in unfounded claims, perhaps she should re-read the text of the CAOs which she helped to write. Here's an excerpt from the proposed CAO for wetlands.
As discussed in the BAS Synthesis, runoff from areas influenced by human development is well characterized (National Research Council, 2008) and is often contaminated with an array of pollutants, including: those from lawn and garden chemicals (containing both active ingredients and surfactants that can negatively affect aquatic species); building materials including pressure treated lumber (containing copper chromated arsenate), zinc and copper impregnated shingles and roofing strips, and roofing materials containing phthalates (plastic gutters and downspouts, roofing felt, roof membranes); fertilizers; rodent poisons; termite spray and other insecticides; moss control products; deicers; contaminants associated with automobiles, including oil, antifreeze, rubber and metals from the wear of tires, brakes and other parts; and sediment from dirt and gravel driveways. Many of these contaminants are directly associated with the choices and practices of the property owner and are difficult or impossible to regulate. If they are allowed to enter surface water bodies, these pollutants can contaminate and become concentrated in the food web, negatively affecting aquatic habitats and species.Is well characterized? Is often contaminated with an array of pollutants? Are impossible to regulate? Can contaminate and become concentrated in the food web?
Talk about unfounded! There isn't a shred of evidence about de manifestis concentrations of pollution from any of those hypothetical sources in this county. It's a specious premise, and it displays the fundamental error with all the CAOs: "they" have assumed a problem without any evidence. Then, "they" have "solved" the problem with draconian measures. It's equivalent to a faith healer diagnosing you with cancer or some other horrible disease, and then laying his hands upon you and saying you are cured. Well, many folks don't want the County's hands upon them, or anyone else's hands either. Leave us alone. We're not sick, and we don't need your "help."
The CAOs read like science fiction because that is what they are. I wish Scotty could beam us all up.
The Letter is also mostly false
ReplyDeleteI presume you are talking about Janet Alderton's letter at sanjuanislander.com referred to in this post. Yes, I agree. It is mostly false. What else would you have expected?
ReplyDeleteA few posts back someone gave some numbers showing a large percentage of the shoreline parcels have absentee ownership.
ReplyDeleteI live in an area of the shoreline and I walk a lot. I believe it is true. There is no one there almost year round on most of these properties.
So maybe there is a structure, a house, these incredible claims of pollution can be claimed against, but there are no people. No tires and brakes, no human activity, nothing. Dull as dog shit, none of that either, nothing is going on, nothing is polluting anything because there is no activity which would do so, the whole thing is a fairy tale.
One of the oldest jokes and stereotypes in American popular culture and literature is the scolding Puritanical hypocrite whose self-absorbed self-satisfied self-righteousness so completely blots out any semblance of mindful self-reflection that they cannot begin to understand their hilarious tendency towards self-contradiction.
ReplyDeleteYes the letter is mostly false, but that is not intentional it is simply the by-product of the fundamentalist mind-set that produced both it, and the rest of the ill-considered fantasy behind the CAO.
Alderton's letter is truly funny. But the scary part is that she is one of the insiders, one of the real framers of this madness. She should be sent to the asylum along with the rest of her crazed Friends.
Leave us alone.