Some places are mythical, like Camelot or Brigadoon. Some places, we’re relieved to discover, are really real.
Thanks to my alert friend Carolyn, who found this place. (more…)
Archive for May, 2009
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, there’s hope
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009Pay your taxes, shut up, and keep out
Monday, May 25th, 2009Back, by popular request (of at least one person):
My 2 Cents’ Worth by Pat Hatfield
Governmental officials and developers seem to want to get together and make decisions about our future, without consulting the public.
Take recommended changes to Volusia Growth Management Commission (VGMC) rules. Developers and municipalities angry at having their plans thwarted proposed these changes.
According to one proposed change, members of the public will no longer be able to request a public hearing before the VGMC OKs a land-use change.
Arguments that citizens can ask their city commission or the County Council to request a hearing are ridiculous. The land-use change would be approved long before a citizen could get a council member’s attention.
The VGMC is not for the public, according to the argument. It’s for governmental use to approve development requests, it would seem.
Another proposed rule would shift the burden of proof from the person or entity requesting a land-use change, to the person challenging such a change. This would make it easier to overcome objections to development.
At least the VGMC will hear public comments about the proposed rule changes, when it meets at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 27, at Daytona Beach City Hall, 301 S. Ridgewood Ave. (U.S. 1).
If the VGMC is rendered toothless — which it mostly is already — then perhaps Florida Hometown Democracy’s proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution is what we need, to protect our communities from overdevelopment.
If that amendment gets on the ballot and is approved by voters, land-use changes, which generally allow growth and higher density, would have to be approved by the voters.
Orlando-based Floridians for Smarter Growth, described by Orlando Business Journal as “a coalition of business interests,” opposes the amendment, and has launched a publicity campaign to keep the measure from passing, claiming it would “permanently freeze economic growth.”
Sounds like the amendment would give the public a voice in opposing unbridled growth.
The public was kept largely at bay when the St. Johns River Water Management District Governing Board heard arguments about the Yankee Lake project, which will allow Seminole County to pump water out of the St. Johns River.
E-mails from concerned citizens were blocked from board members. Instead of finding a location large enough to accommodate the crowd, people were shuttled off to different rooms in the building where the Governing Board meets. Others were barred from the building.
"Are you authorized to enter this meeting? May I see your papers?"
Here’s what one of those people, Peggy Bellflower, wrote about it: “I was one of the citizens locked out of the hearing for several hours, until we charged in at the break, when folks came out the locked doors. It was nightmarish out there. But, yes, I did get in and was allowed to speak. I witnessed at least 50 other citizens, some of them senior citizens 80-90 years old, leave for home after standing in the hot sun at the locked doors for quite some time.”
DeBary officials could tell the Water Management District where to get a big tent, large enough to hold the public. They used one for the second reading of the DeBary Downs proposal.
Public say about the public good is being discouraged. Sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously, sometimes obliviously. If we don’t speak up now, the chance may disappear.
(originally published in the May 21-24 print edition of the newspaper, without the artwork and snazzy headline)
Hello, crane!
Monday, May 18th, 2009
Hello, Crane!
And now, a break from the depressing news. More crane news!
These magnificent birds, Sandhill Cranes, have really made a comeback the past few years. This fellow (?) is one of a pair that stay around my neighborhood.
He — I think I’ll call him Craniac — was in my front yard one morning last week, by himself.
Craniac looked at me inquisitively. I started talking to him in a soft tone of voice, and he cocked his head, as if listening intently. He calmly walked up to within a few feet of me.
We shared a communal moment together. It was a spiritual moment. Craniac tried to share what it’s like to be a crane, and I tried to understand.
What magnificent birds!
Niagara folly: insanity in Central Florida
Thursday, May 14th, 2009A couple of people have asked me for links to this. It was published in the hard-copy edition of the paper as an opinions piece in my occasional column, “My 2 cents worth.”
Here it is:
The St. Johns River Water Management District told the cities and counties that beginning in 2013, their water withdrawals from wells into the Floridan aquifer are reaching maximum sustainable limits.
So, the cities will have to look elsewhere for enough water to supply the public with drinking water. That means, in practicality, the St. Johns River. It’s for the public good, the Water Management District tells us.
Water worries didn’t stop economic-development agencies from offering millions in tax rebates and incentives to entice Niagara Bottling Inc. of California to come to Lake County, where the bottler planned to draw a half-million gallons of water a day from wells drilled into the aquifer.
That’s right, the water would come out of the very same aquifer over which municipalities have had their hands slapped, like a kid in a cookie jar, and told, “No more.”
Development again triumphed over the public good. It wasn’t Niagara’s folly. The bottler just followed the carrot under its nose.
If they hadn’t been operating under the radar, out of public view, the economic-development honchos would have realized what they should have already known — this is a bad plan, in a region already afflicted with a water crisis.
The public outrage began as soon as the plan went public.
That didn’t stop the Water Management District staff from OK’ing the 500-thousand-gallons-a-day plan.
[Note: that is being contested by the by the Lake County Board of County Commissioners and the city of Groveland. An administrative-law judge heard the case last month, and will render a decision.]
The Water Management District’s mission statement reads, “We will ensure the sustainable use and protection of water resources for the benefit of the people of the District and the state of Florida.”
Approving a plan to bottle and ship 500,000 gallons a day from our dwindling water supply doesn’t benefit the people of the district, when cities are strictly limited on withdrawals from the aquifer for public drinking water.
The City of DeLand, for instance, can increase its withdrawal from 6.41 million gallons a day (mgd) now to 6.81 mgd in 2016, to accommodate its growing population. That’s less than half-a-million gallons a day, or less than what the bottler will ship out of the area every day.
By 2015, 4.8 mgd of that city water must come from an alternate source. This drives the city to the river.
So, the approval doesn’t benefit the public, or the river, which the Water Management District is mandated to protect.
In a few years, Niagara will likely draw from the endangered river, too. You see, the Water Management District wants Niagara to find alternative-water sources after 2013, just like the cities.
How can all this be anything but insanity?
The justification is, according to the WMD Web site, “The amount allocated for bottling plants represents approximately 1/10 of 1 percent of the groundwater used.”
A trifling amount, when it’s wanted for development. Too much, when it’s wanted for local drinking water.
Folly.
Note: Read the related news story at http://beacononlinenews.com/news/daily/1700
Pretending to protect our water?
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009That’s the subject of a lawsuit filed today by the St. Johns Riverkeeper, Clean Water Network of Florida, and Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Here’s the press release:
GROUPS SUE EPA OVER WEAKENING OF FLORIDA’S
WATER QUALITY STANDARDS
Tallahassee, FL – Three environmental organizations have filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its approval of Florida’s latest efforts to circumvent the Clean Water Act. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee on Monday, May 4th, by the Florida Clean Water Network, St. Johns Riverkeeper and the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
In 2007, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) adopted an amended Impaired Waters Rule (IWR), as a new water quality standard in Florida. FDEP submitted the amended IWR to EPA for approval as a change to Florida’s water quality standards, on September 14, 2007. The Florida Clean Water Network and more than 60 environmental, recreational, and civic organizations had submitted comments to FDEP and the US EPA expressing a number of objections to the amended IWR as changes to Florida’s Water Quality Standards.
Green water
Friday, May 1st, 2009NOTE: See 05-05-09 update at end of entry.
There’s a new spigot at my kitchen sink. It’s a small one, used just to provide drinking water.
I got it after talking to George Taylor at Water Shed Labs about the sorry water situation in Central Florida. The discussion evolved into problems with water in plastic bottles.
I live in the county, where I use well water. I’ve always been a little suspicious about drinking it, so I would buy drinking water at the store.
I try to conserve. I don’t water my bahia grass. I hardly ever wash my car. (That’s mainly due to laziness, but I’ll count it as conservation.)
I recycle and reuse.
I reused the big plastic jugs my favorite iced-tea comes in, filling them up with filtered water from the machines at Publix or Wal-Mart. I’d refill individual-size plastic bottles to carry water around with me.
Then, I got worried about the chemicals that leach from plastic containers into the water.
For a quick summary of concerns, go to About.com.
Local conservationist Eric West alerted me to the problems of estrogen-like compounds, both carcinogenic and messing with one’s hormonal system, that come from plastic bottles.
Plastic is everywhere, including around the water we drink
It seems there’s no way to win. Everything’s going to do you in.
But George said a simple charcoal-filtration system, installed under my sink, would clean my well water just fine. Water should be stored in glass, not plastic.
Folks, we have become a truly plastic society. It’s hard to find any glass containers, except the old-fashioned jars used for putting up preserves. Everything is plastic.
I rooted around my garage and found a couple of gallon-wine containers made of glass, left over from parties several years ago, and cleaned them up. Now, I have cold water in the fridge, and a extra bottle of drinking water in the kitchen, for emergencies, in nice glass jugs.
No more lugging water in plastic jugs from the store.
That just leaves the problem of how to take “to go” water with me. Those nice chi-chi stainless-steel water bottles are expensive.
In the grocery store, again, I could find only plastic water bottles, no glass.
I may order some glass bottles online, or buy one of the chi-chi stainless-steel bottles.
Sigh. I bought juice drink in a glass bottle to have with my lunch, and I will reuse it for water.
But, I have green (and hopefully, healthier) water
UPDATE 05-05-09: I found a stainless-steel bottle for $9.99 last night at Publix, and a free Publix shopping bag came with it.
I wanted stainless steel, not aluminum, because there have been health complications connected to use of aluminum pots and things. I’ve seen aluminum bottles some places.
Earlier yesterday, I checked out some of the online ads for stainless-steel bottles. Google the company before you order. Some have complaints about excessive shipping charges. Some have complaints about funny smells, etc. coming from the bottle.
There was no shipping charge for the bottle I bought last night, of course. I’m trying it out today, and there’s no funny taste or odor, and the price is good.
I’m happy. I’ll buy a second bottle.