While this is an admitted generalization: 1) When the forces of 'developmental progress' win, what's lost is lost for a good long (as in geologic) time; 2) When the forces of preservation prevail, their victory is only a holding action (as in months, years, decades). The idea that local people 'own' the local ecosystem is not a universally accepted construct. Nor is local, state, or federal law decided solely upon the basis of 'ownership'. When many developers argue that 'outside environmentalists' are 'over regulating' and 'undercutting progress, local economies, and jobs', they conveniently forget the longer list of regulations that drive their abilities to develop and extract profits from those same local economies and ecosystems. Just ask anyone who lives downstream of a Super Wal-Mart or other large mall with huge parking surfaces...where oil and antifreeze and salt now run off into what watershed remains after the local wetlands have been backfilled and tiled for drainage. Years after the various mining interests extracted the wealth from Butte, Montana, who got stuck with the bill to attempt to clean up an all-star collection of toxic sites (ponds so sulfuric they dissolved the innards of migrating geese...)? In my state, factory farms and packing plants have found us ripe for the picking. They are afforded all manner of forgivable bonds, tax deferments, no interest loans, etc. In neighboring states, like Nebraska, Con-Agra executives re-wrote the State's Tax Code and told the then Gov. to 'pass it or we leave'. It passed. So...who are these 'meddlesome outsiders' doing all of the 'regulating'? And who, indeed, speaks for preservation? -w *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sun Mar 28 2004 - 10:01:21 PST
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