I hear this argument from people: Protecting the environment will harm the free market, making it too hard for people to do business. And that's unAmerican.
Part of the argument is correct. We've really made a nearly unsurmountable mess of things, and a lot of York County is one big example of how hard fixing the damage will be.
Just look at all the hard work that's gone into cleaning up the Codorus Creek over the years - just to get it to the point where last spring, sitting on a local bar's deck, I saw a Sulphur mayfly hatch from its waters.
Mayflies don't like polluted waters. But then again, Sulphurs have this uncanny ability to live where no other mayflies do. And yet, I only saw one. That's a lot of time and effort for one little insect, let alone what it would take to bring back a full, thriving, original ecosystem there.
But I just wanted to share this rebuttal from Andy Batcho, a retired engineer from Seattle. He is nominated this year as one of Field & Stream's Heroes of Conservation Awards finalists.
Batcho's first job was the Apollo program that sent a man to the moon. The first launch he worked on was Apollo 11, when men first set foot to the moon, something thought impossible at the time.
So needless to say, he doesn't buy into any "too hard" arguments, and it showed when his work helped the nearly impossible efforts of restoring salmon populations to the Seattle area.
And considering all the work that's gone into that stream through York, I doubt our local volunteers buy the "too hard" argument as well. So why can't many of the naysayers out there do the same? After all, I've heard the word "can't" is pretty unAmerican too.
I actually signed on to comment on your blurp in the Sunday paper, "Georgia on America's Mind". After reading te above article, I am further dismayed by what I see as opinion vs. journalistic reporting. You mention Sunday, that McCain's speach sounded like a policy speach--is that not what a candidate is supposed to do? That is fine, but then you go on to comment "it's all about oil". DId this come from something that was said.
Now to the above article, which all in all is a good article. But once again I read opinion--"we've made a nearly insurmountable mess" of things. Are you aware of the strides that have been made county/state/countrywide since the 60's? DO YOUR RESEARCH, and if you want to add opinion I suggest putting it in another section of the paper.
Journalism seems to have gone by the wayside everywhere these days, replaced by blogs = to everyone's opinion!! Even the York paper is looking for the readers to "write" the paper. How sad-- I remember when you could read facts and form your own opinion, and if you wanted to share that, sent it to the op-ed section.
frustrated
Sorry for the confusion here. You won't find opinion in our news stories reported for the newspaper or news sections of inyork.com/ydr.
On the blog, however, we sometimes share opinions on different nuggets of information or things we observe going on in the world.
Hope that clears things up!
Thanks for the quote Brent. I've been working on this stream restoration stuff as a volunteer for ~30-years, and you're right....there are a lot of nay-sayers, but persistance coupled with help from subject-matter-experts that you seek out WILL overcome. Use the 80/20/0 rule...spend 80% of your time working with those that are positive around you and 20% trying to bring those along that are on the fence. You'll mainly be wasting your valuable time & energy on the nay-sayers, spend 0% there!
Andy Batcho