Thursday, July 11, 2019

IT'S HARD TO IGNORE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN FISH AND WATER--ALTHOUGH SOME PEOPLE TRY



Usually, I write a piece like that once every year or so, then get back to more specific fisheries management issues, because there’s only so much you can say about pollution.  

We know that it’s bad for the nation’s fishery resources, and we know that it pays—it pays for the polluters, because it’s cheaper than responsible disposal of waste, it pays for the politicians who oppose clean water actions, because the polluters will donate a lot to their cause, and it pays for organizations who support such politicians, and even call them “conservationists,” because that sort of ass-kissing helps convince folks to adopt the sort of policies that support corporate profits and other institutional goals.

Once I acknowledge that, which is something that I suspect most readers already know, I let the issue go dormant for another year, until a piece in the news convinces me that there’s a reason to address the topic once again.

However, in the past week, there has been enough action on the pollution front to revisit the topic about 12 months early.  

Some of the news is good.  The rest is…typical.

I’ll start with the good, because in today’s polarized political world, we too often think in black and white.  

We label one party “good” on an issue, and one party “bad.”  

That’s certainly true with pollution.  Because most of the representatives from what I often think of as “the pig shit states,” that is, the states where people consider dumping manure, fertilizer runoff, pesticides and such into public waters to be a God-given American birthright, are Republicans, and actively support a pro-pollution platform that’s “good for jobs, growth, expanded trade and prosperity” (even if it kills fish and might result in people contracting any one of a number of loathsome diseases), that all Republicans are hostile to concepts such as clean air and clean water, while Democrats are consistent champions of the environment.

It’s a convenient stereotype, but like most stereotypes, it hides a deeper truth.  


Now, it appears that some Republicans in the House and Senate, tired of being labeled anti-conservation, have stepped out of the shadows to form what they call the “Republican Roosevelt Conservation Caucus,” which will work to resolve important environmental issues.

The new caucus will look at such issues from a traditional Republican standpoint, seeking to solve problems through innovation rather than by more revolutionary approaches that would disrupt the existing economy.  According to The Hill, no less a Republican than Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina has said

“From a Republican point of view, I think we need to showcase that we care about conservation, we care about the environment, and we have innovative solutions that are not top-down regulatory solutions…
“[With respect to climate change], I believe the nine out of 10, not the one.  I would encourage the president to look long and hard at the science and find the solution.  I’m tired of playing defense on the environment.”
Of course, it’s possible that could be all talk.  But with conservation/environmental issues becoming a top issue for many voters, it would be wise for Republicans seeking election in swing districts, and in a number of Republican-leaning districts as well, to build some pro-conservation credentials.  While such credentials might not get them very far in some mining-country districts where it is still considered perfectly fine to strip off the tops of mountains and dump them into once-pristine brook trout streams, it will undoubtedly do the party some good in much of the United States.

And, more importantly, it will do the United States—including, hopefully, the nation’s coastal ecosystems, some real good as well.

But before then, business as usual goes on.

As I write this, there is a tropical storm, which may soon become a weak hurricane, approaching the Louisiana coast.  While that’s typical of a Gulf Coast July, this storm presents a unique threat, as a fast-flowing Mississippi River is already swelled with water from inland rains, which have been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico and bringing pollution and devastated fisheries in their wake.  As the Huffington Post describes it,

“A historic slow-moving flood of polluted Mississippi River water loaded with chemicals, pesticides and human waste from 31 states and two Canadian provinces is draining straight into the marshes and bayous of the Gulf of Mexico—the nurseries of…fishing grounds—upsetting the delicate balance of salinity and destroying the fragile ecosystem in the process.  As the Gulf waters warm this summer, algae feed on the freshwater brew, smothering oxygen-starved marine life.”
The pending storm can only make things worse.



“more intense and frequent rain storms leading to more nutrient runoff and warmer waters which are not able to hold as much dissolved oxygen.”

“Gulf hypoxic areal goals…will be very difficult to achieved if nitrate retention cannot be improved in Iowa.”
In other words, the best way to prevent nitrate pollution in the Gulf of Mexico is to prevent states all along the Mississippi watershed from letting their “stuff” end up in the river, from whence it all flows downstream.


Given Sen. Cassidy’s and Rep. Scalise’s seeming concern for Louisiana fishermen hurt by polluted Mississippi water, someone might be tempted to believe that they’d have been foursquare in support of the Obama administration rule.  But such belief would be wrong.

While both of those legislators are apparently more than willing to use funds paid into the public purse, by taxpayers throughout the country, to bail out the troubled fishermen that they represent, they are not willing to compromise their unwavering support of the right of private property owners to befoul public waterways while in pursuit of a profit.


“[The Environmental Protection Agency’s] attempt to redefine ‘navigable waterways’ as every drainage ditch, backyard pond, and puddle is radical regulatory overreach that threatens to take away the rights of property owners and will lead to costly litigation and lost jobs.”
Because every private property owner between Missouri and Mississippi has an inalienable right to pile up a few tons of manure in a dry drainage ditch, secure in the knowledge that the next heavy rain will wash it away and start it on its long trip to the sea...


“When I’m in Louisiana, I constantly hear about the impacts this rule could have on private property, private property development, timberland, farmland and water bodies that would be subject to economic control…Instead of people in Louisiana deciding how to best use their property, the federal government will be able to dictate many land-use decisions…”
Of course, if people are deciding that the right use of their property is to pile up manure, pesticides, sewage or other pollutants, maybe the federal government ought to take a more active role.  

If Sen. Cassidy asked fishermen, when he’s in Louisiana, whether they’d like to see a rule that caused pollution to abate, they might say something that he doesn’t really want to hear.

But in a way, it’s hard to blame such legislators.  The polluters pay their campaign expenses, and many of the most impacted industries, like those who support recreational boating and fishing, aren’t making them pay any price for abetting the destruction of the Gulf’s, or the nation's, natural resources.



Instead, the boating and recreational fishing reps continued to be the polluters’ enablers, praising the politicians for

“expanding outdoor recreation activities on our public lands and waters,”
promoting (but not necessarily spending any money to actually take) international action to reduce marine debris and, in the incredibly false words of Center for Sportfishing Policy’s President Jeff Angers,

“good stewardship of public resources.”
If moving toward opening the Pebble Mine, and allowing pollutants to flow, unablated, into the Gulf of Mexico is Angers’ idea of “good stewardship,” then I think that I have a manure pond in Iowa that he might want to buy…


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