From today's New York Times:

December 4, 2004
Officials Lay Groundwork for Cleanup of Great Lakes
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - Dozens of officials from the United States and
Canada signed a declaration on Friday that outlines a comprehensive
plan to clean up the Great Lakes and the major waterways that feed
them.

As one of President Bush's major environmental initiatives, the Great
Lakes Regional Collaboration combines federal, state, local and tribal
resources to broaden the continuing restoration efforts that have
lacked such coordination.

"This is the largest formal collaboration of its kind focused on the
environmental and economic health of the Great Lakes Basin," said
Michael O. Leavitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator,
who presided over the signing ceremony in Chicago. "Today, we are
committing our collective organizations to protecting and improving
this national treasure."

With cabinet officials, governors, mayors and lawmakers from Great
Lakes States in attendance, the signing ceremony represented at least
a symbolic success for the administration, which is generally viewed
by environmental groups as having been a poor steward of the nation's
natural resources.

The new collaboration has won early praise from environmental groups,
large and small, however, for seeking input from an array of sources
beyond a tight circle of policy makers in Washington.

In response to President Bush's executive order in May calling for a
"regional collaboration of national significance" to clean up the
Great Lakes, E.P.A. officials leading the effort have included tribal
leaders, small-town mayors and local environmental groups in addition
to elected officials from the eight states that border the five Great
Lakes.

"This is a good idea. It's the right process at the right time," said
Andy Buchsbaum, director of the Great Lakes office of the National
Wildlife Federation.

"Dozens of other processes have been started by subsets of the
participants here," Mr. Buchsbaum said, "but we've never wound up with
everybody pulling in the same direction. This is designed in the right
way to do that."

Will Cwikiel, policy director of the Tip of the Mitt Watershed
Council, a small environmental group in northern Michigan, said: "I'm
cautiously optimistic. The last thing anyone wants to see happen is a
collapse, just grips and grins, pomp and circumstance, without
anything really happening on the ground."

The collaboration sets forth a framework for establishing committees,
lines of communication and overarching goals leading to cleaner water
- the Great Lakes contain about 20 percent of the world's fresh water
supply and serve as a source of drinking water for more than 30
million people in the United States and Canada.

Specific targets include pollution controls for agricultural and
industrial runoff into the lakes; new efforts to restore and protect
wetlands, forests and indigenous species; and the elimination of
invasive species, like the Illinois carp, which Gov. Rod R.
Blagojevich of Illinois called "a terrorist of the Great Lakes
ecosystem."

The framework also proposes deadlines, with a preliminary plan due in
six months and a final strategy to put the plan fully in motion due
six months after that. Mr. Leavitt describe the program as "not a
redoing, but a redoubling" of existing efforts.

What the framework does not provide, however, is a financing scheme,
asserting that those who signed the declaration acknowledge that
participation "is subject to funding availability."

That raised concerns for some participants.

Representative Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat who has introduced
legislation that would provide $4 billion over five years for
essentially the same goals as those in the framework, said the new
effort would fail without adequate money. The bill, a bipartisan
effort sponsored by more than 100 House members, and a companion
Senate bill are languishing in committee.

In an interview, Mr. Emanuel criticized Mr. Bush as promising more
money for Great Lakes cleanup projects, only to back off in his budget
requests. Mr. Emanuel also said that the framework's goals and
partners were virtually the same as those in an effort proposed in
2002 by Mr. Leavitt's predecessor, Christie Whitman.

"If there are resources, then great," Mr. Emanuel said of the latest
effort. "But if this is in lieu of resources, it's a cruel hoax and
leaves us years behind."

Neither Mr. Leavitt nor any of the 46 officials who spoke at the
signing ceremony discussed financing. That was deliberate, Mr. Leavitt
told reporters after the event. He said, "No one knows how much money
is currently being spent" on Great Lakes cleanup efforts.

Rather, he said, the intent of the framework is to expand on programs
of the last 30 years, build coalitions and rank goals so that whatever
money becomes available is spent appropriately.

"The type of collaboration we are launching is messy, messy and hard,"
Mr. Leavitt said. "But it's absolutely necessary."

-------------------------------------------

Now, if we can only get RI and MA off their respective butts and start
on making Narragansett Bay and in particular Greenwich Bay cleaner,
we'll be all set. :)

Later,

Tom

Harry Krause wrote:
Gould 0738 wrote:

Now, if we can only get RI and MA off their respective butts and start
on making Narragansett Bay and in particular Greenwich Bay cleaner,
we'll be all set. :)



The key really is funding.

One highly effective way to prevent environmental concerns from
screwing up
the works for commerce and industry is to pass a very comprehensive
sounding set of
projects and restorations. This will tend to silence and disband the
critics.
All subject to funding, of course, and when the funding never appears
the end
result is the same as though there had never been anything passed in
the first
place. Works well for those who will be financially inconvenienced by any
change in the status quo.



How can we fund environmental cleanup when there are still A-rabs to kill?

That sound you hear...it's the USA, going down the toilet.


Firstly, I for one would like to sincerely thank our well known
political OT team lying hui union & gui spam for confining their OT
political rants to just another response to a genuine ON topic thread.

This is much less annoying than starting your usual day's load of OT
political rubbish & genuine thanks again, we appreciate it blokes we
really do, please stick with it:-).

As for the subject of the thread; I think waterway pollution as it
applies to us should be strictly polluter pays which means retail
purchasers of resultant goods/services pay. Yes, yes I can hear the farm
lobby but so what???

This way the real costs get fed into the cost/price of the goods, so
consumers who create the demand that creates the pollution in the first
place, can make a rational choice about the particular products they buy.

It will also drive real advances in creative solutions at all levels.
Again you watch a farmer quickly levy bank has perimeter when he knows
it's against the law to just pollute because his/her father did & they
will do it cheaply because they know other farmers in more
environmentally suitable areas can grow the same or better produce with
less costs. Or maybe the farmer will change the crop, or the fertiliser
or whatever, it's all about setting a standard & leaving it to free
choice as to how people comply.

By having Govt. spend compulsory acquired tax payers' dollars
effectively socialising cleaning up a mess which is created by a small
percentage of consumers of particular products, is tantamount to
subsidising the end price of the dirtiest producer & encouraging them to
pollute even more. The politicians love this of course, it means they
can tax & then be in charge of "spending" in their own areas on
"special" projects = theft.

A good example might be our OB engines?? The users were required to
clean up the pollution & the users were required to pay for it, cost the
govt & general non boating tax payer nothing; we all win!!!! (if you
don't count the union pension funds backing the unionised OMC & losing
1.3 billion in unionist retirement funds). OBs are quickly changing from
predominantly cheap to buy, dirty, expensive to run throw away 2 strokes
to better quality, better performing, longer lasting & cheaper to run 4
stokes. So, they set a standard & left if to free choice as to how it
was met; us the boat buying consumers, got to make the decision with our
purchasing & so far it seems the decision is to go 4 stroke.

If we need any reminding we've seen it all before with cars, when the
CARB rules started everyone was in shock but now look??? even a garden
variety car with essentially the same basic engine (in a couple of cases
with the actual same basic engine:-)) uses much less fuel per HP, makes
huge amounts of politely quietly delivered power, lasts much longer &
hey presto pollutes a tiny fraction. Almost the exact same thing is in
the process of happening with OB engines.


K

Harry Krause wrote:
K. Smith wrote:

Harry Krause wrote:

Gould 0738 wrote:

Now, if we can only get RI and MA off their respective butts and start
on making Narragansett Bay and in particular Greenwich Bay cleaner,
we'll be all set. :)



The key really is funding.

One highly effective way to prevent environmental concerns from
screwing up
the works for commerce and industry is to pass a very comprehensive
sounding set of
projects and restorations. This will tend to silence and disband the
critics.
All subject to funding, of course, and when the funding never
appears the end
result is the same as though there had never been anything passed in
the first
place. Works well for those who will be financially inconvenienced
by any
change in the status quo.





How can we fund environmental cleanup when there are still A-rabs to
kill?

That sound you hear...it's the USA, going down the toilet.


Firstly, I for one would like to sincerely thank our well known
political OT team lying hui union & gui spam for confining their OT
political rants to just another response to a genuine ON topic thread.

This is much less annoying than starting your usual day's load of
OT political rubbish & genuine thanks again, we appreciate it blokes
we really do, please stick with it:-).

As for the subject of the thread; I think waterway pollution as it
applies to us should be strictly polluter pays which means retail
purchasers of resultant goods/services pay. Yes, yes I can hear the
farm lobby but so what???



THe biggest contributors to waterway pollution include industries
dumping their waste directly into creeks that lead to waterways, farm
runoff (fertilizer, pesticides and animal wastes0, runoff from
ineffective sewage treatment facilities, and coal-burning plants whose
emissions fall onto everything. Recreational boats are not much of a
problem.

Now here's a worry; we agree!!!!!:-)

Thing is all polluters should just have regs enacted that say they
can't do that anymore. Trouble is you & your union mates say you are a
special cases, cases you are special you aint.

So just like the OB motors, let people make their own choices & make
those choices on a rational basis, i.e. the real non socialised cost or
each alternative, all of which equally comply with the regs.


So, once again, Ms. Head of Many Snakes, you have no idea what you are
talking about, and, of course, you continue to pollute most of your
posts here with those slimey, stupid, ineffectual and lying insults that
probably coincide with the vague memory of your faded monthly cycles,
oozed on by liberal doses of alcohol.

Dear dear dear you are a sick puppy, most school boys have grown out of
this sort of stuff before long pants, I guess you can't wear them
because .... well your right hand??:

K

If you really care about this issue and want to learn something about
it, read "Crimes Against Nature" by Robert F. Kennedy.

Capt. Jeff

"Tamaroak" wrote in message
...
If you really care about this issue and want to learn something about it,
read "Crimes Against Nature" by Robert F. Kennedy.

Capt. Jeff

The Kennedy's are nothing but a bunch of drunken wife cheating murderers.
Why would anyone want to listen to what they have to say?

"JimH" wrote in message
...

The Kennedy's are nothing but a bunch of drunken wife cheating murderers.
Why would anyone want to listen to what they have to say?

You sure are filled with the 'milk of human kindness'........don't you
mellow out on Sundays?

On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:10:32 -0600, Tamaroak
wrote:

If you really care about this issue and want to learn something about
it, read "Crimes Against Nature" by Robert F. Kennedy.

Right.

Later,

Tom