|
I figured that
if I didn't take my contractor neighbor, Jorge, up on his
invitation to go fishing, I'd never hear the end of it. So
with great reluctance I agreed to meet him well before dawn.
In the thousand or so hours I'd spent in the company of hook,
line, and sinker, I've never caught a fish. I've come up with
a hundred specimen of weed, trash of every type imaginable,
and even a snake or two that got snagged by mistake, but not
once have I brought home anything resembling a fish. The only
redeeming feature in this venture was the opportunity to spend
time with Jorge. And I wanted to impress him with our new
magazine, Stormwater.
"Stormwater,"
he growled after we had settled into the boat. "Just
another one of those unfunded mandates the enviros are trying
to ram down our throats." When Jorge shares his opinion
with me, I usually accept it at face value. This time I felt
the need to pursue the subject, especially under the present
circumstances in which we were taking part in his favorite
pastime.
"How about
the fishing, Jorge?" I opened up the discussion. "Is
it as good as it was when you were a boy?" Admittedly
it was a loaded question, but one I was pretty certain would
get some heat in the boat in a hurry. "Of course not,"
he replied, going on to cite examples of the degraded conditions.
"But there are a lot more people fishing these days."
"Yes,"
I agreed, "and a lot more people doing a lot more other
things." And that's really the rub. Everything we do
- no matter how good or how necessary - has consequences not
always obvious at the time. Fishing provides a good illustration
of some of the unanticipated impacts we have on things we
care about. Even if we haven't experienced firsthand the severe
depletion of salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest, we've all
heard about the situation and recognize the contribution of
logging and development activities to the problem. School-trained
environmentalists seem fond of such high-sounding terms as
"loss of habitat" as if, by their use, these abstractions
will somehow lead us to solutions that can be mandated and
implemented by governmental fiat. But as any fisherman who
has seen a favorite stream or pond literally choked to death
by silt and algae knows, there's nothing mysterious about
the process, nor does the solution lie in the hands of self-appointed
saviors, no matter how often or how sincerely they wring them.
"Yeah, but
they're the ones who are doing all the yelling and the demanding
and passing all the regulations," Jorge pointed out with
uncharacteristic bitterness. "Who put them in charge?"
"Maybe you
and I did," I suggested. We're the ones closest to the
situation: the ones involved in the disturbance and who are
actually in a position to do something about the solution.
"When you and your crew carve a road or cut in pads for
a subdivision, do you know where the dirt goes? In fact, how
much of the dirt from the job you did for the Forest Service
ended up in this lake?" The look on his face told me
I'd gone too far.
"Look,"
he said between tightly clinched teeth, "we did everything
the permit said - and more. The detention pond they designed
for the runoff was too small, so we enlarged it just to make
sure mud wouldn't get flushed down into Matilija Creek."
"What about
next year or the year after when the pond silts in and can't
catch all the runoff? What happens then?"
Jorge paused. "Someone
will just have to go up there and clean the sucker out, I
guess."
"Who's going
to pay for it?" I asked. "Anybody bother putting
a line item for long-term maintenance into the change order?"
"Not that
I know of," he admitted, much of the steam gone from
his anger. "I get your point." The words had barely
escaped him when his line snapped taut. "Hot doggies!"
he whooped. By the time the first shaft of sunlight hit us,
thoughts of stormwater and silt were but a dim memory. Jorge
had caught both our limits, and my perfect record remained
solidly intact.
Send
John an Email
|
