There Aught To Be A Law--Part IV

(Florida Swampland Stolen?)

I’ve already written several times about the local and national governments' meddling in our citizens’ property rights with things like eminent domain condemnation of land and ever changing zoning laws.

Here on St. Simons, all of the “haves’—existing owners of houses and commercial buildings—want all of the “have-nots” held at bay by new county ordinances limiting property density and building heights. The price of land is spiraling upward as a result.

I have a conversation almost every day with some long time islander who laments the “good ole’ days” when the roads were dirt and the traffic jams were non-existent. In my opinion, a busy summer day here surrounded by our buldging population of new residents and gawking tourists beats the hell out of my morning commute on I-285 in Atlanta back in the late 1980’s.

The favorite form of government meddling is the State Department of Natural Resources and the US Army Corps of Engineers expanding control over our “wetlands.” Having learned their lesson from allowing the “Sugar Barrons” to drain half of the Florida Everglades in the early 1900’s to farm Sugar Cane, now the bureaucrats in Washington DC want to swoop down on a national basis and regulate every creek and mud puddle and they don’t give a darn who actually owns the property.

Emboldened by the federal policy, the states are in on the act and all of the environmental, eco-fascist tree-huggers are singing kumb-ba-ya and dancing folk dances in a steady drum-beat of enchroachment on my right to fill in MY mud puddle, enlarge MY mud puddle, or build a dock on the banks of MY mud puddle.

In reality, it’s all mostly about money, not saving any Snail-Darters or endangered Turtles. Look at this story about the “loss” of 84,000 acres of Florida wetlands.

“ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Despite a federal preservation policy touted by every president since George H.W. Bush, at least 84,000 acres of Florida wetlands have disappeared since 1990, according to a St. Petersburg Times report.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, charged with executing the presidential "no net loss" plan, approves more permits to destroy wetlands in Florida than in any other state, the newspaper found. From 1999 to 2003, the Florida corps approved more than 12,000 of the permits and denied only one.

"We're not protecting the environment," said Vic Anderson, who recently retired after 30 years with the corps. "It's a make-believe program."

In Florida, the agency trained employees to presume the permits were "in the public interest" and did not keep track of how many acres it allowed to be destroyed until 2003, the Times reported in its Sunday editions.

To determine the size of the wetlands lost, the newspaper analyzed satellite images of Florida, which has more acres of wetlands than any state but Alaska. Totaling 11.2 million acres in the mid-1970s, the state's wetlands have shrunk to cover 10.5 million acres.”

There are two things that I want to say here.

If I own the land, it’s not the Imperial Federal Government of the United States’ or the State of Georgia's job to tell me what I can do with it. If they want to control the use of the land, let them buy it and pay fair market value for it--build a new park or national forrest.

Secondly, I’m afraid that the article is based on complete and total BS data because I can’t see how they can rely on an analysis of satellite images by NEWSPAPER REPORTERS to make intelligent conclusions about changes in Florida’s overall land mass. Did they hire outside experts? Then say so in the article...sheesh!

Meanwhile, I’ve got to go get dressed because I'm going out to look at some satellite pictures to see if I can find some ocean front property in Arizona…