Grumbleeze

I think i may have confused some people... I am all for a clean environment!!! Ask my kids. Throughout the growing up stages, first we camped out and then we spent lots of time on a houseboat. We spent... and still spend lots of time outdoors and always leave it like we find it. We respect the wonders of nature. We recycle. We even clean up after people who are less conscious of the environment. We only have one acre out in the country but it is a wildlife haven in the midst of farmland. The critters love to hang out here and we love to watch them.

I am against greed posing as environmentalists! That is the current state of affairs in my small town. There are people who have dreams of creating a 'wildlife refuge' along a whole series of river banks to the detriment of the human inhabitants who have already been living here for many years. It's not like we just all moved in, for heaven's sake!!! They have created a hysteria about something that has been here for 100 years more or less with no detrimental effects on the human population whatsoever.

So far they've accomplished a few things. They have...

• Taken an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) government standard of 1000ppt dioxin as a 'danger point' and had the Michigan politicians at DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) lower that standard to 90ppt... a level which is just about everywhere in the environment!
• Declared the whole floodplain of the river a 'toxic waste facility'... including people's backyards and farmland
• found approximately 150 people, relative newcomers to the area, willing to file a class action suit against a company for dumping dioxin (which was already here almost 100 years ago before anybody even had a name for it)
• then tried to force the other 1,900 people living along the floodplain to be included in a class action suit even though most of us don't want to be in it
• ...and they keep going!

Do you think they are going to stop with our little rivers here in Michigan? Hah! Think again. Each time they step forward they feel empowered to go further.... and they will!