I hope everyone reads her essay and spreads it around so we don't get Rick Scott as Governor again and maybe it will sweep some of the assholes out of the Legislature next election. She says in part:
Every company, business or landowner in the state of Florida, represented by high-paid lobbyists, that wants something that otherwise would not be legal or acceptable has come out from under a rock with a bill written to get what he wants at the expense of the public. It is insane.More on McVety:
Legislators are acting like the boys in Lord of the Flies. They need adult supervision.
Pam McVety has a master’s degree in zoology from the University of South Florida and worked for the State of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection for over 30 years. She began her career in dredge and fill permitting and worked for the first four Secretaries of the Department of Environmental Protection in policy development and coordination. She was the Director of the Division of Marine Resources and Executive Coordinator (Deputy Secretary) for Ecosystem Management and Water Policy. She finished her "paid" career in the Florida Park Service, retiring in July 2003.
12 comments:
Exactly! The bill amendment to curtail environmental challenges to gov scott's dirty port expansions is a good example. Shame on Miami Rep Lopez-cantera and Miami dade mayor gimenez for being a part of it. Why don't they care about protecting and preserving Biscayne bay and Miami beach?
I'm sorry: when Pam McVety had a powerful position at FL DEP, under the Chiles administration, she was never one to stick her neck out to insist that laws be followed or rules strengthened, where lobbyists had created loop holes wider than the Miami Port tunnel. The point then was not too push too hard; just like Carol Browner, former head of EPA under Bill Clinton who is also a reformed believer in global warming but did practically nothing when the science was in front of him. I don't want to scream. I want to puke.
I am all for people having an epiphany. Sometimes it is cancer, sometimes it is religion and other times it is not being shackled by the constraints of your job.
Whatever, she said it better than me today.
The voters and non-voters alike are reaping what we have sown. We are backpedaling hard to roll back the obvious improvements in water and air quality. Don;t worry, GOD will clear everything up. That is the Rick Santorum / Lynda Bell message. I hate to tell you dumb fucks, but you will not be receiving a check in the mail as a dividend from the big polluters for allowing them to piss in your pool. The pool you not only swim in, but drink from.
They are not going to give you a job. Travel up to Bell Glade and see how the 'employed' are treated. I will give you a hint - they treat their workers the way Lynda Bell wants to treat sewage before she dumps it into your oceans. And it stinks!
Think about how high a fecal/bacterial level you will accept (you mean there is any at all???) next time you draw water to drink from the tap.
Should the dredge project (which is permitted by DEP and army corp of engineers) be delayed and delayed to the point where our port misses the window and cannot compete with ports like savanah that will be ready to receive the increased cargo that will be coming through an expanded Panama Canal?
Regarding the deep dredge project at the Port of Miami. The State and Federal permits have been issued because the skids have been greased big time. As approved, and given the scale of impacts that even the project's proponents acknowledge will occur, there are fewer environmental restrictions and mitigation requirements for this project than there are for building a dock behind a house on the Bay. If this project is inevitable, then it should have to meet the same standards as any other project would - but it won’t. And that’s a problem worth delaying it for.
During many years of regulatory work in south FL and the Keys I came to believe that the reason that environmental laws were weakened and undone to a great degree was not that they were too strong and had to be weakened but that they administered so poorly by the agencies, at all levels. Including McVety's DEP. The public understood that there were strong, progressive laws (they looked good on paper), but then they saw so little enforcement and proper application of those laws. Strong laws but weak application and enforcement (the place still went down the tubes) = why bother? The public began not too care if the laws were weakened or not as it didn't appear to make any difference. Strong appplication, enforcement and protection would have led to a public perception that the laws were worth having in place and worth defending - not the opposite. The agencies are to blame due to their lax approach to it all over the years.
If three years of Vetting and public hearing is greasing skids than Im glad they were greased. And if you have a problem with it call President Obama because it is his agency the issued the permit and it is his agency that is doing the work. That's right the Army Corp of Engineers is doing the work on this project.
Shame on all of them: including Browner!
Actually gov scott's Fdep issued the permit to the at army corps for port of miam. But it hardly matters- they are all in cahoots!
I'm contacting Obama to make the whole bay a national park. Save the manatees!
Wonder how VNS is doing at the YMCA help line.
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