Two Joyce’s For the Price of One
ArchPundit
Joyce first points out that The Nature Conservancy has an agenda:
The Illinois chapter of the Nature Conservancy had gathered to begin charting the largest river-restoration project ever undertaken in the state. The non-profit environmental group wants to bring back the lakes, marshes and forests that once thrived in this area, reconnecting them to the Illinois River, which is now barricaded from the land by a 20-foot tall levee.
The Nature Conservancy calls its project key to restoring the Illinois a river that some have described as near death and habitat that has been disappearing at an alarming rate. By restoring the land and the way it interacts with the river, scientists hope to improve the river’s water quality and re-establish homes for many species of plants and animals, some rare and threatened.
They also want to revive some semblance of the rhythm of flooding and recession that nature uses to control rivers more effectively than any levee ever built. The 7,600-acre swath of manicured farmland that the scientists eyed from their perch is a common example of how the modern world has transformed the Illinois and other large flood-plain rivers.
The Illinois River used to boast 400,000 acres of flood a plain-vast stretches of land that absorbed rising waters and spread them wide. It was a thriving system that diffused the river when it swelled too big and rejuvenated the land that had grown dry in its absence.
That isn’t exactly a crazy agenda. But to the paranoid…..
She then goes on to rant about the 1993 being a 500 year flood ignoring that if you cut the channel down enough–the 500 year floods become 25 year floods. Along the Illinois River the flood waters towards the mouth were the same as in the flood in the 1940s.
Now Joyce calls herself a good conservative, but look at this quote:
FEMA no longer permits building in floodplain areas and brings counties into compliance with the threat they will lose their flood insurance program if they do not abide. Could the next step be that this land can no longer be farmed?
Well, no, the next step would be that if you want to build in areas that are naturally inundated with water the taxpayers aren’t going to cover your stupidity and let you pay for your own bad choices.
Since I was gone last week, her column went uncritiqued.
From the quoted material:
The government of King County, Washington (which is dominated by Seattle) is gearing up to steal 65 percent of the property of landowners in rural King County as the environmental evangelists and their friends in the major media cheer them on. King County is set to pass 500 pages of new regulations that will make rural King County property the most highly restricted property in the United States.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t address what the actual bill does which is to identify critical areas and then set restrictions on environmentally sensitive areas. Sort of changes the whole interpretation, no?
Best quote comes after that though:
Rarely do board and council members read the small print much less research the issues on which they are making decisions that will permanently effect their communities. It is very possible they will find they have sold their birthright and that of their neighbors — not for a bowl of porridge — but for a government grant or an “incentive based program.”
I’ll take a guess and say they read more than Joyce did. Why, o’ why does the Leader not fact check this idiot?