The EPA is giving free rein to invasive species

Too many scientists and policymakers focus so much on global warming that they’ve given short shrift to active environmental threats destroying our forests and waterways at unprecedented rates.

One could argue that invasive species, not warming temperatures, are the greatest threat posed to natural balance in North America. These animals and plants don’t belong in our country but, through global trade, they have ended up taking root, destroying our resources in perpetuity.

Among them are emerald ash borers, beetles that came from Asia in the 1990s and have killed more than a couple billion ash trees. More than 7 billion of these trees are threatened by the unstoppable beasts, including a billion here in the Empire State. If you want to see what they’ve done already, head out into the lush summer landscape and see the hundreds of tall, dead, leafless trees they’ve left in their path of destruction.

Also noticeable here in this region is the mass die-off of beech trees. The smooth-barked trees well known for their carving graffiti will be totally wiped out by 2025. The loss of those nut-bearing trees will affect every mammal in the forest.   

Then, there’s the woody adelgid which is wiping out hemlocks across the northeast. Once those coniferous trees die off so will impressive populations of migrant songbirds like warblers that frequent them.

The pestilence doesn’t end in our woodlands. Our waterways are under attack, too. Consider the Asian carp, a large bottom-feeding fish making its way across the Great Lakes where it will be certain to disrupt the system’s $7 billion fishery.

These invaders represent only the tip of the iceberg. Many more are here. More are coming.

It wasn’t always like this.

Prior to 2000 our greatest invasive nightmares were limited to the introduction of pests and disease that wiped out elms and chestnuts, trees that once grew large and dominated our forests. Those depressing die-offs slowly took place over decades.

But now, such attacks seem to be effecting so many species and are happening too fast and in new ways.

You can blame our shrinking world and the global economy.

With the vast amount of exports we bring in annually it’s no wonder that we’ve opened our borders to such invasions. More than 11 million shipping containers come to America every year, filled with unchecked product of questionable integrity from questionable sources. If the products themselves are suspect, imagine the skids upon which they are shipped (what insects do they carry?) or the craft that carry them (what do their ballasts hold?).

That begs the question: Why has the EPA done so little to regulate trade and incoming material? Is it misplaced priorities? 

Many have argued that the EPA’s modus operandi is unconstitutional. The federal government is not authorized to legislate environmental issues within the states. Truthfully, there is no agency that better understands the uniqueness of New York and its various habitats and the creatures that inhabit them than the state’s environmental arm, the Department of Conservation. It is that agency and New York’s state and local lawmakers (along with citizen participation) that should decide what are permissible levels of development and non-standard inputs into the environment as well as what may be taken from it.

But, constitutionally, the EPA does have the power to oversee aspects of international trade and protect our environment – and economy – from outside damage. The preamble to the Constitution describes the limited purposes of our federal government and among them is the provision of common defense and regulation of trade. Under that, the EPA would actually have constitutional justification to focus on those external threats, specifically invasive species at the point of entry.

If the EPA were serious about living out its mission – and the Constitutional responsibilities of the federal government – it would set strict rules and conduct numerous inspections to protect our nation from these outside factors that will compromise our environment and health more than any domestic factors will. Rather than harassing a locally-owned farms and gas stations, the EPA should instead hold accountable the massive the foreign firms and governments that don’t care the least about America’s wild lands and natural resources, as well the equally-guilty American corporations that don’t have or follow ethical and environmental policies and standards.

It seems like Big Money is winning out here, especially with help from abroad. Corrupt trading partners — like China — would prefer to see our resources expunged because it means more exporting business for them. Our losses are their gains. Invasive species represent a sort of economic warfare. And, it’s war in which the EPA has seemed to throw up the white flag.

From the 15 July 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Maximize the potential of the Erie Canal

Many New Yorkers will tell you the State Canal system is dead. They look at it as a historical remnant, thinking its ship sailed in the late 1800s when rail lines took over as the preeminent economy-driving infrastructure.

I beg to differ.

The Erie Canal and its connecting waterways are still vital to this day.

While it’s rare that you’ll see barges moving heavy equipment to manufacturers or grains from farmers, the Canal creates value in other ways, some measurable (tourism), others immeasurable (recreation and health). 

This week perfectly highlights that.

If you thought you saw a lot of cyclists on the Canalway Trail on Sunday you’re weren’t seeing things. That was Day One of the 21^st annual Cycle the Erie Canal bike tour which covers 8 days and all 400 miles of the Canal. In total, 650 cyclists made their way across Erie, Niagara and Orleans Counties on the Sabbath before spending the night in Albion.

I encountered 65 of them at various points on the trail while taking my two-year-old son on one of his 4 mile stroller rides on it. Being ambassadors of goodwill for Gasport we made sure to offer our cheery welcome to every one of them. By doing so, we literally bid well to one-out-of-every-ten participants of the event. 

I’m glad we did -- and I hope others in every port town did the same – because every little bit helps with tourism.

The number of accents on the return salutations was overwhelming. There were men and women who sounded as if they were from the South, Texas, the Midwest, the North Central states, Ontario, Boston, New York City and more. These were people who don’t hail from WNY but were here enjoying this beautiful public asset and briefly seeing the wonderful places and people along it.

We can only hope they return in other fashions, perhaps on a road trip, perhaps on a float trip, staying at local beds and breakfasts and rental properties and spending their money at local restaurants and shops.

When they do that, their impact is huge. A 2017 study found that visitors and residents alike accounted for $1.3 billion in spending associated with Canal events, tours and rentals. Vacationers alone spent 60 percent of that total.

As we saw last spring when Geraldo Rivera sailed it, you never know who you might encounter on the Canal.      

Hopefully, you see a neighbor there, and that’s where the other event of this week comes into play -- the 29^th annual Erie Canal Fishing Derby.

The Derby is one of the most impactful family-friendly events to take place on the waterway. Driven by the chance to win $20,000 in total prizes and spend quality time together on or along the water, it has proven to be incredibly popular every year, across multiple generations. Parents who were once themselves young kids wetting their lines during the contest now share the event with their children.

The Derby creates a lifetime -- no, many lifetimes – of love for what the Canal offers.

And, the Canal offers a lot – not only fishing and cycling, but hiking, jogging, birdwatching, powerboating, kayaking, canoeing, history and more.

The quality of life that it affords those who live near it is extraordinary. As Aristotle so succinctly said more than 2,300 years ago: “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous”. Nature can’t get much more accessible than this: 400 miles of water bordered by a public trail.

We need to capitalize on that, whether it’s for economic reasons like tourism or for social reasons like public health and recreation.

Luckily, the state is headed in that direction.

In May, Governor Cuomo announced an initiative to examine how the Canal can be reimagined for the 21st century in an effort to boost local economies and inspire new opportunities for tourism and recreation. In doing so, he created the Reimagine the Canal Task Force. It is made up of a unique group of souls representing diverse groups and communities invested in and impacted by the Canal.

They will be holding multiple public input sessions this summer. The first round takes place next week with local meetings happening from 6 to 8 p.m on July 15th in Lockport at the Challenger Learning Center and July 16th in Brockport at Cooper Hall on the College campus.

If you can’t make it submit your comments and ideas to the Task Force’s WNY co-chair, former lieutenant governor Bob Duffy who is now CEO of the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce. You can mail your correspondence to him at the Chamber:  150 State Street, Suite 400, Rochester, NY 14614.

If you live in a Canal community and value what the Canal means or could mean to your canalside town -- and all of Upstate -- please take the time to reach out to the Task Force. There’s so much value, so much potential in the Canal. Let’s make sure we all take advantage of that.

From the 10 July 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Declaring independence from our Presidents

Independence Day should remind Americans where our nation came from and what it should be…and how we’ve strayed from what was intended.   

Students of American history will recall the many grievances against King George III that were called out in the Declaration of Independence. Among them were the following:

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

“ …imposing Taxes on us without our Consent”

“…depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury”

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws”

I cite those indictments because they represent just a few that still affect us to this day.

But, rather than a monarch being the source of such unconscionable anguish, it is our very own Presidents who have been guilty of such crimes against our people.

It was never intended to be this way.

In the years that followed the signing of that sacred document on July 4, 1776, the Founding Fathers utilized their newfound independence to fashion a government that was beholden to the people -- rather than a people that were beholden to the government.

Knowing full well the flaws that come with Kings, they created a republic, and for it a Constitution that clearly called out the limited powers and responsibilities of our federal government. In just over 1,000 words they defined the role of the Executive – the President – someone who theoretically replaced the role of the King, but unlike a King, had almost no powers. The President could not make laws, create taxes and fees, and declare war – all powers that Kings took for granted. A President’s duties were very few: He was to be the face of our nation, the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, the appointer of judges and ambassadors, and he was to execute the laws created by Congress.

Although the ultimate law of the land – the Constitution – clearly and concisely identifies the legal role of the President, we regularly see the office stray from those limitations. 

Despite protestations by the Democrats, this is nothing new to the office since Donald Trump came into power. Every President of our lifetimes has been as despotic as kings, including alleged small government types like Ronald Reagan and others like Barack Obama who said they were doing the people’s will.

This addiction to centralized, unconstitutional power has become the norm and dates back to the days of Lincoln, a man who had no consideration for the Constitution. His efforts to stifle a crisis of national identity and integrity opened the floodgates that led to the modern and popular interpretation of the presidency that allows Presidents to declare war (our last Constitutional war and occupation was World War II), suspend trial by jury and exert indefinite detention, and use their administrative offices to make regulations (which are laws), impose taxes (fees and fines), and infringe upon the rights of the people and the sound operations of the free markets. They have grown beyond the boundaries of their duties and have assumed the powers that were once - and are elsewhere – bequeathed to monarchies, doing everything, unchecked, that a Congress should, thus taking power away from the people and keeping it for themselves.

The people fail to see that the ultimate power should be in their hands, through our representative form of government. The nation was founded so that the Congress was the most powerful branch of government. The general belief is that all branches share equal power; this is not so -- the Executive Branch should only be a check and a balance to an overreaching Congress, as are our courts to both. Our nation was founded this way so that the masses were equally represented and the development of laws and budgets came from a governing body directly accessible to the common man and which could actually be comprised of the common man. The rights and consent of the governed were paramount.

 
Yet, sadly, that is not what the people seem to want anymore. Carefully observe how Trump supporters cherish his actions. Watch what voters now demand of their candidates in this new election cycle. They want to know what the President and presidential candidates will do for them. They expect them to fix the economy, regulate industry, exert social mores upon the masses, assume war powers, make laws, control the Congress, create tax policy, intervene in foreign affairs, and suppress liberty in the name of security.

They think the President is -- and they clamor for -- a singular power, a central office...in essence, a king.

Isn’t that what our forefathers declared independence from?

From the 03 July 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News