SEPTIC BILL HEARING - WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON

I recently attended the public hearing on the Septic Bill at the Civic Center. There were approximately one hundred and fifty citizens in attendance plus the entire County Council. Four environmentalists spoke during the public input session. It appeared that they were concerned about saving the bay and saving farmlands from the farmers. Apparently they don't feel that the farmers are capable of making wise decisions about their land on their own. To me it seemed like they were saying that it's best to leave these types of decisions up to the experts in the General Assembly. During the course of the meeting it was evident that many citizens, myself include, believe that these land decisions are best handled by local government. I think it's wise that governing decisions that are made the closest to the citizens are better for the citizens. One thing that I personally picked up on myself was this underlying mistrust in this bill. Someone said they though there was much more to this bill hidden in fine print. They thought that something was hidden that would take away more of their land rights. I believe they have good reason to think this way. After all, look how our general assembly has been hitting the farmers with regulations. The surrounding states haven't been doing this but Maryland is steadily piling it on. More regulations, more fees. Why? This mistrust feeling was further brought out when a farmer asked the attending environmentalists if any of them owned over an acre of land that would cause them to be affected by this bill. No hands went up. I thought ,"oh no, here we go again". People who are putting no meat in the soup pot are telling the providers what they should eat. Not to get off track but doesn't this remind you of the fifty percent of the people who are not paying a dime to the federal government but who are telling the others who have worked hard to be successful that it's not fair because they have so much and that they should give more back to them? The people make a good case for not trusting their government and I believe this feeling is growing. Perhaps Joe Collins was right when he said at the meeting that the people who had voted for this bill and would adopt this tier map are enemies of freedom.

I would like to make something clear. I am not picking on environmentalists. They have a noble cause of wanting to protect our environment and I applaud them for that. But as someone said at this meeting there comes a time when common sense has to be used. There is one thing that I see that I'm wondering if anyone else has picked up on. I believe that many environmentalists are being used by a very clever person. This person has taken millions of dollars out of the Chesapeake Bay Fund and transferred them to the general fund and then used them for his special project. He also send environmentalists out to meetings not prepared to prove and defend their cause. Just look at this meeting. Not one documented case or proven study to show the citizens what they want us to take as gospel. When you tell me that my septic system out in the middle of nowhere is one of the main culprits in polluting the bay then damn it you'd better be prepared to back it up with proven facts. Here is what I would like to see happen just as a little experiment. I would like to see Daily Times reporter Jennifer Shutt and Karen Lukas, Executive Director of the Wicomico Environmental Trust, team up and gather some information for a formal presentation to the people about the bay. Here is what would be include: find out what agency, department maintains the list of fines paid for polluting the bay. Go back ten years and get the names of the company or individuals, what the infraction was, what the resolution was, how much was the fine and where did he money go. Check to see if there are companies that pay a fine each year instead of fixing the problem because it's cheaper. Then I would like to see these two take a boat trip starting at the western shore by the Bay Bridge and going around the entire upper bay area including the Curtis Bay area, shipyards, ship unloading facilities and back down to the eastern shore side of the bay. To top this trip off they could do a night visit to the ship anchorage just south of the Bay bridge where hundreds and hundreds of large ships often spend days at anchorage waiting for a dock to tie up to offload and load cargo.  Do you really believe that they are pumping their sewage and bilges into holding tanks or into the bay. Also, along the way please note the areas around the sewage treatment plants that empty into the bay and pay particular attention to any damns that might be polluting the bay.( Hint, hint, Nassawango.) Just out of curiosity why aren't the environmentalists tackling these problems before they get to my septic tank in the middle of nowhere? What I just mentioned would make a fantastic presentation to the people and I just bet some unspoken things would be brought up. Big question here that I would like an answer to: Jennifer Shutt, Karen Lukas are you up to doing something really important for the environment or do you just want to talk about it.

As I stood in back of the meeting I was constantly taking notes and referring back to them. There was a note about something Dr. Belcher had brushed on just real quickly. I believe he said that he thought that this bill had nothing to do with cleaning up the bay. And do you know what. I believe he is right. This bill and others similar to it have just one goal. That is to separate you from your hard earned money and get it into the hands of the government. You see I believe this all just might be about a "Legacy" and a "Dream". It's not a secret that our governor wants to be the next President of the United States. This is his Dream and he has been planning it for a long time. In order for him to obtain this Dream he needs a Legacy that he can have bragging rights on to lead him to the Dream. That Legacy is the Rapid Rail System that is to run from Baltimore City through Baltimore County, Howard County and Montgomery County and end up in Fairfax Virginia. Notice the high profile counties that this system runs through. If you control the votes in just these areas then you control what goes on in Maryland. This project has already cost billions of your tax dollars and it's all being spent in the high vote area with high paying union jobs. it gets jobs in that area and it gets votes. So how does this affect you? After all it's way on the other side of the bridge. Perhaps I can just point out a few things. At one time we use to get about six million dollars of gas taxes back to maintain our roads. The last few years that's been cut to just a little over a quarter million dollars. That's not enough to fill potholes and spread salt when needed. Where did the money go? Teachers and state workers, why are you being so quiet on these events. Your pension funds have been decimated. So much so that no more could be taken from them because the credit rating agencies are going to clobber Maryland's credit ratings. Then to top it off the responsibility for these funds have now been passed down to the county level and if you don't think that's not going to have some devastating consequences in the future I feel sorry for you. Just a little side note here, if there are members of our government that believe the credit rating agencies don't know what's going on here in Maryland they might just want to start finding ways of helping the people instead of taxing them to death.

Big question you might be asking yourself right now is what has all this got to do with the Septic Bill. That's easy - look at the census figures for the last ten years. It appears that people have been bailing out of the cities and into the rural areas. Baltimore seems to be down almost a third of it's population. If that keeps up not only will Baltimore be broke in ten years it will be a ghost town. So where does the governor get revenues to complete this Legacy program. Raise taxes, raise fees, create new taxes, create new fees. Has anyone heard mention of a well tax yet? Look out. The Septic Bill helps the governor's cause greatly' It will force people back into the cities where once again taxes will be available for transfer to the general fund and then onto the Legacy.

So you can see this is not about saving the Bay or protecting farmland. It's really about your tax dollars and a Dream. I did a final check of my notes and found where someone had said they thought the Environmentalists and Farmers could work together on this problem. I believe that. Common sense prevailing though. I also believe that Republicans and Democrats could work together on these problems also. Again, common sense prevailing of course.

John Palmer, Delmar, Md.