Terry O'Brien, as steward of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), refused to listen to the Carp-ing of the Sierra Club and the Enviro -Nazis* who have chorused up to close the locks on the greatest engineering miracle in history.
Since 2006, Terry O'Brien and the MWRD has been saddled with Debra Shore. Mistress Shore generally seems to ignore the mission of the District and hobbies with Environmental Theology - which passes for "isn't she smart?" in Progressive Circles.
Debra Shore wants the course of the Chicago River reversed. You see human beings did not want cholera due to filthy water and waste and embarked upon the greatest engineering miracle in American History - reversing the flow of the Chicago River. Environmental Fascists hate anything that man has wrought. They don't have a hell of a lot of concern for what God has wrought, but that is another issue.
Debra Shore is the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District's resident goofball. Debra Shore questions the right of helots in the Greater Chicago District to have showers, flush toilets, and drink clean treated water much less operate barges or enjoy boating. For months Mistress Shore has placed poop-friendly passages of Green Theology on the pages of the laughable Huffington Post. Those delightful droppings of Enviro Fascist Theology argued that treating Chicago's drinking water was a shame.
In June of 2009, Mistress Shore offered this redaction of Enviro Theologian Thomas Berry who believed that earth is good and people are very, very, very bad -
The central challenge that (Thomas) Berry poses -- the "Great Work" remaining for us to do -- is to move from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism. In other words, to move from a world in which man dominates the Earth and natural resources exist primarily for us to use or abuse to a new paradigm of an Earth community in which we exist as stewards and caring kin with the rest of nature. Ecocentrism -- putting the Earth first -- recognizes that we are mutually dependent with all life systems on this home planet. Berry's vision was to establish "a new reciprocity of humans with the Earth and of humans with one another."
That, of course, was not the predominant ethic in 1889, when people treated rivers as places to dump our fecal matter. We did not view rivers and streams as living ecosystems worthy of our care. The principles of Berry's new Ecozoic Era are such that "any valid Progress must be progress of the entire life community, not progress of the human at the expense of the non-human members of the community."
I have been mulling over this question, What do we owe the river? The Chicago River -- manipulated, channelized, reconfigured -- has been called the artery running through the heart of the city. Do we have the vision, the will and the wherewithal to clean up this urban working river, making it safer for recreation, healthier and more beautiful? have been mulling over this question, What do we owe the river? The Chicago River -- manipulated, channelized, reconfigured -- has been called the artery running through the heart of the city. Do we have the vision, the will and the wherewithal to clean up this urban working river, making it safer for recreation, healthier and more beautiful?
This is not a simple question. And yet, are we not diminished as a people if we continue to treat our water as a waste product and our rivers as garbage dumps? Now we try to make amends. We are removing dams to encourage fish survival; reintroducing fire to enhance prairie habitat; re-seeding and restoring and engendering humility.
Those of us who have access to water from the Great Lakes -- through the accident of birth or the exercise of volition -- are enormously lucky we live near one of the world's great natural resources. As such, it is incumbent upon us to demonstrate wise stewardship of this precious, irreplaceable liquid asset, our fresh water. What, then, is our shared responsibility to the lake and to the river? Can we craft a future that meets human needs for an adequate supply of freshwater and those of the rest of nature? Can we demonstrate the restraint, respect and, yes, love, necessary to provide for the Hine's emerald dragonfly, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Hines and their offspring?
Mistres Shore's Eco Theology musings were hip-checked into the boards by the Asian Carp Invasion which needed no Theology.
CLOSE THE LOCKS!!! Environmental Foundations with boards of directors peopled by construction company CEO's, joined hands with Sierra Club Soul-Patched Loudmouths and the Attorney General of Michigan seeking a political dodge and petitioned the Supreme Court to CLOSE THE LOCKS AND SAVE THE EARTH!
Terry O'Brien, President of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District refused to be gulled let alone bullied by the Birkenstock Shod Activists and Corporate Opportunists.
The United States Supreme Court slapped down the idiotic suit.
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to order the closing of parts of a key Midwest waterway system to prevent Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes.(Click Post Title for full article)
The court rejected a request by the state of Michigan for an injunction closing two navigation locks in the Chicago area, which the state said was necessary to protect the Great Lakes' $7 billion fishing and tourism industries from the carp threat.
Terry O'Brien is running for President of Cook County Board. Terry O'Brien as President of MWRD has saved Cook County taxpayers millions of dollars, because he listens to civil engineers who know about water management and water treatment.
Our Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is largely in very good hands - Debra shore notwithstanding.
Debra Shore will be around for more laughs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-shore/the-audacity-of-slope-or_b_218224.html
* ECO- Fascism:
Spokesmen for such groups as the Society for Conservation Biology, The Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and even members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offer support for the general idea of the Wilderness Project. Peter Brussard from the University of Nevada at Reno believes that the Project "certainly is justifiable scientifically." Luckily, not all biologists accept that position; Deborah Jensen, a biologist with The Nature Conservancy, does not believe that the goal of conserving biodiversity requires such an approach as the Wilderness Project.
Yet even if those touting the Wilderness Project do not believe it possible to create such a massive preserve in one fell swoop, they may yet achieve their final goal piecemeal. Efforts are currently underway to set aside 139,000 square miles in the Great Plains for a buffalo sanctuary; the Paseo Pantera project seeks to connect wilderness areas in Central America; British Columbia is linking a new 4000 square mile park with Alaska and the Yukon Territory to create a 33,000 square mile preserve; Congress is considering setting aside 11,000 square miles in California; the Nevada Biodiversity Project seeks to set aside hundreds of square miles of mountains; and Noss recently received $150,000 from the Pew Charitable Funds to further planning for wildlands set-asides.
In response to this proposal, some people were rightfully outraged.*2 One woman from Nevada said that, "Proponents of the project are incredibly insensitive to the values, freedoms, and property rights of the many millions of people who live in and love" these lands. She characterized these ecologists as "an arrogant urban elite with a compulsion to live out their fantasy at our expense" (italics in original) -- which is a remarkably accurate description of statists of any stripe.
Another man from Arizona stated that this idea "illustrates all the absurd flaws in the ecocentric mind --...that balanced ecosystems don't include humans, (and) that government coercion can override human nature." Absurd, yes...but no more so than might describe the mind-sets of Marx or Lenin. Unfortunately, the "absurd flaws" of their political system did not prevent them from imposing it across a significant fraction of the globe over a seventy year time span. The idea of the Wilderness Project is still relatively new and controversial, yet its supporters may become powerful beyond any rational expectations.
Some of those advocates believe it is important to "halt the spread of nature's most dangerous predator and competitor"; that such lands should be cared for by people "who wish to restore themselves to a natural (i.e., tribal) state"; that "27 representatives" and "over 50 scientists also support the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act."
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Eco-Fascism.html
