| Sept:2011, Prince George's County Administrative Building flooding http://www.co.pg.md.us/netpub/server.np?original=437&site=PGCFlooding&catalog=catalog |
Prince George's County operates under a short-sighted, land-as-an-infinitely-replaceable-resource development strategy. It follows from this thinking that open space, woodlands and anything unpaved is a worth-little resource that needs enhancement that comes the creation of a few short term construction jobs and a lot of long term costly problems. The county's ideas and practices about development ideas often eliminate or significantly compromise ecosystem resources and the associated ecological services. As the residents of many parts of the county already know from the storms in 2011, the wanton destruction of natural area habitats results in fragmented, degraded or destroyed. In the case of Broad Creek, Edmonston and Upper Marlboro ecological hydrologic systems are altered significantly thereby causing more volatile flows and water level fluctuations and in addition reducing water quality. Necessary, increasing and inevitable development across the county beg for approaches to development that address and reduce adverse ecological impacts so that through conservation objectives sustainable communities can be achieved.[1]
Somehow,
Prince George's County's governing elite has been led to believe that
preservation of ecological systems (ecosystems) is a tool of those who would hinder
or obstruct economic progress in the county. So they dismiss out of hand
suggestions of conservation and wind up with massive flooding that residents and
businesses have to deal with - repeatedly over the years long after the few
dollars were made to build the original project. In an effort to paint all
conservationists as anti development, the county's political leadership allows others
to maintain quality ecosystems by externalizing their environmentally
unfriendly projects onto us such as the coal waste disposal site in Brandywine.[2]
Other counties encourage open space; we pave it over. Prince George's County
builds what other counties do not want. Instead of a national intelligence university
campus as proposed for Bethesda we get storage lockers.[3]
Flooding
comes from tampering with storm management systems that were designed for
specific flow loads. Building house on springs and office building on former
swamps is not a rational idea though Prince George's County thinks expedient
construction at any short term benefit outweighs the floods that follow. For
those Prince Georgians who felt the water 's fury which resulted from quick fix
economic development there are low-interest disaster loans available to small
businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small aquaculture businesses and
most private non-profit organizations affected by Tropical Storm Lee on Sept. 6
-14, 2011.[4]
[1] D.
M. Mensing1, MS, PWS and K. A. Chapman, PhD. Conservation Development and
Ecological Stormwater Management: An Ecological Systems Approach™. Applied
Ecological Services, Inc. 21938 Mushtown Road, Prior Lake, MN 55372 [accessed
December 25, 2011] http://streams.osu.edu/streams_pdf/Mensing.pdf
[2] Jeff
Stant. 2010. Thirty-one New Damage Cases of Contamination from Improperly
Disposed Coal Combustion Waste. . [accessed December 26, 2011] http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news_reports/documents/OutofControl-MountingDamagesFromCoalAshWasteSites.pdf
[3] US ARMY Corps of Engineers. Miscellaneous Notices [accessed December 26, 2011] http://www.nab.usace.army.mil/Public%20Notices/Misc.htm
On behalf of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District has prepared an EA and FNSI for the proposed redevelopment of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - Sumner Site located in Bethesda, Maryland as the Intelligence Community Campus, Bethesda (ICC-B) site. The EA describes the potential environmental consequences resulting from the proposed redevelopment and operation of the ICC-B. The purpose of the Proposed Action is to develop a collaborative intelligence community campus for the relocation of roughly 3,000 intelligence workers in the Washington National Capital area. The Proposed Action is necessary because: 1) there is a shortage of secured administrative building space in the Washington National Capital area; 2) a shared intelligence community campus supports congressional desires for a collaborative community environment and the consolidation of an intelligence community facility strategy; and 3) it supports the reuse of existing government facilities.
[4] Applications
and program information are available by calling the SBA’s Customer Service
Center at 800-659-2955 ( 800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard-of-hearing), or by
sending an email to disastercustomerservice@sba.gov. Business loan applications can also be
downloaded from www.sba.gov. Completed applications should be mailed to: U.S.
Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925
Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, TX http://www.sba.gov/about-offices-content/4/2818/news/35681
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