Category Archives: Environment

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Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Disaster planning, Economic development, Economy, Environment, Finance, Land use & development, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Regulation, Uncategorized

Tagged goozeviews

Malodorous Portsmouth

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Peter Galuszka| Comments Off

By Peter Galuszka

Is there something stinky going on in Portsmouth?

It’s a question that has suddenly wafted up when residents of the port city learned that the Virginia Ports Authority has been in secret talks with Canadian-owned PCS Phosphate to put in a plant to melt sulfur pellets for fertilizer production.

The same project had been pitched for Morehead City, N.C. but was shouted down by a lively environmentalist coalition, which sparked a controversy that reached the office of Tarheel Gov. Beverly Perdue. PCS Phosphate operates one of the world’s largest phosphate mines in coastal Beaufort County, which is an easy barge trip away from either Portsmouth or Morehead City.

It’s a story near and dear to me since it was one of the first I covered as a cub reporter at the Washington (N.C.) Daily News back in my college-day summers of 1971 and 1972. The big mine, then owned by TexasGulfSulphur, had been in operation since the mid-1960s and had created all sorts of ecological challenges for the beautiful coastal plains and swamps of Beaufort County about 120 miles south of Tidewater. Water kept filling up the huge surface mine pit, so TexasGulf drilled wells to force water from an aquifer away from the pit. That dried up homeowners’ wells for miles and prompted years of lawsuits.

Later, when French oil giant Elf Aquitaine ended up owning the mine, which makes fertilizer products, the mine got the largest-ever fine at the time from North Carolina air pollution control officials. Canada-based Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan eventually ended up buying the operation and owns PCS Phosphate.

With a history like this, it’s small wonder Portsmouthians are up in arms about a sulfur melting plant which will only employ about 10 people. Company officials insist it won’t stink up anything.

But then, Portsmouth, an industrial town that hosts the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, has always been a touchstone for unwanted industrial projects. In the 1970s, an oil refinery was proposed by some independent oilmen but was never built. In 2007, Portsmouth pushed Chesapeake into ending an ethanol plant planned across the city line. That may have been a good thing since the U.S. has too many ethanol plants.

The VPA has come under criticism for keeping the sulfur project under wraps for as long as it could. After all, isn’t the VPA a public agency (“quasi” public agency)? The plant would be built close to nice old neighborhoods that Portsmouth has labored for years to revive. It would be only one mile from Norfolk’s waterfront that also has plants for a new revival after a renaissance in the 1980s.

Funny how these plans seem to come out faster in a more open state like North Carolina.

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Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Economy, Environment, Planning, The Economy, Transportation, Water-waste water

Tagged goozeviews

More Hypocrisy from Philip Morris USA

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Peter Galuszka| 9 Comments

By Peter Galuszka

Tobacco has always been a powerful industry in Virginia since the days of the Jamestown colony. It is no less influential today as Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA and its parent firm, Altria, constantly play shell games about the hazards of their products.

Just before Christmas, and right in time for the 2012 election year, Altria trotted out a new Website called “Citizens for Tobacco Rights” that seems designed to tap some of the anti-government, anti-regulation fervor of the Tea Party movement to boost its top line.

The company says that it is offering the Website so that smokers know their rights. It has a virtual smorgasbord of information about taxation, local and state laws limiting smoking and other government efforts to somehow restrict tobacco use, which is one of the largest health issues in the U.S. and kills a about 400,000 every year.

Yet what makes this new Website peculiar is that it goes against Altria’s low-profile public image that the firm has been trying hard to invent since it was one of four cigarette makers dunned for $206 billion by 46 states in 1998 because of health risks.

Philip Morris, consequently, started including health warnings about its products in four-color paper flyers and also on its Web page. In 2008, the firm split itself into two parts. Philip Morris International, based on Lausanne, Switzerland, was free to make cigarettes with several times the addictive nicotine and tar content as ones made in the U.S. and market them vigorously in the Third World where people might not understand the link between cancer, lung disease and other ailments and smoking.

Philip Morris USA, on the other hand, took a far more benign approach, and from its new headquarters in Richmond, clung to a gradually diminishing base of smokers while telling them they really shouldn’t smoke. As it states on its Website: “PM USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking cause lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers. There is no safe cigarette.”

The statement is on one part of the corporate Website. For an entirely different view, click on the new “Citizens for Tobacco Rights” page on the same site. You get the impression that ordinary cigarette users are having their God-given rights trampled upon by nefarious do-gooders and government regulators. Let’s wave the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Invite Sarah Palin to speak.

One can only speculate on why Altria is trying this gambit at this particular moment. The obvious reason is that the firm’s propagandists want to tap the Tea Party sentiment to boost sales. In 2010, Altria Group reported net revenues of $24.3 billon, a 3.4 percent increase over the previous year.

The firm complains that it has been under heavy pressure since federal excise taxes were boosted in the late 1990s and many states and localities have banned cigarette smoking in public places. One is New York City, where city officials and not easily impressed with corporate money and from which Altria retreated its headquarters to Richmond. Another reason for the Web page could be that it’s been a long time since the 1998 health settlement and people tend to forget.

In Virginia, Altria is considered a sacred cow. It employs about 6,000 people and is one of the leading donors to universities, the arts and research. Its impact is especially strong in Richmond, where it operates its last large cigarette manufacturing plant in the country and funds everything from chairs at Virginia Commonwealth University to the Richmond Symphony.

Don’t think that the largesse doesn’t come without strings. When an artist wanted 400,000 cigarettes for a piece of artwork that was to be displayed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Philip Morris said no even though it is a major sponsor of the museum. VMFA public relations people were careful to play that one down.

The new Website underlines, once again, the hypocrisy and contradictions of Philip Morris USA and Altria. Its ploys to encourage people to stand up for their rights while warning them its products kill are beyond routine cynicism. As it has since 1609, Virginia just plays along.

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Posted in 2012, Agriculture & forestry, Consumer protection, Economy, Environment, Federal, Health care, Public safety & health

Tagged goozeviews

Clash of Principles in Wind Farm Debate

Posted on January 2, 2012 by James A. Bacon| 9 Comments

Maui wind farm -- you should see it from the water. Spectacular!

by James A. Bacon

The Floyd County board of supervisors is considering a ban on structures taller than 40 feet on mountain ridges, an action that would kill any chance of building a wind farm in the Southwest Virginia county. The proposal is bound to be controversial in the sparsely populated jurisdiction — and it raises prickly questions on how to reconcile multiple environmental and property-rights goals.

Two companies have discussed building wind farms on Willis Ridge. Wayne Booth, a cattle farmer whose land provides breathtaking views of the mountain line, has collected more than 600 signatures from local residents opposing the placement of turbines on the ridge, reports the Roanoke Times.

Floyd County is a solid part of “red state” America, voting 59% for John McCain and 39% for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Conservative political values rule — yet those values provide no clear guidance regarding the ban. Red State America believes in economic development, and building the wind farm would represent a potential economic boon. Moreover, many farmers, timber owners and small property owners also tend to think that what a man does with his property is his own business. On the other hand, one could advance the argument that wind farms are driven by tax breaks and other federal subsidies, making them illegitimate in the minds of small-government fiscal conservatives.

Conventional blue state values offer little guidance either. The justification for subsidizing wind power is to decrease the use of fossil fuels in electrical generation that create pollution and contribute to global warming. But conservationists tend to favor preserving the natural beauty of mountain ridge lines from real estate development on the grounds of aesthetics — and windmills are as visually intrusive than vacation houses. Even more worrisome, windmills, dubbed the “cuisinarts of the air,” kill hundreds of thousands of bats and birds each year, including many threatened species. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field report stated that nearly 500 bird carcasses were discovered in a mere two-week span at the Laurel Mountain wind farm in West Virginia, writes Kenneth Artz for the Heartland Institute.

How do you trade off potential gains for global warming versus unsightly aesthetics and the slaughter of birds? Which is more compelling — job creation or opposition to the government picking winners and losers through subsidies and tax breaks?

Personally, I don’t find the “aesthetics” argument very persuasive. I remember a seeing a view of wind turbines on a mountain crest of the island of Maui that was simply breathtaking. Windmills are no more intrinsically ugly than any other man-made structure. Moreover, my “right” to a pleasant view is hardly a bedrock constitutional one. Where does that right stop? If I have a right not to view wind turbines on a ridge line, do I have a right not to see a subdivision built upon farmland in my view shed? Do I have a right to veto, on aesthetic grounds, your decision to paint your house in Hokie blue and orange? Can I compel you to take down the hideous pink flamingos in your yard? No! If you want to protect your “view shed,” I suggest that you persuade the land owner to put the land into a property easement or, failing that, raise the money to buy the property yourself.

That’s an argument in favor of allowing the wind turbines. Now let me provide an argument against them. Our national energy policy is a disaster. We are spending tens of billions of dollars trying to promote wind, solar and other alternate energy sources, most of which are grotesquely uneconomical. It is foolhardy to subsidize the current generation of alternate energy sources, which will lock in expensive electric rates that both harm energy-intensive industries, thus costing jobs, and punish lower-income families whose incomes aren’t keeping up with rising costs as it is. Instead of subsidizing projects with inadequate technology, the U.S. government should invest in research on the next generation of energy technology. Subsidizing projects destroys wealth. Underwriting research creates wealth.

Taking all factors into consideration, I would oppose the wind turbines at the present time. Given the evolution of technology, it could take a decade or more before wind turbines can compete on a level playing field. Then I would tell the people of Floyd County, if you want to protect your views, raise money to buy the view-shed rights to your neighbor’s property. You’d be wise to start fund raising right away.

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Posted in 2011, Energy, Environment

Tagged James A. Bacon

Virginia’s Energy Fantasies

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Peter Galuszka| 4 Comments

By Peter Galuszka

Plans to mine uranium in Southside Virginia did not get the boost some had been hoping for now that a 22-month-long review by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering has been released.

Far from rubber-stamping the plan, the independent analysis reported that there are “significant” health and environmental obstacles with the plan, which would allow mining 119 million pounds of uranium from the properties of several politically connected families near Chatham.

Among those challenges are that Virginia, which must protect the environment and the lives of mining workers, has no experience doing so and lacks any regulations covering mining uranium. The study did not give a go or no-go recommendation but said that mining could occur if proper safeguards were put in place. Getting them will take much time and effort.

In other words, the juggernaut towards the uranium mining idea, which has included all-expenses-paid trips to France for legislatures considering ending a two-decades-long ban on such mining, just got a big, bright yellow caution light, not exactly what proponents had hoped for.

Even supporters started backing away from the idea. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, who wants to make Virginia “the Energy Capital of the East Coast” seemed to mumble that uranium mining should be done safely. Virginia Energy Resources Inc., which owns 29 percent of the mining project, put the happiest face it could on the report, stating that we now have a “roadmap” to employ the “best practices” in safety that have been in practice in the U.S. and Canada. Mining opponents hailed the report as vindication of their fears.

What’s going to be interesting is the next step. How Virginia’s business elite handles the report and the moratorium will be the determining factor about whether the ban is ended and the mining goes through.

The sad truth is that many of these people see only one side of the energy equation and are loath to consider environmental issues or even get a deeper understanding of energy itself. Instead, legitimate concerns are painted as over-regulation madness by the likes of Barack Obama and his band of socialists. What is sad is that these very critics really have no real idea of what the global energy mix and what the markets really are.

For proof, read a piece of a couple of weeks ago by Barry E. DuVal, the new president of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce who was once mayor of Newport News and a cabinet secretary under Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore. DuVal’s piece was a diatribe against the Obama Administration for not including areas offshore Virginia for exploration and drilling. He also attacked Obama’s concerns about the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would take fossil fuel energy from an oil sands project in Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. Without a major change in direction from the White House,” DuVal wrote, Virginia won’t be able to drill offshore, expand renewable electricity sources and build nuclear power plants.

A few little problems here. First, there are no known, large deposits of oil off the Virginia coast. There may be natural gas, but nothing certain. If you want to discuss natural gas, one thing DuVal fails to mention, is that hydraulic fracking of Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and New York, has resulted in an unexpected flood of new gas. The quantity is so great that electric utilities are shifting to gas from coal. As far as nuclear, DuVal seems to have forgotten the August earthquake that pushed the North Anna nuclear plant to its design limits and caused a national review of just how susceptible the country’s nuclear stations are to earthquakes. As for wind, Google plans a huge wind farm just off Virginia’s coast. No mention there. As for the Keystone pipeline, the petroleum is exceptionally dirty. The pipeline will result in zero jobs in Virginia, if you bother to look at a map.

And lastly, for the first time in decades, the U.S. has become a net exporter of energy. This is all happening without Bob McDonnell’s fantasy of the state becoming the “Energy Capital of the East Coast.” The Old Dominion is a huge shipping port for coal exports, but it involves coking coal for steel for skyscrapers in Shanghai and Mumbai and has nothing to do with energy.

So, given the level of understanding of the energy outlook, it should come as no surprise that this crowd will be pushing for an end to uranium mining and pressing on without substantive regulations. We hate regulations. We’re Virginians. In any event, it’s all Barack Obama’s fault.

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Posted in Economic development, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Politics

Tagged goozeviews

The Heritage Foundation Takes on the Anti-Agenda 21 Crowd

Posted on December 2, 2011 by James A. Bacon| 8 Comments

The Agenda 21 logo

by James A. Bacon

Finally, someone has responded to a bizarre sub-current of the conservative movement, the anti-Agenda 21 crowd. Wendell Cox, Ronald D. Utt, and Brett D. Schaefer with the Heritage Foundation have published a paper arguing that the anti-Agenda 21 movement is a distraction from the larger task of opposing “destructive smart growth programs.”

A handful of activists, including here in Virginia, have been raising the alarm in conservative circles about Agenda 21, a plan of action adopted by the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development calling upon governments at all levels to support sustainable development. Conspiratorial-minded anti-Agenda 21 activists have conflated all local “smart growth” movements, regardless of philosophical stripe, with the social-engineering approach of Agenda 21. They have made it difficult to have an intelligent conversation in some conservative circles about land use issues.

“If opponents focus excessively on Agenda 21,” write the Heritage scholars in a gentle reproach, “it is much more likely that homegrown smart-growth policies that undermine the quality of life, personal choice, and property rights in American communities will be implemented by local, state, and federal authorities at the behest of environmental groups and other vested interests. Preventing American implementation of Agenda 21 should therefore be viewed as only one part of a broader effort to convince U.S. government officials to repeal destructive smart-growth programs and prevent the enactment of new ones.”

It’s good to see conservative scholars try to rein in the anti-Agenda 21 zealots, who only muddy issues relating to transportation, land use and growth management. The zealots have thrived, I believe, because most Tea Partiers are new to politics and public policy, know next to nothing about how transportation and land use decisions are made and find the conspiratorial Agenda 21 narrative to be vaguely plausible, while responsible critics of smart growth have, until now, retained an embarrassed silence for fear of offending conservative constituencies.

So, I applaud the Heritage trio for writing the paper. However, I do have to take issue with the paper’s underlying assumption that everyone within the broader smart growth movement, from Greenpeace to New Urbanists, favors the mobilization of government power to impose a vision of squeezing Americans into compact communities and taking away their cars. Without question, more radical elements of the smart growth movement would happily trample on property rights and individual liberties in pursuit of their utopian ideal. But many do not. The fact is, “smart growth” encompasses a wide spectrum of views.

More to the point for this blog, the organizations promoting “smart growth” in Virginia are not big-government liberals who seek to bludgeon Virginians into being environmentally virtuous. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time hob-nobbing with the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Piedmont Environmental Council (a Bacon’s Rebellion sponsor), the Virginia Conservation League and others, and I can say with total confidence that (1) they are not taking their marching orders from the United Nations and (2) many would disagree with Agenda 21 on many of the particulars.

Indeed, I would classify myself a member of the smart growth parade, though I’m certainly not representative of the mainstream. I have devoted this blog to showing how the application of the principles of free markets, fiscal conservatism and respect for property rights can be reconciled with smart growth ideas. I find considerable overlap in my thinking and that of many smart growth activists in Virginia.

Tea Party activists in Virginia need to switch their focus from the Agenda 21 boogie man to understanding the way growth and development issues play out in the real world. There is no such thing as a “free market” in real estate development. Land use is more heavily regulated (by zoning codes and comprehensive plans) and subsidized (through transportation policies, infrastructure funding, housing subsidies) than almost any other sector of the American economy. Only the education and health care sectors, also known for being dysfunctional, are worse. Politics in the statehouse and the courthouse have been dominated for years by business interests seeking to manipulate the system to their advantage, stymied mainly by anti-growth (not smart growth) populists who make things worse by adding layers of heavy-handed and arbitrary restrictions.

Many of the smart growth supporters I talk to in Virginia view themselves as fiscal conservatives. They oppose wasting money on extravagant highway projects that enrich land speculators and developers. (Some, I’ll concede, fail to show the same skepticism regarding extravagant rail projects that also enrich land speculators and developers.) The thinking of the smart growth movement has evolved far beyond that of the old anti-growth populists. Virginia smart growthers (smarties?) do preach a vision of creating more compact, walkable communities with access to mass transit shared by all smart growthers (and Agenda 21) but they are more inclined to convert people through positive examples of successful development than to ram their ideas down the throats of a reluctant populace.

Be that as it may, I am hopeful that the Heritage broadside signals the marginalization of the anti-Agenda 21 conspiracy mongers in conservative circles and a revival of intelligent debate over how to handle complex issues relating to growth and development.

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Posted in 2011, Environment, Land use & development

Tagged James A. Bacon

Why Not Public-Private Partnerships for Parks?

Posted on December 2, 2011 by James A. Bacon| 3 Comments

by James A. Bacon

Few people outside the Roanoke area have heard of Virginia’s Explore Park, a 1,100-acre facility set in the mountains of Roanoke and Bedford counties. Launched with great fanfare in 1986 as a public-private partnership, the park offers mountain bike trails, a forester’s trail, a fishing and kayaking access point to the Roanoke River, special events like trail runs and adventure races — and a Film Center that has been involved with 16 film and documentary productions over the years, including the soon-to-be-released “Alone Yet Not Alone” (see trailer), which explores the conflict between English settlers and native Indians.

Virginia’s Explore Park is operated by an entity created by the General Assembly: the Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority (VRFA). The Roanoke community sank considerable funds into the venture but it never lived up to expectations, and it closed in 2007 during the adverse conditions of the financial meltdown and recession. But it has since reopened, and the VRFA board has a new plan, which it describes in a report to the General Assembly, “Virginia’s Explore Park Status Report.”

The board has articulated a new vision: “to be a leader in providing outdoor recreation opportunities, stewardship of this region’s heritage, and advocacy for environmental conservation for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of present and future generations.” The VRFA, states the report, is poised to “reinvent” the park by seeking out concessionaires, developers and outfitters to create privately generated revenue streams. (Among other revenue-generators, the board recently agreed to authorize two cell phone towers on park property.)

The board touts the park as a potential model for other public-private partnerships around Virginia, “allowing the state to stretch limited resources and share the burdens and jobs of investment with local governments and private individuals, foundations and corporations.”

Here’s the catch: The board would like the state to step up as a partner. It doesn’t seem to be asking for much: just tweak the representation on the board, move the park from non-state agency status to a line item in the Department of Conservation and Recreation, allow Virginia departments to assist and collaborate, and “consider” investing in capital development venues and revenue-producing programs.

It’s not like the VRFA is asking for a lot of money that the state doesn’t have, so why not? Maybe Virginia’s Explore Park can act as a template in our new age of austerity for expanding Virginia’s park lands through public-private partnerships. Let’s give it a try.

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Posted in 2011, Environment

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The Wonk Salon, November 21, 2011

Posted on November 21, 2011 by James A. Bacon| Comments Off

U.S. Industries Need a “Competitiveness Audit”
Progressive Policy Institute
Local, state and federal government need a “competitiveness audit” of American industries to guide the allocation of economic development resources. Target those industries that have a chance of becoming economically competitive and write off the losers.

New Technologies More Effective than Compact Development at Cutting Greenhouse Gases
Reason Foundation
If your goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, new technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in electric cars paired with electricity from hydro-power would accomplish the goal far more cost effectively than mandating more compact development.

South Carolina Colleges Too Expensive, Graduation Rates Too Low
South Carolina Policy Council
Everybody’s applying a critical eye now to state systems of higher education, even South Carolina. The interests of individual institutions outweigh those of the state.

Time to Focus on Community College Graduation Rates
Center for an Urban Future
Community colleges are a key vehicle for upward social mobility, but New York’s are falling short of the potential. Increasing the graduation rate by 10 percentage points could give a $71 million one-year boost to the state and students.

How to Make College More Affordable: Expand Tax Credits
Third Way
College is increasingly unaffordable. So let’s do more of what caused the problem in the first place — increase tuition subsidies, this time through a consolidation and expansion of tax credits.

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Posted in 2011, Economic development, Economy, Education (higher ed), Environment, Land use & development, Transportation, Wonk Salon

What’s McDonnell Up To With Transportation?

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Peter Galuszka| 6 Comments

By Peter Galuszka

The McDonnell Administration is taking a chain saw to policies that promote smarter, more efficient growth by axing reforms to make neighborhoods connected and pushing design contracts that fast-track road construction and discourage public input.

Such are the conclusions drawn from two blog postings by David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington and Jim Bacon, publisher of this blog.

They detail how Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton are throttling reform-minded policies that recently put Virginia at the forefront of good planning. They are using the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB), a 17-member panel appointed by the governor, as the spearhead to push their ideas on how subdivisions and roads should be built.

According to the Alpert blog, the CTB recently got rid of policies enacted in 2009 that would encourage to build new subdivisions that connect easily to secondary and primary roads. Up until then, planning in Virginia was of the usual 1950s model that erected countless cul de sacs without only a few roads outside the development.

The result forced people into a lifestyle dominated by automobiles that wasted time and gasoline as residents traveled to shop or work and caused more trouble for emergency workers such as police, fire or ambulance drivers trying to respond to a crisis.

Under former Gov. Tim Kaine, the CTB changed the rules in a way that put Virginia ahead of other states in planning concepts by adopting the connectivity policy. The CTB under McDonnell and Connaughton recently dumped the 2009 reforms. Why? My guess is to boost the interests of developers since McDonnell wants to be identified as “pro-business.”

The Bacon post is an investigative look at the controversial bypass of U.S. 29 in Charlottesville. His work was funded in part by the Piedmont Environmental Council but they did not edit the article. Bypass proposals have been contentious because they would tend to exacerbate traffic congestion on what is already the most crowded road in the university city. Business interests, notably manufacturers in cities such as Lynchburg and Danville, want the bypass to improve truck deliveries.

Connaughton’s goal is hastening development of the bypass. So, he pushed a “design-build” contract that is opposed to the way the state usually does construction project. In “design-build,” the contractor is also the designer and designs parts of the project as works goes along. The practice was once considered unethical by professional associations but it is has become widely adopted throughout the country. It can save money and quicken a project’s completion, but it can also lead to overruns and tends to limit public say about how a project looks.

The CTB bought the “design build” idea for the bypass, but according to the Bacon report, Connaughton did not mention that engineers at his own Department of Transportation had serious doubts about the $244 million cost estimates, believing they would run much higher. Their concerns were not reflected in information given to the board which approved the project.

The two excellent blog postings raise serious questions about exactly what McDonnell and Connaughton are doing. The state has just raised billions on the bond market for highway construction and is floating ideas for public-private roads such as a replacement for U.S. 460 in southeastern Virginia.

Connaughton is steamrolling the U.S. 460 highway just as he is on the U.S. 29 bypass. His concept took a hit recently when The Virginian-Pilot reported that a group of Tidewater politicians and business executives lobbied Connaughton to slow down on the road from Suffolk to Petersburg in favor of a third crossing in Hampton Roads, which they believe will do more to alleviate the water-locked region’s notorious congestion. Conaughton responded that the third crossing will cost twice as much as his pet road. There are problems with either plan. A third crossing would only dump traffic on clogged Interstate 64. Replacing U.S. 460 would create more exurban sprawl west of Suffolk, which has been the state’s fastest-growing city.

Playing it both ways as free-spenders and cost cutters, McDonnell and Connaughton are refusing to provide funding for the D.C. Metro Silver Line Phase II project which would help alleviate traffic congestion. And, Connaughton has shown his bare-knuckles management style by firing nearly the entire board of the Virginia Ports Authority in one quick putsch.

McDonnell, however, doesn’t have that much time in office left. What’s behind all of this?

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Posted in 2011, Budget, Economic development, Economy, Energy, Environment, Finance, Infrastructure, Land use & development, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized

Tagged Charlottesville Bypass, goozeviews

Save the Bay — with Property Rights

Posted on October 27, 2011 by James A. Bacon| 20 Comments

Oysters of the world, property rights are your friend!

Same Chesapeake Bay, two different states…. and two very different fishing industries. Virginia’s fisherman are doing OK, adapting to pollution, over-fishing and oyster-killing diseases. Maryland’s are barely hanging on. Why is Virginia’s doing better? Property rights.

At least, that’s the spin of Rona Kobell, writing for the Reason Foundation in, “Privatizing the Chesapeake.” Maryland has thrown research dollars and regulations at its watermen in the hopes of reviving the oyster industry. Virginia allows its watermen to lease oyster beds, giving them an incentive to steward their precious resource.

It makes a great story, although I would like to see some solid numbers proving that Virginia’s oysters and clams are prospering while Maryland’s are not. Without question, our aquaculture industry is out-performing Maryland’s but I’d like to know how the wild critters are faring.

As an anecdotal sidelight, there is a movement among Virginia bay-front landowners to plant mini-oyster beds in the waters off their property. An acquaintance of mine, a physician in his weekday life, seeds oysters and maintains a bed as a socially beneficial hobby — he’s doing his small part to help oysters regain their former glory. Many of his neighbors are doing the same. If every landowner created oyster beds off their property, it could make a material contribution to the healing of the bay.

– JAB

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