Free Republic

...The orders do tremendous harm to the economy as well as to people’s lives by preventing them from using their property the way they had intended. This is one reason that the Physical Property Rights ranking by the International Property Rights Index (IPRI) has shown a decline in recent years for the United States. The great harm that each and everyone one of these “administrative compliance orders” causes has recently been brought home by a couple from Idaho. Mike and Chantell Sackett purchased .63 acres of land for $23,000 in 2005 to build their dream home. Despite being 500 feet...

The federal government may have staved off the imminent threat of default Tuesday when President Barack Obama signed a bitterly fought budget deal, but the woes and uncertainty for states have just begun. In California, some of the most likely cuts include nutritional programs for low-income women and children, the federal portion of the controversial high-speed rail project, clean drinking water programs, and subsidies for farmers. Also potentially at risk are federally funded university research projects and military bases, policy-watchers said Tuesday after hastily reviewing the plan to cut national spending by $2.1 trillion over 10 years. None of the...

Keeping America’s waterways and water supply clean is a crucial goal. So is guarding against federal micromanagement of our lives and property. Unfortunately, a push is on to use the cause of clean water as an excuse to unbalance our federal system and undermine our liberties by concentrating regulation of land use in Washington, D.C. The proposed Clean Water Restoration Act was the first legislative salvo in this campaign. Unveiled in 2007, the CWRA was reintroduced in the Senate last year by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis. With a simple semantic change, it would usher in unprecedented centralization by giving federal...

Upwards of 40 percent of all land in the United States is already under some form of government control or ownership -- 800 million to 900 million acres out of America's total 2.2 billion acres. The government now appears poised to wield greater control over private property on a number of fronts. The battle over private property rights has intensified since 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo v. City of New London case that the government could take property from one group of private landowners and give it to another. Outraged over that ruling and a series...

BAGHDAD — “I am very happy for the 2 million people of Sadr City,” said Iraqi Engineer Aqeel Lami of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “I have been working here at the R-3 Water Treatment Plant for more than three years, since the start of the project. It’s the first in Iraq, fully automatic and with American standards of best quality,” Lami continued. “We meet the people in the streets of Sadr City and they are very happy. They feel that we are interested in them and their health. We are very proud of the success of this project.”...

Lori Mitrick is the wife of a doctor and a practicing Catholic. Back in the 1980's her involvement in a crisis pregnancy service of her church was known in the community. She was the kind of person you might consider to be a candidate in an election. But what launched her political career was not the pro-life issue, but opposition to a shopping mall near her wooded and seculuded neighborhood in the suburbs of York, Pennsylvania. Around 20 years ago the York Galleria Mall was constructed amid her persistent and vocal opposition to the plan. Her leadership in opposing the...

NEW JERSEY FLOATS DEVELOPMENT SCHEMES ON CLEAN WATER FUNDS — Golf Courses, Transit Villages and Transferable Building Rights Are Eligible Projects Trenton —The State of New Jersey is using its Clean Water State Revolving Fund to subsidize an array of developer schemes, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) which is asking the federal government to intervene. At the same time, the state claims it has lacked the resources to enforce toxic landfill standards that would force cleanup of the most dangerous sites, according to correspondence released today by PEER. Although New Jersey faces more than $12 billion in...

Does a bear leave its waste in the woods? Of course. So do geese, deer, muskrats, raccoons and other wild animals. And now, such states as Virginia and Maryland have determined that this plays a significant role in water pollution. Scientists have run high-tech tests on harmful bacteria in local rivers and streams and found that many of the germs -- and in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, a majority of them-- come from wildlife dung. The strange proposition that nature is apparently polluting itself has created a serious conundrum for government officials charged with cleaning up the rivers. Part...

Though much has been done to clean up our waters, much work remains. Sewer overflows and runoff from farms and city streets threaten the life-sustaining properties of our waters, endanger human health and wildlife, and result in thousands of beach closings each year. NRDC works to continue reductions in industrial water pollution while pressing for effective pollution controls on agriculture, logging and other sources previously exempt from them. We help develop and promote strong federal laws and regulations to address polluted runoff, raw sewage discharges, and factory farm wastes and we sue polluters when they violate the Clean Water Act.

Albuquerque's Altela Inc. has been granted exclusive rights to use Arizona State University-developed water purification technology worldwide. The deal with Arizona Technology Enterprises LLC means that Altela can use it to remediate industrial waste-water and seawater and for a wealth of other water purification needs, said Altela CEO Ned Godshall. The company previously had rights only to sell such services and products to the oil and gas industry for cleanup of brackish "produced" water at well sites. The license "will now accelerate our plans to commercialize this exciting and elegant technology for all water applications," Godshall said in a news...

Disturb a frog's vernal pool habitat: Pay $300. Alter a marsh, meadow, bog, bank, or pond of any size: See you in court. The potential fine and enforcement actions are some of the teeth in a proposed wetlands protection bylaw that would give the Belmont Conservation Commission greater authority over what happens in or around wetlands. The proposal, which voters will decide at Town Meeting on April 24, would reinforce a state law that more than half of the communities in Massachusetts have found lacking in some way. Belmont would join at least 180 others with a new wetlands bylaw,...

Products based on NASA Earth observations and a new Internet-based decision tool are providing information to help land and water managers combat tamarisk (saltcedar), an invasive plant species damaging precious water supplies in the western United States. This decision tool, called the Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS), is being used at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Institute of Invasive Species Science in Fort Collins, Colo. It is the result of combining USGS science and NASA Earth observations, software engineering and high- performance computing expertise. "The ISFS combines NASA satellite data with tens of thousands of field sampling measurements, which...

...In 1981, there were 325 refineries in the U.S. with a capacity of 18.6 million barrels per day. Today, there are 148, with a capacity of about 17 million barrels -- though U.S. demand for gasoline has increased more than 20%.... One explanation for this performance is the historically low gas prices over much of the past 20 years; there has often been little incentive to build new capacity. But just as big a problem are onerous and costly regulatory burdens that have sucked profits from the industry. This includes a permitting process that is subject to endless bureaucratic delay...

Discussing recent events in Iraq are, from left, LCPI Michael Hopkins, Congressman Bill Jenkins, CPI Matt Stout, Sgt. John James and LCPI Josh Morris. Iraq is a different kind of place than it once was. New soccer fields for Iraqi children. Clean water delivered throughout the countryside. Restored power lines. Women walking their children to schools where attendance continues to rise. Sewer and water lines installed. Successful elections. An interim constitution signed. Hugs of grateful children. Smiles of free Iraqi citizens. New life flowing back into a country that was under the regime of an evil empire for far...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --President Bush is abandoning a plan that could have further reduced wetlands protections even though his administration has said their occasional use by farmers, migratory birds or endangered species isn't reason enough to stop developers from filling them in.</p>

ANGELS CAMP -- Mother Lode environmental groups Tuesday called for closer scrutiny of chemical pesticide usage by Sierra Pacific Industries after a report showed the logging giant applied more than 21/2 tons of herbicide last year on its Calaveras and Tuolumne county properties. The Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center published results of a study that showed Sierra Pacific applied 5,139 pounds and more than 2,800 gallons of herbicides in the two counties during 2001. The company owns about 148,000 acres of land in the two counties. The Twain Harte-based group said it obtained the herbicide information from agricultural commissioners...

Adelman, activists, cities say group misusing law to reap financial gains The tactics of a Sonoma County environmental watchdog group and its attorney are under fire from several North Coast cities and leading environmentalists, who charge the group is misusing environmental laws. River Watch, created in 1996 by Santa Rosa attorney Jack Silver, uses provisions of the federal Clean Water Act to sue cities and others accused of environmental pollution. The law allows Silver and River Watch to collect attorney's and other fees if they prevail in court or persuade those being sued to reach out-of-court settlements. Using the law,...