Environmental Stewardship

The research is in, and it doesn't look good:

Every day in 2008, on average, water-cooled thermoelectric power plants in the United States withdrew 60 billion to 170 billion gallons of fresh water from rivers, lakes, streams and aquifers, and consumed 2.8 billion to 5.7 billion gallons of that water.

Hat tip to the Charlotte Observer for covering this report. Please take the time to read it.

Which never should have been dropped in the first place:

But the White House, in its latest five-year plan proposal, also intends to place all of the East Coast off limits to exploration, reports The New York Times. The ban on West Coast drilling also would be maintained.

And this is one good reason why these decisions simply cannot be left up to individual states:

It's cold here in Maryland. Eight degrees this morning, warming up to 25 this afternoon. I'm living on 170 acres that once was a small dairy farm. Now the land and buildings are rented to others. In six months, it will be summer camp for 30 cows.

Near the middle of the largest pasture is a beautiful elm, planted by Jane's mother 50 years ago. Over the past couple of years, it has begun to show signs of weakness. We are all concerned that it could succumb to the dreaded Dutch elm disease. In the case of an individual tree this old, there is not much to do beyond watch and hope.

You may have already seen this piece over at The Dome regarding efforts by Camden and Currituck counties to block the Navy's construction of an Outlying Landing Field (OLF) on the basis of distressed and endangered species that inhabit the local wetlands. While I have my fingers crossed that this approach will work, I've seen much evidence that protecting our North Carolina wetlands and the myriad species that inhabit them is of little concern to those we have granted the authority to decide these things.