It's just commons sense

I'm not particularly religious, but I frequently find wisdom in religious texts. This opinion piece in the Star Tribune put me in mind of the manners my mother tried to teach me when I was much, much younger. She probably picked it up from the bible where, In Psalm 37:21 God says, "The wicked borrow, and do not repay." Remember, if you can't replace it, think twice about borrowing it. Representative Fabian's Editorial counterpoint: MPCA legislation is common sense, not politics seems to me to entirely miss a couple of key points. First, it seems to me that water should be governed by commons sense. Users borrow water, they don't own it. It belongs to all of us. Water should be returned at least as clean as when borrowed, if not cleaner (if you can't replace it, think twice about borrowing it).

would you rather swim here?

Photo by J. Harrington

Second, there is already substantial transparency in the entire water quality standards setting and permitting process. More transparency isn't likely to result in better outcomes from the perspective of the environment or those who use and enjoy it and depend on clean water. For example, a quick search of the internet turns up a 2003 Technical Memorandum from Barr Engineering to the MPCA on phosphorus reduction efforts. It notes a range of costs and approaches, including costs for Rochester's phosphorus removal, and that phosphorus limits are set for significant industrial users to the treatment plant. I doubt that Representative Fabian is suggesting industry should be subsidized by other users of a publicly owned treatment works.

or swim here?

Photo by J. Harrington

Water quality regulations set the water quality standards to be met as part of an ongoing public process. (In Minnesota, 40% of our waters don't meet standards.) A discharge permit, usually publicly noticed, limits the concentration, total amount, frequency or similar factors for the pollutant to be discharged, depending on the receiving water's assimilative capacity and mixing zone. Costs can and do vary widely depending on the treatment process used and how the project was financed. Remember that for a 20 year loan at 4%, almost half the cost of repayment is interest. Make it a 30 year schedule and almost 75% of the payments are interest. The costs of Minnesota's polluted water shouldn't be, but are, felt all the way into the Gulf of Mexico. I suspect, if Representative Fabian were representing shrimpers in Louisiana, he might have a different perspective on the costs of phosphorous removal in Minnesota. It's just commons sense. As a Minnesotan who boats and fishes and enjoys our famed quality of life, I'd rather the legislature ask MPCA how it is that some industrial facilities can go 23 years without renewing their environmental permit than needlessly increase the transparency of a process that's already quite public.

Containment

By A. E. Stallings
Read the Q & A 

So long I have been carrying myself

Carefully, carefully, like a small child

With too much water in a real glass

Clasped in two hands, across a space as vast

As living rooms, while gazes watch the waves

That start to rile the little inland sea

And slap against its cliffs' transparency,

Revise and meet, double their amplitude,

Harmonizing doubt from many ifs.

Distant frowns like clouds begin to brood.

Soon there is overbrimming. Soon the child

Looks up to find a face to match the scolding,

And just as he does, the vessel he was holding

Is almost set down safely on the bookshelf.

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Dilution is not the solution!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! and a belated Happy St. Urho's Day!

The Star Tribune has an editorial today about Sobering news on affordable housing in the Twin Cities. The demand keeps outstripping the supply. They also note the debate about locational factors for affordable housing. One thing they didn't mention, and I'm not sure if Myron Orfield or the Metro Council have adequately taken into account when considering where to locate affordable housing, is the location of jobs, shopping and other requirements of daily life in relation to housing. The Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago has some thought-provoking information on what happens to "affordable" housing that's located in suburbs where families need two or more cars. You can see a "fact sheet" for the Twin Cities metro area at this link. For the Average Household, 28% of their income goes to housing and an additional 20% goes to transportation. If you look at a map of costs for the Twin Cities metro area, the pale yellow shade that indicates locations where housing + transportation costs are less than 45% of a typical household income have very scattered locations in the suburbs, most are within the 694-494 beltway. Here's that map link. As a region and a state, we're making a notable investment in public transportation. We're not keeping up with the demand for affordable housing. We are, by most of the accounts I've seen, a car-dependant area.

houses for people or cars?

Photo by J. Harrington

To put this into some perspective, for new construction in the Twin Cities Metro Area in 2014, the National Association of Home Builders notes the median price was $336,496, the income needed to quality was $89,372 and for every $1,000 increase in the price of a new home, more than 2,000 families were "priced out." The CNT analysis is based on a household income in the $65,000 to $66,000 range. It looks to me as though the affordability question has to include location, the need for how many? garages in areas well served by transit (we can talk about what that means), increases in minimum wages and, perhaps, targeting affordable housing near employment centers. Long ago I was taught that dilution is not the solution to pollution. Deconcentration of affordable housing primarily to disburse concentrations of poverty is too simplistic a solution. We can do better. We must do better.

An hour is not a house

By Jane Hirshfield 

An hour is not a house,

a life is not a house,

you do not go through them as if

they were doors to another.

Yet an hour can have shape and proportion,

four walls, a ceiling.

An hour can be dropped like a glass.

Some want quiet as others want bread.

Some want sleep.

My eyes went

to the window, as a cat or dog left alone does.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.