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Local
Government
Mike Matt Heather
James Wood H.S. / Fordyce
3/26/2007
8:20:00 AM
The local government has the power and the money to
help the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
The Bay’s problems affect everyone who lives in
Virginia, D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
West Virginia. The Bay’s problems include pollution,
destruction of habitat, and a rapid rate of
indigenous species dying off. Therefore several
occupations are in danger. The local
government is responsible for the welfare of the people.
As pollutants enter the Bay the
problem becomes a snowball effect. The problem becomes
bigger and more wide spread. It
affects the lifestyles, income, and health of all
citizens in the area. If we continue to pollute
the Bay the animals that live there will die off and
fishermen live off the money they make for
catching fish and crabs. Also, groups of all ages use
the Bay for recreational purposes. If the
Bay becomes too polluted it wouldn’t be safe for anyone
to go in the water. The bigger the
problem becomes, the less people use it for recreation
or to earn a living. This in turn
undermines the local tax base and economy. This means
less capital for the for the government
agencies which means less services can be offered to the
local population. A solution to help
the Bay would be to cut back on pollution. For example
instead of dumping your dirty mop water
on your driveway you could flush it down the toilet. We
could also clean up the rivers that
dump water into the Bay. Also, when we are out on the
Bay or the rivers we could keep our trash
in the boat until you are back on land. Another way to
clean up the Bay would be to set up a
volunteer program that’s main purpose would be to pick
trash up on the beach and to try to get
some of the trash out of the water. By creating buffer
zones or barriers between the
waterways and the fields of farms, the farms will lose
production but will reduce the run offs
into the waterways. This can be done with minimum cost.
Another way would be to regulate the
waste water from processing manufacturing and sewage
treatment facilities. Inspectors form
government agencies, already employed by the government,
would be used for this task which
will keep the cost of this effort at a minimum but will
bring the taxes up slightly. If you fix the
pollution problem you fix the problem of the habitat
and the problem of the indigenous species
dying off. The solutions will cause some extra time and
energy and also some financial issues.
However, the Bay is worth the extra time, energy, and
money. The solutions will cost some
money. Everybody would have to up some things like
getting off your beach towel and throwing
your rash in a trashcan instead of leaving it on the
beach. The solutions would benefit us
directly. It will take some time but once the Bay
becomes cleaner the habitat will become
healthy again. Once the habitat is healthy the animals
will become more numerous and the
fishermen will be able to maintain their standard of
living and job. Also, the people who use the
Bay for recreational purposes will not have to worry
about getting sick because the water is so
polluted. As I said before, the local government is
responsible for the people’s well being.
Therefore, if the people’s well being is protected the
solutions have directly benefited the
local government. I could make the local officials more
willing to participate by reminding
them that they were elected to their job and could be
elected out. Also, I could point out that it
is their job to protect the people who elected them. The
solutions could be structured so that my
group could prosper by organizing days to clean up the
Bay. Also, by directly helping to clean
up the Bay on the organized days my group would prosper.
If my group was so harmed that we disappeared, the
project to clean up the Bay would suffer because the
local government is
helping to fund the project. We are also using our
physical capabilities to help as well.
Therefore, the local government needs to keep our
community clean. That community includes the Bay and the
rivers that dump water into the Bay.
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