Say What?

The people making those kind of statements are not hydrologists - they're developers and builders. ... That kind of attitude is kind of sticking your head in the sand. Hydrologists and geologists have been studying the basin and they say it's dropping.

- Jim Mital, rural Moscow resident and member of the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee Citizen Advisory Group, "A thirst for answers: Water concerns are a flood of opinions and a drought of facts," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, August 2, 2008

There are a lot of hypotheses, but the frustration is that we just don't know much. There's a lot of gray area. The Palouse isn't going to run out of water anytime soon so communities don't need to dig deeper and deeper or drastically move to a plan B. We're going to run out of oil far before Moscow and Pullman run out of water. It's not a critical situation, but it's something that we need to watch.

- Professor of Hydrogeology, University of Idaho, "A thirst for answers: Water concerns are a flood of opinions and a drought of facts," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, August 2, 2008

...the idea that a community can only thrive with unlimited growth and development is a notion that must disappear, hopefully before the water does.

Post-World War II economy was based on a planned scheme for consumerism —and it worked. The economy grew, people consumed and planned obsolescence became an accepted norm. We become anxious when we consider voluntary reductions of any type. But, we must begin to imagine a “restorative economy” where having less is truly more satisfying, more interesting, and of course, more secure.

In the relatively near future, we must achieve a balance between what we are consuming and the capacity of the earth’s ecosystems to provide, according to author and businessman Paul Hawken. “We need to create an economy… that is not an either/or argument, but a means to create the best life for the greatest number of people precisely because we do not know the eventual outcome or impact of our current industrial practices. In other words, we need an economy based on more humility.”

- April 2003 Moscow Co-Op newsletter

Let's call a spade a spade. The only people calling the water situation on the Palouse a "crisis" are not water experts either. They have a distinct agenda of social(ist) engineering, just the same as those warning of "global warming crisis."

Quote of the Day

Let's all move to Idaho. Then maybe we can select where we want to live and how we want to get to work.

- State Senator Joe Zarelli (R-Ridgefield) on State Senator Chris Marr's (D-Spokane) SB 6580 which paves the way to requiring that local land-use regulations be based on reduction of "greenhouse gases." The measure passed in the Seante and is now being considered by the House.

Can We Afford "Smart Growth?"

A new UW study of Seattle housing prices says "No":

Between 1989 and 2006, the median inflation-adjusted price of a Seattle house rose from $221,000 to $447,800. Fully $200,000 of that increase was the result of land-use regulations, says Theo Eicher — twice the financial impact that regulation has had on other major U.S. cities.

What land-use regulations you say?

A key regulation is the state's Growth Management Act, enacted in 1990 in response to widespread public concern that sprawl could destroy the area's unique character. To preserve it, the act promoted restrictions on where housing can be built. The result is artificial density that has driven up home prices by limiting supply, Eicher says.

And who is it that pushes for these onerous regulations?

According to the Wharton study, cities such as Seattle that have high median incomes, high home prices and a large percentage of college-educated workers tend to have the most land-use regulations.

Sjoblom says that makes sense: "People with higher incomes want the kind of amenities that regulation provides," he says. "If you're a homeowner and growth controls are imposed and housing prices shoot up, you're grandfathered because you own the place. In theory people will say it's [rising prices] a bad thing, but in practice it's not hurting them."

[...]

In the final analysis, Eicher believes Seattle's regulatory climate exists because its residents want it. "My sense is land-use restrictions are imposed to generate socially desirable outcomes," he says. "We all love parks and green spaces. But we must also be informed about the costs. It's very easy to vote for a park if you think the cost is free."

Ah, now I see. The same old unholy alliance of left-wing no-growthers and selfish NIMBYists.

Pullman suffers from the same sort of problem as Seattle does to a lesser extent: artificially high home prices created by regulations created by snobby eltitists. For example, the PARDners say they want affordable housing while at the same time pressing for even more restrictive land use regulations. And let's not forget Cheryl Morgan and the League of Women Voters who also work to do everything they can to make development more difficult in Pullman.