times wrongly slams epc
I’ll bet certain special interests were meanly happy to see this headline & subhead in the St. Pete Times, casting aspersions on the Environmental Protection Commission:
Auditor slams watchdog’s recordkeeping
The Environmental Protection Commission is doing a poor job of keeping track of its work.
Like a gossip tabloid making something innocuous sound sensational, the Times makes a bland audit sound as though it revealed shoddy bookkeeping which might be hiding something. They even misquote the auditors:
“It is unclear if they are protecting wetlands because of the incomplete data,” said Chad Lallemand, who helped prepare the report for auditor Jim Barnes.
Both Jim Barnes and Chad Lallemand tell me Lallemand never said this. The auditors have no doubt that EPC does protect wetlands. What is somewhat unclear is the extent to which they protect wetlands, because while much of the protection is documented, some simply cannot be.
As EPC Director Dr. Garrity told me, “It’s like asking the police how much crime they have prevented.”
EPC can and does count the acres of wetlands that have been impacted (legally or illegally), then replaced or mitigated through EPC regulation. But it’s impossible to know exactly how many acres of wetland impacts have been avoided due to EPC.
When a developer brings their plans to EPC for an initial review, who can say how many acres of wetland impacts they have already avoided, knowing that EPC would make them revise their plans had they shown certain impacts? How can EPC count all the acres of wetlands that would have been impacted if developers didn’t have to go through EPC reviews? Maybe some developers would have avoided some wetlands voluntarily, while some would have paved over every inch of wetlands that EPC protects, if they could get away with it.
EPC protects wetlands not only by enforcing regulations, but also by working together with builders, farmers and others in the early planning stages of projects, to help draw up plans that avoid wetland impacts in ways they may not have considered without the expertise of EPC’s engineers and hydrologists. If EPC suggests relocating an access road on an early pencil-draft plan, are they to take credit for saving a wetland that would have been impacted IF that road had finally been built over the wetland where it was first penciled in? Would the auditors then fault them for claiming too much success?
One of the conclusions in the county’s audit of the EPC is the suggestion to develop some performance measures to better account for the wetland impacts that are avoided due to EPC processes. As noted in the auditors’ report, and in Dr. Garrity’s attached response, EPC has recognized this need, and has already begun improving their performance measures.
So the Times turns this into an accusation of incomplete record keeping, and boosts it with a misquote suggesting that EPC may not be protecting wetlands at all.
Last summer, special interests almost succeeded in getting our county commission to eliminate EPC wetland protections. Citizens had to work feverishly to snatch the agency from the flames. Innuendo from the Times serves only to fan those flames which are still licking at our EPC.
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March 14th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I’ll tell ya, the Times is more and more surpassing the Tribune in terms of poor, sensationalistic, unfair and unbalanced journalism.
Their website is awful in that every comment sent to them on a story is fully censored (unlike TBO/Tribune).
More often than not the Times is on the witch-hunt de jour.
I used to have at least a little respect for this rag, now I have none.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Your words are entirely accurate, and very well stated. Thank you so much for all your support.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Mariella, in addition, have you noticed that on SP Times online:
http://www.tampabay.com/publication/saturday/
if you go to the bottom of their news stories their public input footer says “Submit Rant”, not “Submit Comments”. This is preposterous! What is going on with the SPT? First, censorship of comments, now this.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
On the bottom of the story I’m talking about, the comment button simply says “send.” But the “rant” button is on the stories in today’s paper. For ex., I found it below this story about drinking water:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article417618.ece
The header over the comment box politely invites you to “Share your thoughts on this story,” and then the ’send’ button snidely says “Submit Rant.”
It doesn’t sound like they are expecting to engage their readers in a thoughtful discussion. And it doesn’t sound like they hope to learn anything from their readers’ comments, either. Too bad — we might give them a little insight on why they’re losing readers.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Hey Bill Varian! Mariella just called you Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, that reporter from “The Wire,” etc., etc. You taking that?
March 17th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Yeah Trib!!!! Booooo Times.
Have they had some faculty changes or something over there?
March 17th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I still can’t figure out why you’re not fighting off the offers from both the Trib and the Times. The greatest local journalism bidding war that should be and sadly isn’t.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
County Commissioners and developers say they want EPC to streamline, reduce staff, reduce fees, reduce time. Isn’t keeping records of how many acres of wetlands EPC saved from bulldozers going to cost taxpayers, including developers even more money and time???? Is this really the best use of EPC staffs time and resources? What is the point of this exercise? I agree it is tabloid journalism but something more sinister may be afoot.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The Carl: I e-mailed this article to Bill Varian as soon as it was published here. I really think he should correct the misinformation — especially the misquote. And whoever writes the headlines should at least retract the line saying “EPC is doing a poor job…” I am appalled that they don’t seem to care about the current community context into which they are tossing this misleading and misplaced criticism.
tiny…: Shucks, just doin’ my job as a concerned citizen here
Thanks for the compliment from one of my favorite local bloggers!
BG: Good point. Our county commissioners slashed EPC’s budget and staff, yet they keep adding busywork hoops for them to jump through. As if they’re hoping to trip EPC up so we’ll all agree to let them eliminate our EPC after all.