This may seem way out of line to many of the readers but I am going to stick my neck out and suggest that maybe, just maybe, it is time to import some "new" ideas on how things are done around here.
I just came back from the left coast, not the Peoples Republic of California but the state of Oregon.
While I take issue with much of the closed mindedness of the majority of Oregonians, I had to admire their singlemindedness when it comes to protecting the environment.
Here are a few "suggestions" from what I learned out there on the left coast:
1. Make the developer PROVE there is enough water to support what they want to build.
2. Make all development within the city limits High Density.
3. Have clearly definable city limits...that means an actual boundry and a LIMIT to how big (area wise) the city can go.
4. Have adequate social services. (I admit that the number of homeless people in Portland was astounding...but services are available to them when they need them.)
5. Enact land use laws the PROHIBIT the building of subdivisions outside of available service lines (water, sewer, gas, and so on)
I could go on but when you see what Newland has done in California you have to admit they want to do the same thing here and the City is inviting them in to do so.
How "we" do things is not working out too well, maybe it is time to be open to ideas from other places. If only York County was as pristine as the area around Portland.
And just please, let me add that in no way, shape, or form is the statement, "Then why don't you move there," appropriate. I am going to stay right here and begin to fight for any measure that will ensure humanity continues to exist here in South Carolina and not only on the left coast where the citizenry had the foresight to do something about the rampant development that was raping the countryside.
Time is almost up, do we just stand by and let the Catawba River become the most endangered river in the US instead of #13?
Time to put aside politics and work together to stop the madness...or are you still stewing about Al Gore and his Nobel Prize?
"I don't care how they do it up North"
seems to be an all-too-common response to suggestions from outside.
A solution might be getting involved with the York County Greens. A member of the local party, Bryan Smith is running for Fort Mill Town Council on a platform of "Protecting the past, planning for the future.", two things our elected officials, from local school board to county council, don't seem to get.
The Catawba River, our land and air, will all be here after we all are long gone. The trick is to make sure that we are all able to benefit from the nature God made available for us. These resources were not put here to make the rich even richer, but to sustain all of us.
The "common man" does understand the dilemma we face, but the filthy rich, with their homes in the Bahamas and villas in Greece, will just spend more time in their homes where the air is clean and the water is safe, sucking the lifeblood from our community to allow them access to the good life.
hoodornament asks what can be done about up-stream folks abusing the river. Perhaps...just perhaps, a part of the solution is for we here downstream to let the folks upstream know how their decisions impact us, and to be extra careful that we don't pollute for our neighbors downstream as well.