Columnist

Commentary: Bills by Hester, Hendren attack environmental protections

Bills by Hester, Hendren attack protections for environment

Whenever politicians migrate back to the capital city, the citizenry of our fair state needs to be reminded of the old saw, "Nothing is safe while the legislature is in session." Alas, long dreamed-of power to satisfy long-suppressed desires is bursting forth in our state Legislature, where one party rules the roost and both houses. These folks are salivating as if they are in a free candy store, introducing bills with wild abandonment to consequences.

Some of these efforts, if successful, will insure Arkansas' environmental quality will be in even greater jeopardy than our weak laws and lax enforcement have rendered us so far. In my last article, I wrote about Arkansas Senate Bill 183, which essentially is to delay coming up with an intense and prompt plan on how the state will reduce fossil fuel power plants' carbon dioxide emissions to fit within the guidelines required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. This bill has now worked its way toward the House, and if it wins a majority vote will guarantee yet more foot-dragging in doing our part to slow climate change.

Leaving no candy store opportunity untapped, Sens. Bart Hester of Cave Springs and Jim Hendren of Gravette are taking aim at land-use regulations as if these are the ultimate enemies of freedom to do whatever you darned well please, no matter the costs to those trying to co-exist around you. This is a sword that cuts both ways. While extolling the reasoning behind SB 333, Sen. Hendren (or whoever is writing similar bills for legislators across the country) shrouds the consequences with the old knee-jerk blanket of "property rights" and "takings," the boogey-man rant that's always handy for standing hair up on necks -- red, brown, black, and white alike.

This bill pretends to have something for everyone. But, after the sugar coating is washed off the leading justification paragraph, one can begin to see its real underlying intent is basically a no-holds-barred use of land, water, and air. Private enterprises like quarries, drilling rigs and compressors, belching industrial sites, noisy race tracks, stinking hog farms, flashy strip clubs, etc., could be built anywhere because zoning would no longer be a tool to keep conflicting uses separated. If a city or county denied a particular land use, taxpayers could be sued if a landowner could prove the regulations were the cause of his losses. Therefore this bill would hinder community planning abilities and subject cities and counties to lawsuits.

SB333 defines a "regulatory program," as one that includes, "without limitation, moratoriums on growth, aesthetic or scenic districts, environmental districts, overlay districts, green space ordinances, landscape ordinances, tree ordinances, land-use planning programs, and zoning programs." Without these regulations property owners will be left more vulnerable to what might move in next door in both rural and urban settings and cause people to have prove in the courts that a nuisance is ruining them. Also, historic preservation districts could indeed become history.

Sen. Hester's bill, SB637, is a direct attack on tree ordinances across the state, as if SB333 wasn't enough punishment for tree huggers. Hester's bill defends the rights of folks to do "tree maintenance" on their land. Of course, tree ordinances don't prohibit maintenance, but such a notion stirs righteous indignation. Fayetteville's Tree Ordinance, for example, affects only large-scale developments, where massive vegetation removal can have terrible erosion effects and strip away the vital and utilitarian benefits trees provide in cleaning the air, cooling acres of pavement , and slowing storm water run-off. One tends to wonder why two guys from small communities that probably have none of these ordinances are carrying these bills to the legislature anyway? Are they being used to do someone else's bidding, or were they genuinely so offended by city planning ordinances across the state that they felt compelled and duty bound to wipe them out?

Living as close to each other as we do in our world today changes everything about how our environment functions (watersheds, hills, drainage, air, odors, noises, plants, animals, etc.) because humans create artificial conditions (streets, roof tops, yards, pipes, wires). If we do nothing to deal with the consequences that come with using land in very unnatural ways, we will all fall victim to flooding, hill slumping, groundwater contamination, heated cities, smog, and erosion, just to name a few outcomes.

Please contact your state representatives (http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us) and ask them to vote against these three bills.

Fran Alexander is a Fayetteville resident with a longstanding interest in the environment and an opinion on almost anything else. Email her at [email protected].

Commentary on 03/03/2015

Upcoming Events