The Friends of Accotink Creek wish to endorse the comments of Clyde Wilbur, 222535.
Are we conservationists or are we hair splitting lawyers?
For 40 years, Virginia and other Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions have failed again and again to meet goals for restoration of the health of the Bay. Whatever the U.S. Supreme Court’s Sackett decision may say, the ethical duty of Virginia is to maintain standards and practices that will effectively preserve the natural bounty of our waters for future generations, not look for flimsy excuses to shirk responsibility.
Existing protections are weak enough. Here in the Accotink Creek watershed in Fairfax County, exceptions to Resource Protection Areas are already routine. Tree clearing, building, and paving in protection areas, and even burial of perennial streams, continue to be commonplace. Witness the travesty of the Northfax West case as one example. We need to close these loopholes, rather than create more obstacles to the preservation of the waters of the Commonwealth.
Let’s not abdicate the obligations of our generation. The Friends of Accotink Creek urge that the petition be rejected.