Speaking of environmental justice . . .

Did no one else smell this story? Is no one shocked that a respected public servant who was trying to do his job now faces three years in jail, $50,000 a day in fines, and the destruction of his career for a mechanical error that happened on his watch and resulted in no evidence of environmental damage? Or that county taxpayers have to pick up the tab for $170,000 in fines, not to mention all future paychecks for a new “environmental compliance officer”? This, of course, after they went to the enormous expense of carefully transporting their dredging spoils to specially built holding ponds in an effort to comply with a preposterous Army Corps of Engineers regulation that prohibits simply moving the dirt from one side of the river to the other.

Wake up sleepyheads. Every time the EPA or the Corps of Engineers or any of the dozens of other agencies with some jurisdiction over the lands and waters we use decides to lower the permissible level of some obscure contaminant from 3 parts per million to 2 parts per million, companies go out of business, people lose jobs, the cost of providing public services goes through the roof (ditto our tax burden), and the entire economy is taken down another notch.

The benefit to the environment is zero. The only dogs benefiting here are the environmental activist groups and their lawyers, who grow richer and bolder with every lawsuit. This is not justice. It is insanity.