Crappy news today, Florida Keys Pumpout stops Jan 31

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by Group9

............ I don't believe recreational boats should dump raw sewage inside the prohibited limits, but I don't think it makes much of a real difference when someone does any more. It's more of the principal of the thing than a real problem. Remember, the vast majority of the boats out on the water don't even have heads in them. But, they all have people in them............

Yes they do. The marine sanitation regulations say nothing about discharging body waste directly into the water it's only illegal if you put it in a container first. How does that make sense? It's great that it's illegal for the QEII to empty it's holding tank in the city harbor but why are the regulations the same for a boat with 6,000 people on board or two people on board?

And why don't they do something about the marine mammals pooping in the river?

[Gone2long]

Originally Posted by Group9

My ex-wife used to be on the water quality commission board on our sea coast town. What I learned from that, is that all it took, was one sewage treatment station failure incident (and they happened on a reguar basis) for a community to dump more raw untreated sewage into the ocean in one day, than recreational boaters could put there in ten years. And, usually, when it happened, it would be reported in a single column, one inch announcement, on page seventeen of the paper. And, often, all it would take, would be a power failure, or a really heavy rain. It was a given every time we had a tropical storm that it would happen.

You couldn't make her swim off of the beach, anywhere, after being on that commission and she would constantly say that anyone who had learned what she had, would not swim in it either. And, it would usually take about a week for the ocean to clean itself (from e. coli counts, it happened so often, that the county had a boat set up for taking these readings on a full time basis, and often, the boat would be the way they had discovered an incident even happened) after one of these incidents.

I don't believe recreational boats should dump raw sewage inside the prohibited limits, but I don't think it makes much of a real difference when someone does any more. It's more of the principal of the thing than a real problem. Remember, the vast majority of the boats out on the water don't even have heads in them. But, they all have people in them.

A lot of these pump out stations were built for the same reason that about 90 per cent of local city and county construction gets done. Contractors search out and find federal construction grants, including pump out construction, and take packages to the local government, showing how they can build these grant subsidized projects for the community at very small costs (again, personal family experience, my brother in law, a civil engineer, works for a very large firm, and his only job is to take these packages to local governments and market them to them. His company has provided a lot of this stuff, including pump out facilities and other harbor improvements, this very way). It's amazing to me how many times, these local governments decide they have a problem, because someone wanting to make some money tells them they have a problem and a grant to fix it.

No doubt there is some benefit to the environment from pump out facilities and services. But, that's rarely the reason theses systems actually get built, installed, or purchased. Most of the times, the money would be much better spent on trying to improve the land sewage treatment systems. Hey, but that's government.

Exactly, - see my post at end.

[hellosailor]

"State floats a bond to pay for it.... investors make 4%,"


How about, State uses TAX REVENUE and then the taxpayers don't have to ante up the extra 4% that is going to the elite bond buyers? And another 2% or more that is going to the financiers who are handling the bonds.


Bonds are a way to quietly rip off the taxpayers and transfer wealth to the elite. Especially when they are totally unneeded. Boaters usually are paying registration fees and other fees directly associated with their boating. And all the taxpayers have an interest in keeping their beaches and waters clean. Same reason all the homeowners are paying a sewer tax, usually.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"State floats a bond to pay for it.... investors make 4%,"


How about, State uses TAX REVENUE and then the taxpayers don't have to ante up the extra 4% that is going to the elite bond buyers? And another 2% or more that is going to the financiers who are handling the bonds.


Bonds are a way to quietly rip off the taxpayers and transfer wealth to the elite. Especially when they are totally unneeded. Boaters usually are paying registration fees and other fees directly associated with their boating. And all the taxpayers have an interest in keeping their beaches and waters clean. Same reason all the homeowners are paying a sewer tax, usually.

Not quite. Bonds are a way to spread the cost over the life of whatever the bonds are being used to pay for. If the government had to save up money for ten years to pay for a project, the cost would double in the meantime and they would never have enough to pay for the project.

[hellosailor]

" How does that make sense?" Easy. Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and what could make life more content than a good old....Which of course has to land someplace. Congress has the power to regulate things like ships and shipping, arguably, but they can't regulate your bodily functions. Yet.

Bonds don't spread the cost any more than taxes do. A responsible government allocates money for long term capital improvements, collecting money and setting it aside for 20 years, gaining interest, in order to build a new bridge or fix the old one. To say "Gee, we forgot our homework for the last 20 years and didn't set anything aside and now we want to float a bond..." That's just fiscally irresponsible grossly irresponsible, unless it is for some totally unanticipated expense. Like, "Typhoon Mary destroyed all the bridges, we weren't planning on that and we need to raise money right away."

They don't NEED to borrow money, any more than most folks NEED to run up credit card debt on a constant basis.

[rwidman]

Did you finance a home or did you save up the $400K to buy it outright?

It's normal for governments to sell bonds for capital projects and I explained why in my previous post. Like it or not, that's how it is done. You can complain but it won't do any good.

[hellosailor]

Heck, Ron, I don't complain. I just try to invest in bonds before the elite grab 'em all up. Preferably those tax free munis that are funding all the capital improvements that should have been paid from tax funds.

Can't change the system, might as well make a buck off it.