Editor’s note: This commentary is by James Ehlers, executive director of Lake Champlain International.
[E]ver see that Internet meme of the snowy highway pileup of some dozen vehicles with the caption “Annual Meeting of the Summer Tires Club”? It is one of my favorites. It illustrates so vividly one of our more self-defeating characteristics — a willingness to avoid the effort of doing what is necessary, even if it is in our own best interest to be proactive. Self-defeating procrastination is uniquely human, and it is not solely the proclivity of us mere commoners. It is also the disposition of our elected officials, and I always think of the “Annual Meeting of the Summer Tires Club” each time I hear the four major-party candidates for governor put forward their ideas for a Vermont economy solely focused on blame, niche demographics, and narrow economic sector needs. How can they not recognize we are headed into the ditch of dirty water?
If you don’t think clean water is a basic necessity, try living without it. Clean water is a fundamental necessity to human life and a determining factor in the quality of our lives. Our daily existence would look very different without ample, healthy tap water from our faucets and modern toilets in our homes. Clean water is, also, the underpinning of a sustainable economy. No vibrant downtown exists without adequate safe drinking water supplies nor sufficient wastewater treatment. And what purpose does our economy serve if it does not foster the quality of our lives? Just as the season is upon us for winter tires so it is for a “Clean Water Economy” — an economy predicated on the restoration and protection of our waters, rather than the status quo that shifts costs downstream. It is time those seeking our highest office recognize it.
If you think the threats facing our economy from our failure to maintain and protect our public waters are exaggerated, here are a few of the findings, word-for-word, from the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) and the Vermont CEDS Committee “Vermont 2020 | Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy” report.
• Our infrastructure, built to sustain the small towns and factories of a century ago, is aging and, in places, vulnerable. New building and economic growth will depend on adequate water and sewer capacity, which is limited in many areas.
• Aging infrastructure, in particular wastewater and stormwater infrastructure are making it increasingly difficult to build or expand.
• Continuing and escalating maintenance costs make the long-term viability of drinking water supplies problematic.
• There are parts of the state where small communities do not have a publicly supplied water system and each resident and business relies on a private, often less reliable water supply. In some cases, the lack of a public drinking water system inhibits new residential or business activity.
• Many communities around the state do not have the necessary wastewater or stormwater infrastructure to support development and redevelopment projects. The infrastructure is either aging or nonexistent. More than 200 historic village centers have no public wastewater treatment facilities. Without this critical infrastructure, development is difficult and costly. Such limitations can lead to locating new business activity outside of villages and town centers, consuming more land, harming natural resources, and eroding the character and centrality of villages and town centers.
Broadband is important, but we cannot drink it. If we want good jobs, we need to start by ensuring we have the basics for a good life — sustainable, healthy waters.
• Community surveys and stakeholder groups that were convened in 2012 and 2013 named “funding for water and wastewater infrastructure” as the top priority to strengthen Vermont communities and the state’s economy. Indeed, without addressing the many issues surrounding water quality, runoff and availability, construction and growth in Vermont will be limited and our natural resources — so key to our brand and the industries such as tourism which rely on clean water and lakes — will be negatively affected.
• Small villages seeking to build assets such as community centers, restaurants, and senior housing are often stymied by lack of adequate infrastructure, and development shifts elsewhere. … There is growing concern that buildings in need of redevelopment may become vacant and blighted, lowering community property values.
• Inadequate, aging and failing wastewater and stormwater infrastructure is the principal barrier to reaching a host of state and local goals, from building more housing for all income levels, to revitalizing communities, to protecting the environment. For Vermont communities to thrive and grow, this issue must be addressed.
Gubernatorial economic forums that ignore the economic imperative of clean water prevent us from taking a full and honest appraisal of our economy and its interdependence on a healthy environment. Instead of allowing our candidates to distract us, as they have at recent forums, with platitudes regarding our greatness or pontificating about what Millennials want, we need to focus them, and current elected officials, on the fundamentals of good maintenance and sound investment in a Clean Water Economy. Entrepreneurs, Millennials, and greatness will follow.
One way to do this is to ask your employer, your local community group or organization if they are one of the 59 organizations and companies that have already signed onto the Blue Coalition Resolution urging Vermont public officials and elected leaders to acknowledge and invest in the value of clean water for Vermont’s public and economic health. If they have not, encourage them to sign on. The politicians will follow when we lead. More information on the resolution is available here.
Millennials and entrepreneurs, favorite target audiences for our politicians, need access to clean water. Schoolchildren need safe water supplies and clean beaches. All industry, be it agriculture or manufacturing, needs access to clean water. Broadband is important, but we cannot drink it. If we want good jobs, we need to start by ensuring we have the basics for a good life — sustainable, healthy waters, and that means dealing with the responsibility of “changing over the tires.”
Changing over tires seasonally is a hassle — another set of tires costs money that just about all of us would rather spend on something more sexy, but, investing in vehicle maintenance is part of our adult responsibilities, keeping us safe, as well as our loved ones, and it allows us to undertake productive activities — like getting to work on time so we can maintain our household economies — without going into a ditch. A Clean Water Economy driven from our highest elected office, likewise, is an investment necessary for this next season in Vermont’s history. Or we will be meeting our new governor, next year, in the ditch, at the “Annual Meeting of the Summer Tires Club.”
