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Waterway repair is regional issue
Other opinions
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It’s summertime and the same topic that has reared its ugly head in past hot seasons — the shameful condition of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway — is, like clockwork, surfacing again. In plain speak, the waterway is dangerously too shallow in some areas, yet the federal government continues to refuse to do anything about it.
The reason there is so much shoaling and so many sandbars in the intracoastal water path today is the same reason the federal government gave almost a decade ago: funding, or the lack of it. There’s just not enough tax-dollars being generated across this great land of ours to pay for everything Congress or the current occupant of the White House wants. Payouts like subsidies for big oil companies and financial assistance for American industry to cart jobs overseas are far more necessary and important, don’t you know.
This is what led to the decision by the Glynn County Commission, at the bidding of Commissioner and recreational boater Bob Coleman, to adopt a resolution supporting a self-funding solution. Instead of the federal government paying to deepen the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, to maintain it, boaters, yachtsmen and marinas would contribute to a fund, via a tax or fee, that would be used to return the Virginia-to-Florida passage to safe condition.
Nevertheless, it’s not the job of boaters to fill federal funding gaps. It might be the quickest way of resolving the situation, of removing sandbars from the waterway, but it would be letting Congress off the hook for what clearly is its responsibility.
Still, the Atlantic Ocean could dry up waiting for Washington to act.

— Online: http://www.thebrunswicknews.com

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