Measure 5 is necessary, its completely necessary. I grew up in North Dakota, have lived the vast majority of my life here, and have always been taught that balance is the key to everything. All manipulation and no conservation of the environment is not balanced. I hear all these big numbers being thrown around, but the fact remains, its only 5% of the oil tax we are talking about. Take whatever big number you hear and multiply it by 19, and that is how much will be left, if that isn’t enough then add on income and property taxes too. Conservation efforts are incredibly expensive, from the low supply of native seeds, to the high price of land, to the complicated knowledge required to implement an effective effort, the bills add up quickly. There is also no direct profit in conservation, and why it relies on so called “special interest” groups. However, there is profit, it goes to the farmers whose crops are protected from disease by biodiversity. It goes to the communities who thrive off of wetland waterfowl hunting and clean water fishing. It goes to the children who have only the slightest clue of what is in store for them if we ignore our natural habitats. I remember hearing the question of a first grader, “Are we going to have to pay for air someday? Most conservation efforts are for wetlands that were once drained in favor of agriculture, then abandoned because crops couldnt grow there anyways. Now we have the daunting task of restoring land from invasive species. We need to think ahead, and we need to think fast, as oil production is guaranteed to grow, so are the negative effects. We need access to these funds to implement fixes as they become reality, we dont have time to wait for debates. We don’t even have simple things like a team in place to wood dam streams in the case of a spill, things that require people to be available at all hours of the night, at the huge range of the Bakken. Ecosystems are incredibly co-dependent. I urge you to look up the short documentary on YouTube about how reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone cleaned up their rivers. It really is that complicated, and why it is that expensive to maintain. We have the chance to be on the forefront of conservation efforts. To be leaders and we have by far the best functioning economy in the country, and maybe the world at this moment. We cannot forget how this will define us to the future. We need to meet this challenge.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:09:36 +0000
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