Rupert Murdoch is pointing a gun to Google’s head, and Microsoft is helping him pull back the trigger. For the past few weeks, …
Not the least is that they each sent the legacy media into full gatekeeper mode, hoping to prevent exciting, important news of current events from ever reaching their readers. Or perhaps, like the scandal last year involving John …
Microsoft wants to pay News Corp and other large publishers to de-list their Web sites from Google’s search index.
WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule Monday aimed at reducing pollution from construction sites, saying that it will significantly improve the quality of water nationwide.
The rule will be phased in over four years, starting in February, and when it is fully in effect, the EPA estimates there will be four billion fewer pounds of sediment discharged from construction sites each year.
Nearly 82,000 home builders, commercial and industrial building contractors, and civil-engineering companies are expected to be covered by the rule, which the EPA estimates will impose about $953 million of annual costs.
Such costs could raise home prices and cause a small number of builders to go out of business, resulting in some job losses, the EPA said in a draft version of the final rule. It said job losses may be temporary given the relatively high turnover in the construction industry, and acknowledged that the new rule is being introduced at a time when construction has fallen off sharply.
“However, the four year phasing process is expected to give the industry sufficient time to experience several years of growth before all the rule requirements are in effect,” the EPA draft said.
Construction site owners and operators covered by the rule will have to use best management practices, including soil stabilization and erosion control, to ensure that soil that is excavated, moved or otherwise disturbed by construction activity doesn’t pollute nearby bodies of water. In addition, owners and operators at larger construction sites will be subject for the first time to federal monitoring requirements and limits on storm water discharges. The monitoring requirements will take effect first at sites that disturb 20 or more acres and eventually at sites of 10 or more acres.
The EPA said the rule, which will establish minimum national standards, is intended to work in concert with existing state and local regulations that may be more stringent.
Adoption of the rule came in response to a court order in a lawsuit brought by a handful of states and nonprofit environmental groups alleging that the agency had failed to issue regulations required under the Clean Water Act. A U.S. district court ordered the EPA to issue the rule no later than Dec. 1, 2009.
A spokesman for the National Association of Home Builders couldn’t be reached immediately for comment. A spokesman for Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. said the group wouldn’t be able to comment until the final rule is published in the Federal Register.
Taking a Bad Situation and Making it Worse
There are three large apartment complexes in northwest Houston that have closed due to poor management and foreclosure within a five-mile diameter. Houston Mayor Bill White got the ball rolling with the closure of an apartment complex in the 77018 zip code that had a history of maintenance issues which threatened the safety of tenants. After children were injured at an outdoor electric junction box, Houston Mayor Bill White took action and forced the closing of the facility.
As it happened in the spring of 2007, the community cheered the action taken. Mayor White had begun to move on properties even before the issues of jurisdiction were debated. By removing the occupancy permit of the offending complex, he was able to create an environment for change. Even if the change was the loss of homes and citizens of local neighborhoods that ultimately rely on dense population segments that frequent local business. Once the first blow was taken, more apartment complexes began to reassess the profitability of repair and restoration of buildings that were developed up to 40 years ago. Rather than giving property owners a way out, the Mayor demanded action, and the fist of the complexes fell.
You find the same city closed complex still standing today. It’s takes a long time for a building to fall on its own.
Neighborhoods can handle losing the worst. But dealing with the loss of the mid-level complexes that were a large part of an aging collection of neighborhoods will bring more trouble than before. Massive buildings that are left with no protection and security for long periods of time become home to vagrant squatters who only affect the area in a negative way. The neighborhood also loses a large revenue source that sustains local small business owners. Not only do you lose vital participants in local commerce and government when large apartment complexes are lost to attrition, but you lose the businesses that employ the next level of consumers who are at threat to become homeless themselves.
Take the Bad and Make Good on the Promise of Change
So now the question is what to do, right? Wrong. Discover first how to avoid the first failure, and you will learn how to take advantage of a bad situation to make it better. Offering the now closed complexes initiatives and paths to improvement through city involvement may have prevented 2 out of the three closures. When local governments realize that private interests need the knowledge and assistance of leaders to improve their situation, they become aware that communities that are saved are more powerful than the ones that fall into place after one has evicted. By not taking the opportunity to promote corrective solutions, local government misses the ball on neighborhood preservation, and you can find this in effect in the Northwest area of Houston, TX.
