Cinnaman

The Taxpayer's Guide to "River Dance"

“Ere you consult your fancy, consult your purse.”
Benjamin Franklin


Young Ben Franklin was both a great thinker and a great swimmer. Among the many money-making schemes his keen mind devised was teaching others how to swim. And since Sylvan Pools was not around back then, one presumes Franklin dipped into the Delaware River on occasion.

Tragically, there is no Franklin genius around now to rescue taxpayers who are about to be soaked by the Great Delaware River Dredging Dodge.

It is a given that the Delaware, only 17-feet deep when Ben was splashing, has been turned into something of a sewer since then. When a Greek tanker spilled 264,000 gallons of oil in the river in 2004, cleanup costs were $267 million. It sounds good that a tax on the oil industry pays for some of that, but everyone knows that the consumer gets the bill in the end.

This week the Coast Guard reported that no one is to blame for the spill because it was caused by an abandoned 18,000 pound anchor that ripped into the tanker. The seven-foot tall anchor is part of the debris lurking in the toxin-laced silt on the river’s bottom.

But that story is dwarfed by the mammoth arm-wrestling match going on between the governments of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the oil industry giants and the housing industry. At issue is how the river can be best used to make lots of money for all concerned.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell wants the river bottom dredged –from 40 to 45 feet -- so bigger ships can continue to feed the docks along the water and keep industry going. On his side is the Army Corps of Engineers, whose glowing vision of this $252 million project can be found here http://www.nap.usace.army.mil/cenap-pl/drmc.htm

If this impresses you, then you might want to see how the Government Accountability Office looked at the Corps’ earlier plan and found it chock full of bad data -- http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02604.pdf

New Jersey has opposed the plan as originally set forth, which made Rendell mad enough to threaten shutting down the high-speed line across Ben Franklin’s bridge. New NJ Governor Jon Corzine has yet to pronounce on the topic.

Meanwhile, Jersey has been busy figuring out how it can reconfigure the shores of the river with $5 billion worth of development from Pennsville north to Pennsauken. More than 300 bankers, builders and lawyers met last week to discuss the possibilities.

One of the lawyers, Edward Penberthy, was quoted in a local paper today this way:

“Builders and developers are looking for places to go, but they need infrastructure like sewer and water and more relaxed environmental regulations. It’s complicated, but we’re here to advise them.”

It is complicated. If governors can not agree on the mountain of reports and studies on the river issues, how does the working citizen stand a chance? Who is right – the Army Corps or the GAO? Is it OK to ease environmental standards when the old standards obviously did not work? Before numerous forces join up to tap our purse for river development, who will consult us?

Ben Franklin was a master of the pithy “sound bite,” but his little sayings were more than superficial message points. They stand the test of time because of their truth. Here is another Franklin gem: “Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”

Franklin was clever certainly, but above all he was a communicator of ideas and facts necessary to move the young nation forward.

Before the taxpayers fork up the production costs for the biggest River Dance ever, who will consult us with the truth?

posted by Lou Antosh @ 12:37 PM