STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Columns

• Guest commentary: Watts up with undergrounding electrical services
• Guest commentary: Another job well done
• Guest commentary: Fast facts on the electric service discussion

Share and Enjoy [?]

I’m celebrating St. Valentine’s Day quite a bit differently on Marco Island this year,

I intend to send poetic, loving “GREEN” Valentines to all who seem to love so dear,

Our one-of-a-kind barrier island with its ever-so fragile tropical eco-environ surrounds,

That we are blessed to share with marine flora and fauna which so beautifully abounds,

Our habitat and which no longer appears able to tolerate the ambivalence and antipathy,

Shown by planners and developers while revealing their self-serving interests so blatantly.

Really big “GREEN” Valentines should be sent to our civic leaders and elected civil directors,

To remind them of their critical roles as our habitat’s first-line defenders and protectors,

Against fatuous excesses transforming us into just another, comparable main-land attraction,

With tawdry sites, tacky glitz and abundant noises creating a growing plethora of distraction.

Just witness daily our Collier Boulevard, now resembling yet another Cross-Bronx Expressway,

Evolving into a costly NASCAR speedway where walkers, shoppers and bikers display,

Real fears to cross at any hour with its excessive speeds and “high crime” urban lighting,

Destroying our once classic artery’s serendipity with vehicles gone so wild and frightening,

While baffling our rare migrant bird populations on their divinely-driven radar missions,

Through dull, filmy skies that can no longer fulfill any astrologer’s dreams nor visions.

We see, after-hours, the growing use of dazzling neon and luminous signage everywhere,

Increasing our visual pollution by creating a contrived atmosphere, both needless and unfair,

Especially to all of our fish, fowl, amphibians, seashells and marine life as unique Gulf features,

Pleading for survival on Marco Island as God’s most innocent and vulnerable living creatures.

Thus, on this “GREEN” Valentine’s Day, let’s all rally for a comprehensive, proactive, smart plan,

By our elected officials to preserve, protect and enhance our natural habitat wherever we can.

.

With little poetic license, here a baker’s dozen of “GREEN” Valentines that attempt to explain,

How to lovingly create a “GREEN” Marco Island with no new taxes and little personal pain:

1. No more swale paving to meet the gross demands of impatient drivers always in a hurry. We need our “GREEN” swales to filter storm run-offs into our canals, bays and beaches, and to assure disposal of watered pollutants without any continuing citizen risk or worry.

2. Ban all toxic fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides which are hazardous to the health and safety of all flora, fauna and human residents. Mandate the use of “GREEN” non-toxic, organic fertilizers and non-petrol weed and bug killers which are everywhere setting new health and safety precedents.

3. Prohibit road skimmers and open runoff drains that do not filter completely the storm waters which inundate our environment. Expand the Mackle-Deltona pioneering rain-water “GREEN” swale disposal designs which eliminate, for our citizens, yet another manufactured torment.

4. Increase drastically the operating budget of our city’s Environmental Resources staff which has seen reduced funding in the past several years. Recognize the growing threat of air-water HAZMATS and measurable toxic pollutants on Marco Island while demanding more “GREEN” safeguards and remedies based on frequent testing throughout our surrounds to stop flora-fauna destruction and to allay human fears.

5. Measure the new Collier Boulevard’s and other altered site’s “Carbon Footprint” and “Greenhouse Emissions” readings compared to the last several years considering vehicle speeds allowed and excessive lumens now being burned. We should never permit “GREEN” and remarkably frugal, safe speeds and lighting standards anywhere to be ever so grossly ignored and shabbily spurned.

6. Eliminate many of the excessive trash cans on Collier Boulevard now being used daily by off-island drive-by's and free-be interlopers to facilitate their own waste disposal. Please disclose any “GREEN” features of our Waste-Management contract that encourages such an attractive nuisance and costly public service to be considered as a viable “GREEN” conservation proposal.

7. Synchronize all traffic lights to be passable only at vehicular speeds of 25 MPH or less. Now more than ever before, we need proved “GREEN” traffic calming procedures which will effectively eliminate our increasingly clogged traffic mess.

8. Coincidentally, 25 MPH continues as a maximum safe speed limit primarily for residential-resort communities according to AAA and major highway safety study conclusions. Our pedestrian-biker-jogger-walker centered community should not constantly ignore such “GREEN” data whose absence has earned Marco Island a sad reputation for being a speeder’s haven with little fear of prosecutions.

9. Quality “GREEN” communities world-wide have established a 65-decibel or less maximum limit for the purpose of noise abatement and control. Our decibel abatement “GREEN” standard appears meaningless considering the apparent constant intrusiveness of muffler-less construction and landscape machinery, the week-end hot-rods and thunder cyclists, the boom-box radios and the offensive open-bar and home party arenas pumping loud and pervasive air-borne vitriol.

10. Solar panels, compact Energy-Star fixtures, fluorescent's, photovoltaic air exchangers, tri-pane windows and a host of eco-friendly products are loudly promoted as trickle down “GREEN” incentives for governments to lead its citizenry into positive conservation behaviors and actions. With all of our new public works project since 2004, citizens are still unable to recall any “GREEN” incentives or leadership policies of our City Council and City Hall provided to its citizens by using and promoting any of the above products now commanding positive international “GREEN” ravings and reactions.

11. No-idling policies for city, contractor and trade vehicles are an integral part of intensive standard enforcement policies for all levels of government world-wide in order to limit carbon emissions and to save fuel. Contractor and trade vehicles along with our city-owned vehicles are observed daily violating such sound “GREEN” policies from dawn to dusk and must be cited as not being very “GREEN” cool.

12. Strictly enforce no-dumping ordinances on landscapers, contractors, property-owners, the trades, boaters, et al. who are daily dumping waste, refuge, garbage, cuttings, building debris and other indissoluble, toxic items into our canals and waterways. Such strict “GREEN” ordinance enforcement must be the foundation of any community campaign to lift our veil of ignorance and to change our careless, apathetic ways.

13. Organize a “GREEN” Task Force on Conservation and Energy comprised of citizens and others knowledgeable about the need for public and private initiatives in seeking widespread support for workable “GREEN” action initiatives and professional counsel. Primary focus should be on the conservation of energy and natural resources; real and potential climate changes; and the protection, preservation and enhancement of our eco-environ systems through research, advisement and advocacy activities to be initiated by our City Council.

Best wishes for a very Happy “GREEN” Valentine’s Day!

Sayre Uhler, Marco Island