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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, essayist Jim Fisher considers
a river blocked by bureaucracy.
JIM FISHER: The Midwestern River, edged by the ripening bounty from
adjacent fields. It offered a wistful memory for those with rural childhoods,
of bridges crossed, riverside picnics; of fishing holes. But not Missouri's
South Grand River -- a seven-mile stretch screened by willow, cottonwood,
and ash, has been transformed from what once was a sure river into an
unimaginable ugliness. Logjams: Essentially massive landfills in a river
channel; five in a seven-mile stretch near the little town of Urich;
the biggest, almost half a mile long. You name it, the refuse is here--
refrigerators, propane tanks, tires, plastic debris, and-- likely as
not-- human remains that'll never be found; the refuse of our disposable
society tangled among thousands, some say millions, of logs. The logjams
have become so fundamental to life here that they are now referred to
in the singular as the Urich logjam. The river has become a nightmare
for Bill Kelsay, a farmer whose land abuts four of the five logjams.
In June, he was flooded again.
BILL KELSAY: They just keep getting bigger each year, because the logjam
keeps the water from flowing downstream, and it covers more farmland.
When I first started farming here 25 years ago, there, why, you would
get in April, get your crops planted, and get them up. But now, then,
you got to wait till the land gets dried out good-- sometimes the last
part of June, the first part of July.
JIM FISHER: The cause of this mess? The Dutch Elm disease of years ago,
fewer people on the land, logging for shipping pallets, and above all,
illegal dumping to avoid ever-increasing landfill fees. But what's in
the river is only half the story. These logjams ha been around for 30
years, not just flooding the land but ruining crops, closing roads,
and causing the abandonment of thousands of acres of prime agricultural
land. People here have been complaining to anybody and everybody for
years. But nobody will do anything, not the county-- no money; not the
various state agencies-- "not our responsibility"; nor anyone
in the federal government-- Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife, E.P.A.
- Ditto the explanation. - Vicky Hartzler is a Missouri state representative
from a district abutting the South Grand River.
JIM FISHER: Farmers just don't have the clout anymore, do they?
VICKY HARTZLER: Well, there's not very many of them, and there's fewer
and fewer every year. So we have to stick up for them and do what we
can to keep the family farmer viable. They just cannot afford to keep
this logjam here. They need their government to step in-- which was
designed to serve them-- and to start doing that, instead of being a
bureaucratic logjam, which it has been up to this point.
JIM FISHER: In the larger scheme of things, what's clogged in a small
Missouri River probably doesn't count for much. But added to all the
other things-- winter potholes still around in summer, bombs falling
on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, nuclear secrets flying out of the
laboratories like so many Domino's Pizzas, the tainted meat of the week--
and you have to ask who's in charge here? Obviously not bad people.
But has government-- local, state, and federal-- become so big, so parochial,
so muscle- bound, so complicated with rules and regulation, that it's
impossible to get anything done?
WOMAN: We have to keep in mind that we're all here together for one
reason: To solve the problem, not to argue.
JIM FISHER: And the Urich logjam? Well, folks here have finally gotten
wise. There's now a study, a word bureaucrats dearly love; a meeting
recently heard an update, and that other word functionaries swoon over:
Remediation. - How to fix it. Years ago, farmers used sacks of fertilizer
and dynamite to blow the logjams to smithereens. Not now. Environmental
rules, toxic waste rules, wetlands rules-- you name it, there's a rule
against it. And the South Grand? It remains choked, ugly, loathsome,
smelly in the heat of summer, and hardly a place for a fishing hole.
I'm Jim Fisher.
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