Grading and Excavation Contractor

John Trotti

By John Trotti

I change out the background scenes on my computer screen roughly every month. It helps me keep a fresh perspective on things, but I find myself returning again and again to the wonderful Apollo-8 “Earthrise” photo of our magic blue-green home, the tenuousness of whose future is underscored by the bleak and barren moonscape in the foreground.

In my humble opinion, this 1968 scene is the single most important photo ever taken, quietly launching a revolution that continues to gather momentum to this day. More eloquent than all the environmental crusades before or since, Earthrise provides mankind with a visual reminder of just how fragile our world really is, speaking to us in unequivocal terms of where continued neglect could lead.

We’ve reached a point in time where most people relate to air-quality issues without too much difficulty, since smog is a fact of life nearly everywhere. The availability of water, in terms of quantity and quality alike, may be a bit more of a stretch, but most people appear to be aware of the need for better stewardship. How about the land itself…arguably the most precious of all our life-sustaining resources?

Engineers want to blast it or scrape it in order to get to bedrock. Miners shovel it out of the way to reveal “Earth’s treasures” beneath. Farmers plow it, road builders pave it, and developers peddle it, all with the notion that it is “nothing but dirt, and there’s plenty more where that came from.” Plenty more, that is, unless we take a look at NASA scenes of our colorful planet from space in which we see gigantic dust clouds crossing entire continents, or watch the resolute march of barren hardpan into what but a few years ago was a tropical rainforest teeming with life. Indeed, you have to shut your eyes not to notice how much of the non–blue-green stuff the Sahara and its sisters take up, and if this doesn’t make you a little nervous, it should.

With the migration of air, water, and soil from the economic realm of Free Goods to Commodities status less than a half-century old, it’s no wonder we’re struggling to adjust our attitudes and practices. For starters, we have to come to grips with what it means.

Is there some rational process by which we can solve these problems without making personal commitments? Does raising taxes or paying more and larger fines to regulatory agencies handle the problem? Does it mean things will get better again because we can sell government-granted credits through the Chicago Board of Trade? Can we analyze our way to salvation, and, if so, how many models do we have to run and how many simulations do we perform to find out how much a ton of soil is worth, or what that same ton costs when it migrates and chokes a stream or poisons a lake?

And what then? Do we publish the findings and go on to other interesting problems? Tell Mother Earth we’re getting a handle on her problem? Should we send faxes to our representatives suggesting they pass more laws? Raise the fines? Or do we recognize that air, water, and soil are the capital inour survival…not the planet’s? And then how long should we wait to begin behaving as if we believed it was in our power to secure it?

Every time a project gets approved or “completed” without proper attention paid to erosion and sediment control planning, we all lose. Every time erosion control practices are ignored, improperly installed, or inadequately maintained, something bad is bound to follow. It's time to stop worrying about “the environment” and consider what erosion damage and sediment loss mean to our personal “bottom line” in terms of cleanup and replacement costs, not to mention losses of productivity and opportunity.

It would be bad enough if we were talking about cousin Chester who doesn’t know a BMP from a credit check. But how about those of us whose livelihoods are bound up in earthmoving pursuits? Why are we putting up with it...particularly when every time we pass a rilled hillside, mud-choked storm drain, or silted-in drainage course, we are confronted with a slap to our professional dignity as well as a direct assault on our wallets? Are we getting mad yet?

Of course BMPs are important when it comes to dealing with erosion and sediment challenges, and our sister publications,Stormwater and Erosion Control, along with the broad range of presentations at StormCon (www.StormCon.com) in Orlando, August 3–7, 2008, can provide invaluable information in selecting the most cost-effective solutions. But the real key lies within us and our commitment to taking responsibility for our actions.

On the Web
Atmospheric Dust:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/images/asia-dust/asia_dust_storm_full.jpg

Rainforest:
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0808-amazon.html

Sahara:
http://www.dels.nas.edu/basc/earthobservations/figures/s-1.html

GEC - Buyers Guide 2009

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