Impervious Surfaces - Progress or Destruction?

Destructive Progress - An Oxymoron

"LFUCG - Lexington Fayette Urban County Government owns and operates a sanitary sewer system, which includes two major wastewater treatment plants, serving a population of almost 250,000. It also owns and operates a separate storm sewer system that collects urban storm water. Inadequacies in LFUCG’s sewer systems’ infrastructure and management programs have resulted in unlawful discharges of millions of gallons of untreated sewage, known as sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs), into streams in the Lexington/Fayette County area and increased pollution levels in urban storm water."

 This is a paragraph borrowed from the EPA  in March of 2008.

When we get a "gully washer" here in Lexington it is quite common for tons of  untreated sewage to overflow and pollute the streams which in turn pollute the Kentucky River and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico.

What is the source of this problem?  For many, many years developers were allowed to build homes without little or no thought to what happens to water runoff.  

To compound the problem government agencies continually required developers to lay thousands of acres of impervious surfaces.  

Homes got bigger while the lots got smaller.

Eventually the land's ability to absorb the torrents of water so frequent during spring and summer storms were inundated.
In the name of "progress" Lexington became a city perfectly suited for boiling cesspools of sewage water.
Progress reared its head to once again destroy what was created natural from man's own protection. Trees, sod, and bushes were here for a purpose.
I want to challenge the people of Lexington, the people of the State of Kentucky and the people of our great country to think about the consequences of "progress."

Here are just a few of today's progress projects that I suggest we should challenge.

Clearing and leveling land to be used for recreational purposes: soccer fields, baseball fields, even parks.  What would happen if families and communities worked together in community gardens in place of compacting the soil with recreational activities?

Building gigantic houses.  What would happen if  we started living as stewards of the land instead of living to own something to impress the "Joneses?"

Building shopping centers.  What would happen if communities began working together in their own yards, helping each other grow healthy food rather than living for a moment to escape to the crowded mall to wait in lines of traffic sitting in their gas guzzlers and then spend money they have yet earned on toys and goods that have little earthly value and no eternal value?

Building recreational buildings  The question that should always be asked is:  Does this endeavor profit the proposers more than the general health of the public.  Is this something that will benefit the people as a whole or is it a good thing for those who will gain income from the project.  I raised my family in Seattle the years in which they built the "Kingdome" to house the baseball fans, they later leveled by implosion it and built a new baseball stadium and a new football stadium.  More places to go to sit, eat and drink and put on tons of weight watching athletes.  People needing excercise watching people who don't neet excercise.

Again, I lay the challenge before the Commonwealth and our nation, let us think about the consequences of "progress."