EPA

I’ve been writing to several individuals and organizations regarding the environment. Everyone speaks about responsible recycling, but no one speaks against the continued manufacture of unrecyclable plastics, Styrofoam, Mylar, glyphosate, and many other deleterious products.

There are a handful of groups who recognize global warming and the continued use of fossil fuels, but no one is speaking against the destruction of our open spaces and how this exacerbates global warming. Animal rights groups don’t care about wildlife, they only care about domesticated animals.

I am very concerned with the unfettered over development throughout America and particularly in my state Pennsylvania. I have contacted nearly every self-proclaimed environmental agency in Pennsylvania (and outside) and have concluded that there is no protection whatsoever. All so-called environmental groups are governed by developers and realtors.

Where are the scientists?

Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, PA, has lost farms and open spaces which provide home to several types of wildlife. The problem has caused an increase in road kill, which the township has stopped removing from the roads leaving the carcasses to decay in plain sight.

There is a section of Route 29 at Yerkes Road that is for sale. There are plans to build a roundabout and apartment complex on it.

https://www.collegevilledevelopment.org/penndot-collegeville-road-improvements/

This area floods often, runs along the Perkiomen Creek, and home to North Carolina Carolina Terrapin (Eastern Box Turtle), American snapping turtle, many types of snakes, bees, butterflies, the Great blue heron, owls, hawks, several types of woodpeckers, fauna and much more. It is a true ecosystem that should not be paved nor destroyed.

Many a box turtle crossing the road has been saved on Route 29 (certainly a risk).

The Eastern Box Turtle is being driven to extinction. It is disturbing that we are not protecting this remnant of the dinosaur age much more. http://www.wildlifewatchers.org/esReports/report30.html Depressingly, the corporately-controlled environmental groups in Pennsylvania do not list the Eastern Box Turtle as critically threatened. But unfettered overdevelopment continues to destroy their habitats.

Recently, during his campaign for Upper Providence Township Supervisor, a Democratic hopeful visited the homes at Yerkes Road promising them he would reject development plans, giving them the sense that he would protect this area from development.

They believe(d) him. I decided that if this political hopeful would protect the Yerkes area from further development (and perhaps other areas in Upper Providence), I would offer to support his campaign, as I have for other hopefuls in the past.

While speaking with this Democratic hopeful, he hedged on my suggestion to permanently protect this area for environmental reasons. After 45 minutes of probing, I asked him the right question at which time he admitted that another 1,000 homes are to be built in the township and he would approve future development plans for Yerkes Road. Proof positive that Democrats are no more interested in protecting the environment than Republicans.

All campaigning political hopefuls, regardless of party, promise to protect open spaces while they will improve infrastructure.

Once in office the promised protection disappears and development commences. Once a road is improved to support current traffic, these politicians allow developers the right to build shopping centers (as unnecessary as they may be) and squeeze as many homes in small areas as possible. This intensifies traffic and negates improvements to the infrastructure. Thus, open spaces are senselessly lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlbAZvcVM9E

Besides the threat to wildlife, many homes in the Yerkes Road area have suffered flooding.

Additional development will increase this problem because water has no place to go when there is no ground to absorb it. Examples:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/explainer/article/The-trouble-with-living-in-a-swamp-Houston-795****.php

https://wtkr.com/2019/04/22/environmental-group-blaming-new-development-for-flooding-increase-in-sandbridge-city-blames-winds-and-climate-change/

Environmental groups, government officials, and mainstream media never discuss the loss of open space and how this loss contributes to global warming.

https://overdevelopment.weebly.com/environment.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2015/09/25/the-science-of-why-cities-are-warmer-than-rural-areas/#49676e671744

https://overdevelopment.weebly.com/change.html

Before he died, Stephen Hawking warned that we must find a habitable planet in 100 years…

http://time.com/476****/stephen-hawking-100-years-new-planet/

Is this what our leaders want for their children and their offspring. Is this what Christians mean by ‘those left behind’ or ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’? Woe to those left behind or the meek.

We are commercializing our land with shopping center after shopping center.

It used to be joyful to drive through the countryside’s of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and regions beyond. Gone are the open spaces. Now you drive through a sea of endless shopping centers. Children don't play; they shop or play mindless video games.

Creeks are now surrounded by shopping centers, industrial parks, and/or squeezed by townhouses.

Again, I can't find one environmental group willing to help prevent the loss of this very important ecosystem at Yerkes Road and Route 29 in Upper Providence Township, Pennsylvania. Others care, but simply feel helpless.

Environmentalists, such as myself, need a politician who will protect the environment without lip service nor greenwash.

Otherwise, there is no difference between the parties.

To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city is to look at something like the section of a fibrous tumor. - Frank Lloyd Wright

America is becoming one huge tumor.

Please kindly comment on this very important topic.

-Roe