The Final Assault on the Coastal Zone Act ...

... is getting started.

Whether you are an advocate for the Coastal Zone Act or not, you need to recognize the early two-step of the Delaware Way in preparing to gut it.  (Because, sooner or later, if you stand by for this one without comment, the corporations will come for what you hold dear.)

Today's WNJ story begins with this set of quotes from NCC Chief Executive Tom Gordon:

"I believe we need to make use of our coastline, safely, cleanly. We don't have much left but that now" for economic development, Gordon said days ahead of Monday's planned release of a joint economic development plan for Wilmington and the County. 

"When [former Gov.] Russ Peterson wrote the Coastal Zone Act, it was a really great thing. We had a corporation on every corner and we were the number one city in the world in the '60s," Gordon said. "Wilmington's environment is full of bullets right now. That's a concern, too."

I have a lot of respect for Tom Gordon, even when I don't agree with him, but it is important to parse these quotes very carefully:

We don't have much left but that [the coast] now for economic development.

In other words:  we've given up on developing great swathes of Wilmington and New Castle County.

[The Coastal Zone Act] was a really great thing, way back when.

But, in other words:  today we have to choose between jobs and environmental damage.

We were the number on city in the world in the '60s ... Wilmington's environment is full of bullets right now.

Incredible false equivalency:  [a] that Wilmington's decline is irreversible without development of coastal areas; and that [b] development of the coastal areas will lead the way to economic renaissance and the end of urban violence.

But Mr. Gordon is hardly alone.

"It's obvious it's not going to be a park," Delaware State Chamber of Commerce President A. Richard Heffron said of areas just south of Marcus Hook. "We need to take a serious look at these things."

This is Chamberspeak for "whatever our member businesses tell us is good for them is what we will advocate for."  The fact that Chamber President Heffron is even quoted as a reputable source, rather than an industrial sector lobbyist, is indicative of which way the wind (full of the smell of the refinery) is blowing.

Here. according to Mr. Heffron and the Delaware Way network, is how it will happen:

"It's been my argument for a while that we need to relook at the Coastal zone, look at those industrial areas and see what kind of clean industries we can attract, and redefine what a heavy industry is," Heffron said. Government willingness might have increased since the election, he said, with lawmakers having more than a year before the next campaigns heat up, and Gov. Jack Markell having only two years left in his tenure. 

"I think maybe now is the time to do it," Heffron said. "You need to get some environmental groups on board, and you need to sit down and discuss planning" and economic development and environmental goals. 

It happens by

[a] controlling the definitions:  redefine what a heavy industry is

[b] taking advantage of the two years between now and the next elections:   Government willingness might have increased since the election, he said, with lawmakers having more than a year before the next campaigns heat up, and Gov. Jack Markell having only two years left in his tenure.

[c] get some environmental groups on board--which is code for bringing in the National Wildlife Foundation under former DNREC chief Collin O'Meara to give the imprimatur of an environmental group sign-off.  Everybody who thinks it is an accident of timing that Mr. O'Meara returned to Delaware to grab a WNJ headline this past week, go to the back of the class.

[d] begin the conversation with the assumed end as your starting point:  you need to sit down and discuss planning--this means that we are no longer going to discuss whether the Coastal Zone Act should be relaxed gutted, but that we should start by discussing to what extent the CZA will be weakened.  This is a neat Delaware trick.  By starting with the presumption of the ending, when any environmental group puts up an objection or a position, that will be considered a starting point for negotiations, and immediate public pressure will be placed on that group to compromise like everyone else is doing.

State officials are taking great pains to look neutral at this point, so as to be able to present themselves later as "honest brokers" of the eventual "compromise":

Neither Delaware Economic Development Office Director Alan Levin nor Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary David Small responded to questions about the issue last week.

The trick here, of course, is that the role of the State is supposed to be to enforce the law as written until legislators change it.  But if they can just tinker with the definitions, the necessity of dealing with that unpredictable old General Assembly might go away.

Then there's the Committee of 100, whose Executive Director seems more than happy to support the idea of deals made behind closed doors in smoke-free (this IS Delaware) rooms:

Paul Morrill, executive director of the Committee of 100 business group, said talks on Coastal Zone issues are "hard to broach without setting off alarm bells." 

"First of all, there's a recognition that it's very important environmental legislation, and nobody wants to mess with it," Morrill said. "Having said that, we think it's worth seeing whether there are any uses that might be compatible with the Coastal Zone as it's evolved over time. We just know it's a very tricky thing." 

"If there's no project that triggers constructive conversations, there's still going to need to be some offline conversations," Morrill said, "almost confidence building diplomacy, so there's a sense that people's motives aren't questioned." 

Parsing again:

[a] public talks set off alarm bells

[b] redefining the existing law:  the Coastal Zone as it's evolved over time

[c] conversations off the public record:  there's still going to need to be some offline conversations

[d] because what's good for Corporate Delaware is good for all Delawareans:  so there's a sense that people's motives aren't questioned.

I should not suggest here that the environmentalist position was ignored.

First, Professor James May:

"Do I think there will be people who push for amending the act. Of course. There always are," said James R. May, a law professor and co-director of the Environmental Law Center at Widener University who believes the act should be tightened and expanded to include residential land uses in the zone, in addition to industry.

"I think it will happen again. There will be proposals for conversations first, which will turn into proposals to change regulations which potentially will be proposals for changing the act." 

Let's read that last sentence again, because May has it exactly correct:   "There will be proposals for conversations first, which will turn into proposals to change regulations which potentially will be proposals for changing the act." 

Likewise David Carter of Delaware Audubon:

David Carter, conservation chair for Delaware Audubon, rejected suggestions that the law is too restrictive, and said that it has plenty of defenders. 

"Go ahead and go after it. It will reinvigorate Delaware's environmental movement in a way they haven't seen in 35 years," Carter said. He said that financial barriers are to blame for holding back job-creating clean-ups and redevelopments of under-used and polluted brownfields outside the zone, rather than environmental laws protecting sensitive areas.

I'm not sanguine that the reinvigoration of Delaware's environmental movement is going to hold of the calm, inevitable deliberations of what I figure will be the new Coastal Zone Development Task Force, but I am intrigued that the WNJ at least printed Carter's assertion that businesses want to go after the pristine Coastal Zone because it is not nearly so attractive an idea to clean up earlier brownfields outside the Zone.

Here's the thing:  You can expect that in his State of the State Address, Governor Jack Markell (who last year discovered that Delaware rivers and streams were polluted) will call for the creation of a task force to draw up guidelines for the environmentally sound development of the Coastal Zone, and that the membership of that Task Force or Commission has already been selected in large measure.  The Delaware Nature Society, as the local arm of the National Wildlife Federation, will be seated as the sole representative of "environmental concerns."

This is important not just in terms of the gutting of the Coastal Zone Act, which will--all things being equal--now take place within 12-18months, but in understanding how corporate interests have been made a fourth branch of Delaware's government.

Corporations and their lobbyists, you see, are stakeholders.  You and I are not.

This is right out of the Rodel playbook for education.  Instead of addressing real issues of lack of opportunity in Wilmington and NCC, our leaders have grabbed hold of the last remaining area of Delaware not already awash in pollution and brownfields, and the same people who presided over the pollution of 90% of our freshwater rivers and streams are promising to do the same for our coast.

Besides, pursuing the chimera of massive Coastal Zone development does more for corporate stock options than actually fixing downtown Wilmington every would.