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British Seagull 387 Critical Thinking

by Irtia Byrd

In some schools around the county kids are learning to think critically. They are entering into games called The Olympics of the Mind. A couple of wise birds wandered over to Middle Township last week to get a line on just what was going on and I must say .we were mighty impressed, that is all but one bird named Gus. Gus is an old timer and he said no way will he change | 'the school system he set up for birds. “ThdPe’s just one schoo'l and it will remain that way. It’s been good enough for your children and grandchildren and it will be good enough for the next thousand years,” he said. A eoi)PLE OF BIROS, who have some revolutionary ideas that the two-week school f6r birds should be extended to.four weeks and include some of this critical thinking stuff, got their feathers ruffled because Gus refused to listen to their pleas for advanced education ideas . And what Gus says goes. About five years ago a board of birds, about 200 of them elected Gus as headbird of the school Gus said there’s only one thing birds need to learn and anything else they can pick up on the wing. T don't have any objection to your going-over to the school and listening in on classes, but there will be no

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editorial

Snow on the lobster pots, Schellenger's Landing.

Uncle Sam Shouldn’t Sanction Pollution

Some say the Reagan administration has thrown in the towel when it comes to the government’s role of protecting the environment. That’s not true. The administration is working out of the opposition’s corner! How else can one explain actions by the federal Environmental Protection Agency which if followed to their conclusion will have a degrading if not deadly effect. And as if to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind, the EPA is mounting its assault on the land, the sea, and

the air—simultaneously..

FIRST CAME WORD RECENTLY that Anne Gorsuch, administrator of the EPA, had—despite the staunch protests of Cong. Bill Hughes—decided against appealing a Tower court ruling exempting New York and seven other cities from the Dec. 3k, 1981 deadline banning the dumping of sewage sludge at sea. As the congressman has pointed out, by her ’ action (or inaction),, the EPA administrator is not only failing to uphold the laws she is entrusted to enforce, hut is encouraging other municipalities to abandon their environmentally superior methods of disposing of concentrated sewage wastes on land, for the enviromentally inferior albeit less costly methods of .old by barging and dumping them

offshore. J

NEXT CAME NEWS THE EPA IS MAPP- ! ING PLANS for the dumping of low-level nuclear refuse at sea, reversing a decade’s old moratorium on that despicable practice. Included in the radioactive trash would be decommissioned nuclear submarines. Even devoid of their reactors and spent fuel, the metal in the reactor shells is so contaminated that one Greenpeace spokesman contends only three such scuttled nuclear subs would equal the radiaton output of all the radioactive wastes heretofore dumped at sea. The rationale of the sea-dumping proponents is that there are insufficient on-Tand sites and that those that are available are nearing capacity.

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THE LATEST HORRIBLE NEWS FROM EPA is that Ms. Gorsuch has thrown her support (meaning the Administration’s) behind a bill in Congress (H-5252) which would relax air □uality deadlines and auto emission standards. Some relaxation; the bill would permit a doubling of the quantities of nitrogen and carbon monoxide that motor vehicles could legally spew forth. The American taxpayer is already helping to bail out some appendages of the giant U.S. auto industry, which Jhru its own mismanagement and misguidance hasn’t been able to compete with foreign auto ex-' porters who are more on the ball; now we are all being forced to sacrifice the very air we i breathe! IN CASE YOU THINK ALL OF THIS is far removed from the santuary of the Jersey Cape,.consider this—in addition to the fact that we are, afterall, part of the United States: • One need only recall the summertime exasperation of trying to get around town, to the .beachfront, or along the major highways ^leading to our resort towns to realize the potential effects of reduced auto emission standards. We would much rather smell the aroma of hotdogs and french fries, suntan lotion, and salt air tjian the stuff that comes from the backsides of a thousand cars. • Before we seemingly wised up, the government had allowed the dumping of low-level radioactive wastes off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts during the generation of 1946-1970. One of those sites was 120 miles oft the Jersey Cape. If you think that’s too far removed from our beaches to be concerned, ask a commercial fisherman or a white water sports fisherman if he’s gone out that far for his catch. And we all know fish migrate. • Much, much closer to shore are the old sewage sludge dump sites which Philadelphia, Camden and other cities of the industrial megalopolis barged to until just a few years ago. You can see these offshore locations clearly marked on most Geodetic charts. One was less than 20 miles south of the entrance to Delaware Bay. If the EPA has its ways, maybe that one will be opened again. One that remains open is but 12 miles off Sandy Hook, one of the most popular bathing areas along the North Jersey shoreline. The pressure On large industrial cities to take the low-cost apS roach to ridding themselves of waste concen■s' ' ag

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restraints. POLITICAL LEADERS LIKE CONG. HUGHES and many other citizens of lesser public renown have labored too long for a clean environment to let it be wrenched from our grasp by a one-track-mind administration in Wathington bent on stemming inflation by creating havoc with common sense. Supe cleaning up the environment has a price tag, but it’s a cost we are all willing to share. What’s more, environmental maintenance provides for a whole new technology and industry. Individuals from scientist to laborer

can be employed helping to keep water and land clean. Is 1 there a better way to invest our money? ' What seems even more obvious is the lesson most of us learned a long time ago but which apparently remains an enigma to those holding the reins of national government at this moment; You can’t go on dumping garbage downstream because downstream is somebody else’s upstream. We thought the toilet mentality of out-of-sight, out-of-mind had gone down the drain . long ago. Apparently it hasn’t. And what is most shocking is that those who we expect to lead are instead following a simplistic course with devastating terminus. The State We're In Reaganspeak On I The Environment By David F. Moore One of the problems of govemment'is the frequent belief by impacted bureaucrats that the business of governing is much too important to let the public get involved in it. During recent years, strides have been made in letting the public help to govern itself, just like the framers of our Constitution intended. But there are ominous signs from the Halls of Government in Washington, D.C., which indicate that elitist bureaucrats are making a comeback. It’s happening under the Reagan administration, which seems to value the opinions of high-powered spokesmen for big business more than those forthcoming from the people who elected him. The bureaucrats I’m talking about are at middle levels, and they are really the people who run government. They survive one change of administration after another, comfortable in the womb of Civil Service. OVER THE PAST 10 OR 15 YEARS. Congress has really made some good advances in injecting the public into their government. Bills have been passed to provide public involvement in many areas. Government has reached out to get us more involved through public hearings, publications, contacting service' groups apd media advertising. But now the Reagan trend is to slam that open door in the public’s face. Not surprisingly, this is most noticeable in regard to environmental matters, but it's just as tm4 in other areas such as health, consumer and safety programs. It’s done in two ways: by cutting off the flow of information to the public and by making it a lot harder for the public to penetrate the walls of bureaucracy. Here in New Jersey, where noteworthy public participation advances have been made by a succession of commissioners of the Department of Environmental Protection, I’m not worried about the same things happening. Governor Tom Kean has long demonstrated sensitivity to the basics of operating a democratic republic, so the new DEP Commissioner (unknown by me at the time of this writing) is undoubtedly going to continue the practice. BUT THINGS AREN'T THAT NICE down in Washington. A recent issue of the Conservation Foundation’-! newsletter (a Washington-based organization not associated with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, which I direct) brings it into sharp perspective. It says the Reagan administration has used “sostfiisticatad and numerous” opportunities to chip away at our insights into what government is doing, and why. There appears to be a coherent assault upon the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act, with Attorney General (Page 27 Please)