DNREC Out of Control. If you’re smart enough, let’s talk what’s going on here.

I try to keep it light but folks this DNREC thing is out of control. Give it a read and I promise a follow-up

Ladies and gems I am writing this right off the top of my head, badaboom, badabing, just having all kinds of thoughts in my head and thinking out loud. With the help of a keyboard.

This thing going on with DNREC is really giving me the creeps. And so, after mangling the details of the Thomas Capano murder trial saga, I embark on understanding what the hell this state agency on steroids is doing.

First two important elected players: Rich Collins and Ruth Briggs-King. Right now I must say I like both of these people though neither represents me. Ruth did for a while, she did a great job, she’s good at it.

With love in my heart I note, as I chuckle, that Ruth never met a photo/attention op she would avoid but it’s part of her charm. Now Ruth is opening up, out of session, the Delaware House’s Natural Resource Committee.

The reason for this is that recently the Delaware Supreme court ruled that….well more on this later. I am going to try and compact this down but be patient with me. As hard as it might be to believe, I am going to insert tongue in cheek. Seems that DNREC, a state agency that wants to be, when it grows up , the Delaware EPA, wants all construction jobs to provide a storm water plan, plans for sediment, construction site stuff.

First, seriously, we really need this? Aren’t construction jobs, by their very definition, eh, temporary? Do not jump forth yon reader, as the daughter of a carpenter who flipped houses and with a niece who recently suffered through building of a new restaurant by her houses I am very aware of the damage construction can bring to the surround.

Okay, so another player in this drama is Rich Collins, known for support of development but his constituents elected him so don’t complain. Collins is a state Representative and part of the group that filed the lawsuit against DNREC.

Now I must question what is DNREC’s job in this state? Cause every time I read about some regulation or other, it involves DNREC, whether it’s the size of the fish you catch to the smell of your land to the license you must have to recreate anywhere in the state of Delaware. Now DNREC demands a detailed plan from developers for construction debris but okay, let’s go on. It seems that while DNREC followed the law and demanded that developers follow some procedures, said procedures filed rightfully in accordance with Delaware’s “Administrative Procedures Act”-APA. This act was made law in order to give citizens and legislators some control over what some unelected bureaucracy should thrust upon us. Rules of the act require public input, etc….good idea it would seem.

Only DNREC slips in some pile of technical requirements, said requirements NEVER made part of the APA, thus never approved by those who would live under them, defeating, de facto, the purpose of the APA. The surreptitious insertion of these technical documents was probably intentional. I don’t know what’s included in those technical documents but I’m guessing a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense that will serve no purpose but to make our lives hell while keeping DNREC in business.

So DNREC now has no outlandish list of rules and regulations but DNREC Secretary Small says no matter what the hell that judge said, we need RULES AND REGULATIONS….we are DNREC!!

DNREC implements some what it calls “emergency rules” and flip the Delaware Supreme court the bird.

Rep. Briggs-King is now requesting what I guess you would call an emergency hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee, the legislative group responsible for overseeing DNREC I must suppose.

Thus I compose this mostly for my concern. America’s biggest problem to the little guy is more in the bureaucracies created to strangle us in endless red tape, more than it is, say, a Mitch McConnell. Look at what that gang of thugs Lois Lerner did with the IRS.

And DNREC, yon readers and gems, is a bureaucracy created for no other reason than to exist, create plumb jobs for friends and family of politicos….and DNREC wants you to tell the state just how you will collect your storm water and you will use our secret documents to so notify.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this story and next week I’ll report back after talking to Rich Collins. Collins is one of the better legislators when it comes to explaining things. Ruth King is also very good at it.

One of these two should run for Governor but it’s too soon for Rich.

I’m jus’ sayin’.

I do not respond to comments on my posts. I certainly have no problem with such commentary and, indeed, encourage it. But I’ve written my piece and I don’t want to argue it further.

Please feel free to email me at patfish1@aol.com if you want to send me a special comment or have any ideas or information you want to share.

NEXT : The verdict is in! The property dispute is postponed and folks, it’s a great story. I’m ready to take it to the people. Insert wink here.