Flushing Our Gulf Toilet
An interesting point of view a couple days ago from Donna Yowell. Donna is the executive director of something called the Mississippi Urban Forest Council. I checked out their web site and they have a slick little brochure there, even though the print is a mite too small for me. They talk about the benefits of membership, the importance of trees and a bunch of other undeniable benefits to preferring trees over parking lots.
But Donna is on the wrong scent when she talks about what Katrina did to her trees. Specifically, she’s talking about Mississippi’s Clower-Thornton Nature Trail, which she toured recently. “Every tree is brown, every leaf blown off," she says and Hurricane Katrina “has turned it into a toxic waste site overnight.”
Well, I don’t want to split hairs, Donna, but blaming Katrina for turning your favorite hiking trail into a toxic wasteland is sort of like blaming your toilet for the human waste that it’s designed to get rid of. Hurricanes are nasty creatures when …