the, now infamous, work plan

After nearly three months of hard work, my Clean and Clear task force delivered our draft work plan on Friday, August 31. The work plan has been somewhat widely anticipated, at least as these sort of things go, and has drawn some media attention.

On Sunday, this story ran in the Burlington Free Press. Although I found the tone of the first dozen or so sentences to be a little negative, on the whole I think the piece does a nice job capturing the essence of the report. (I would say that the quote from the Conservation Law Foundation - which I would paraphrase "I haven't read the report, but I am sure what the Agency is proposing is illegal" - just about sums up the current state-of-affairs when it comes to the working relationship between ANR and CLF.)

The Associated Press apparently also read the story in the Freeps and offered this, slightly less fact-filled, take, which ran in papers from Barre to San Diego - or so I am told. The real issue in all of this is that Governor Douglas committed to an "accelerated" clean-up for Lake Champlain in 2003 - stating that the state would take all possible steps. And now the battle begins - just what is "possible"? And does this plan really push the possible-envelope? Being somewhat of a political novice myself, I had hoped that folks might actually look at the proposed approach - but it has rather quickly become obvious that is not going to happen. *sigh*