Storm Pond: Why can't humans accept reponsibility for their actions!!!

This opinion letter posted in the star is of the exact type to make me see sparks.

"I cannot imagine a worse idea in a development than to actually authorize and build a pit to hold dirty, slimy, runoff water whose supposed use (to divert water from the sewer system) is far overshadowed by its danger."

Shall we fence natural streams and lakes too? Should we dump street run off contaminated by chemicals we use on our suburban lawns, deposited by our vehicles or otherwise exacerbated by our own inability to take care of our planet into natural waterways untreated or slowed? Shall we raise our children to believe that everyone but they are responsible for their safety?

Actually, here is the quote that makes me really mad:

" A tragedy that could have been averted? Of course.
Most will say the boys should not have gone on the pond. But the real answer is that these "water retention ponds" are nothing more than big holes in the ground used for street run-off in new developments. There should be a public outcry against these "ponds" because of their danger to public safety. In most cases, there is little or no fencing around them. Not only is there this imminent danger of death by drowning, but the ponds, ie. septic pools, represent a danger for the breeding of rodents and insects — many have no movement of the water."

Actually, that would just be the rest of Gary Crosbie's letter to the editor.

I'm sure I've said it before, but their is a cost to this attitude that the world should be perfectly safe and if not, then someone should be sued. The cost is the enjoy of choice to take calculated risks, the cost of reducing risks to as close to zero as you can get and the cult of the victemhood that cripples our society with a sense that its someone elses responsibility to take care of you. The cost of fencing every storm water pond in Ontario is not just the cost of fence, which would perhaps keep people from being casually stupid, but not prevent a determined individual from doing the same, but the loss of those precious quasi wild spaces allowed to us in the suburbs. Here is Guelph most ponds are fenced, but it mostly makes them eye sores, when they could otherwise enhance the landscape. I would argue that people need natural viewscapes to satisfy some part of their soul and maintain sanity in a concrete world. Lets not kid ourselves, the cost of managing storm water in another manner is not small either. The choices would be expensive subsurface infiltration basins, simply polluting and flooding natural waterways (also increasing the risk of drowning in a raging streams), or handling all of that water in our sewage treatment plants. Increasing the capacity of our storm sewers to handle that kind of flooding would result in a noticeable increase in your municipal taxes too.

An further article in the star explaining the purpose of storm sewers in lay terms is found at this link.

I feel great sadness that a child drowned, however, I don't think anyone should be pinning blame on municipalities. This is a tradgedy and the blame should lie on the choices that a 15 year old and 11 year old made. Children should be taught to use common sense, the more you childproof the entire world, the less they learn to be responsible and becoming an adult won't cure that deficiency. If we want to have kids grow up to be responsible, then we need to talk to them and educate them and expect them to be responsible.

Growl!

Jennith

P.S. The photo above is of a local park centered on a storm water pond

P.P.S Blogger has once again done strange things to my post and I suppose I should count myself lucky that its only deleted a small part of it and screwed up the links. I can't seem to fix it, so please excuse the errors.