You are running for Congress in the poor Southern rural district where you have lived and loved all your life. The district faces the ocean, has a major alluvial river, lakes, some nice scenery, and appreciable unrealized tourist appeal. Inland the district contains largely privately owned forests within which are some played-out phosphate mines. The only real industries currently operating are commercial fishing and wood pulp, the latter owned by out-of-state interests. The biggest town, the county seat, has 700 people, three gas stations, two good seafood restaurants, a food and sundry store, and the county high school. There is no professional medical care in the county. You have fond roots here; you are well known and liked throughout the county where you have been elected to Town Council, County Board, and School Board, and you have fished just about every stream with just about every resident who is anybody.
The Congressional seat you seek has been held for years by a powerful and well liked politician who is now retiring. Through his influence, the district is soon to gain the major regional Nuclear and Toxic Waste Disposal Site (known to some as NUTWADS), to be built, of course, in a sparsely populated area. This state-of-the-art combined facility promises to restore the employment that was lost when the phosphate mines closed. Amidst the coming bonanza are highway and rail construction, housing and general contracting, a commercial/professional center with a food store, the district's first pharmacy, initially two physicians and a dentist, plus some super-high tech clean industrial development, all-in-all a balanced economic prize for the area. NUTWADS construction could begin in 15 months and, with overruns, would take about 4 years to complete.
Your opponent for the US Congressional seat is the current state legislator for the area, who has been in the back pocket of the Congressman and the phosphate mining interests for years. He has quite properly fought in behalf of some kind of commercial development for the area and, with the Congressman's help, has won. Everyone knows that he will benefit financially from the deal, yet such benefit is both legal and appropriate for his hard work. In short, sweet deals have been made and Congress has awarded the new disposal site to the district; the only question is the precise location.
There are some negative factors about all this. You are aware that no matter how high tech this facility is supposed to be, there will be inevitable screw-ups. You picture the unavoidable bulldozing and land filling at the NUTWADS, highway, and railroad construction sites. Your inside contacts predict high probability of at least some container waste leakage and migration once the facility is in operation. And then there's the question of location. Furthermore, once a sophisticated waste disposal site is in place, it is altogether likely that a major plastics plant will seek to locate nearby.
You realize that you are not about to alter the decision to build NUTWADS but perhaps, in a position of influence, you can oversee the course of events surrounding its construction and eventual operation. For this purpose you are running for Congress where, even as a freshman, you will at least be consulted on these issues.
1. Known as the M&M Site, this area contains a truly remarkable, present-day wilderness. Main features are a climax bottomland bald cypress forest penetrated by the Apalachicola River, which empties into the Apalachicola Bay, Estuary, and Barrier Island system. The site itself is located on the river in the bottomland hardwoods. It takes its name from the Miccosukee Indians, archeological evidence of which is found along the river, and the manatee, an endangered aquatic mammal that occasionally frequents the river and its estuary. Today, the main activities found here are fishing, recreational hiking, and canoe camping. Historically, the fishing and shellfishing traditions predate other livelihoods. They depend, first, upon the food supply of nutrients and invertebrates that discharge from Tate's Hell Swamp and other impenetrable sloughs into the river and, second, upon the primary productivity of sheltered salt marshes that line the estuary.
2. The Mineral Spring Site exists as one of the most beautiful and accessible areas in your district (click here for more pictures). It represents prehaps the prime untapped and eventual tourist area with beautiful Lake Seminole and the adjacent Apalachicola National Forest. Properly developed, the wonderful condition of open spaces with their rare and enchanting pitcher plant bogs will enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors alike. The local population is small, leaving large stands of mature longleaf pine and wiregrass forest untrammeled. Longleaf pine forest management requires periodic fires in order to maintain healthy habitats for the numerous rare and endangered species living there, as well as to cultivate the timber, which has great, renewable commercial and aesthetic value. A nearby system of caverns and a recreational trail complement the area's recreational potential.