It would seem that FEMA and the DNR is now in the business of putting local government between a rock and a hard place. Thanks to government generalities and excessive regulation, the new floodplain maps for the St. Croix river means either forcing more people to buy flood insurance to hedge against the potential of a “100 year flood,” or forcing local governments to spend exhorbanant amounts of money in fixing the maps for their areas.

This is the federal bureaucracy at work, and it’s wrong. The choice to purchase flood insurance should be based 100% on the desires of the individual with the caveat of knowing that if somebody chooses not get flood insurance while knowing they are in a risk area, any loss is their own and no others. Yes, it really is that simple.

Three years and more than $50,000 into their little study, what has Osceola’s “Energy Team” come up with to try and meet the ridiculous state energy mandates? Here are a few of my favorites…

• Imposing a “cap and trade” on Osceola High School students who drive to school when busing is available. The idea, suggested by Osceola Public Library Director Nate Deprey, would be to significantly increase the fee for a student parking pass and also require a number of community service hours for a student to obtain the pass.
• Small hydroelectric generators inserted into the wastewater treatment plant’s outfall pipe. Once water is treated at the plant, which is located on Depot Road, it leaves the plant via a gravity pipe that drops it some 200 feet before it is discharged into the St. Croix River. Soltis noted that if such a project were feasible it could directly help offset the plant’s electrical energy consumption, which is one of the largest in the community.
• At a yield of 130 gallons per acre, either sunflowers or canola plants could be grown and harvested and pressed into canola oil or sunflower oil, which could be used to fuel the school district’s buses. A model for this already exists in North Dakota, Johnson noted, by a farmer who burns straight canola oil in his farm machinery. Byproduct (seeds) from the oil harvest could subsequently be used for feeding livestock.

The success of a local winery, Indian Creek Orchards, has some local bar owners seeking help from the bureaucracy because they claim that “they are getting smaller pieces of the economic pie.” To further add to the audacity, one local owner, Steve Balej of the Dalles House, invoked the most taboo of statement:

“I think it needs to be a level playing field,”

Indian Creek has taken advantage of a loophole which has allowed them to get their class B liquor license despite the city’s quota already being filled.

Of course, ew at Polk Liberty frown on restricting business through excessive regaulation and support Indian Creek wholeheartedly. It is asinine that other local businesses are trying to use local government to squash a very successful local business that has done nothing but add to the economy and culture of the St. Croix Falls downtown area.