Local citizen journalists, digging deep.
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Watch Out, Whatcom!

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      Whether you live in Bellingham, Ferndale, Lynden, or any corner of Whatcom County, plans are being written to change daily life in ways that come as a complete surprise; informed consent is a fiction.  This citizen journalist website was created to reveal how much outside influence is driving policies that are changing our cities and rural countryside.
       Whatcom Excavator works to expose what folks would like to know, but is being deliberately buried.  We have to dig to discover the truth.  WE confirm material, and share reader input.   How else can citizens learn what's really unfolding in this county?
                                                             Truth B. Told

Bulldozed:  Laws, Regulations,
and Other News Under The Rug

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    While you're busy working and "just having a life," laws and regulations are growing at a dizzying pace, without much press or fanfare.  County and city ordinances may be posted in fine-print notices in the newspapers, but that's not very fair.  Find important rules and regulations that affect your daily life here.  We're getting bulldozed by 'elected officials' and organizations that are working us over "for our own good," whether we like it or not.  Looks like we need to do some serious earth moving to hang on to our rights and property.    more...

Archives (prior stories, click on title) or just visit the Dredge and browse the monthlies

FEATURES

FUTUREWISE  keeps selling bad goods down I-5 and throughout the state.  They've spread their vision for the year 2060 into Skagit County.  It's important to keep an eye on what's happening just south of us.   These efforts are very concerted, that's clear.  Everyone's aware of ReSources, but Futurewise hasn't vamoosed.
Northwest Clean Air "Pitchfest" - $3.5 million   Last year WE discovered that this regional agency cast a wide net "soliciting potential project ideas" to justify $3,500,000 in grants that would become available in mid-2012.  Read the Request for Information  webpage yourself, and you'll see that (surprise!) the program was tied to the U.N.'s  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Year 2050 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20% of 1990 levels.  Like the GSA, they were crass enough to call this rent seeking excercise a "pitchfest," WE weren't amused.  It wasn't funny.  Look carefully and you'll see they sought strategic partnerships (wink-wink) with "no geographic imperative."   You can see the proposals that were submitted here, including one from ICLEI.   What a crock.
COMMUNITY ENERGY CHALLENGE
You've got to understand what this was really about.  It was a classic set-up for crony capitalism.  NGO's and academia stuffed their pockets with federal money.   And it ended as predicted - a big flop that got kudos.   more...
CONSERVATION Magazine posted an article last year that addressed invasive species.  Entitled "End Eco-Bigotry," this said, "A group of prominent ecologists is calling on conservationists to stop bad-mouthing introduced species – and accept the fact that ecosystems will increasingly be a melting pot of “long-term residents and of new arrivals.”  full article...
Another CONSERVATION Magazine article (since pulled) let the cat out of the bag that researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology discovered that some algae can clean wastewater.  With local eco-activists in a constant spin over over city and rural watershed management, WE wonder why such brilliant ecology news gets zero press?   Here's the SCOOP.

Pigs In The Trough

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    Scores of special interest groups make a career of gorging at the government trough.  Many of these groups are on ideological missions with goals  that even our elected officials may not know about, not that ignorance should let them off the hook.   This largesse comes at a personal cost to us, the private sector and to taxpayers everywhere.  Would you like to know more?   See how they grub!  more...

Gotta See This to Believe It

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   You've heard that "the truth is stranger than fiction."  Here's a new one:   "Fight truth decay."   
     Take a few minutes to read facts about projects and bad policies that deserve exposure, to say the least.
     "It's a free country," but there's little freedom in print anymore. 
     The world lost a lion of truth on March 1, 2012 when Andrew Breibart died suddenly, some feel mysteriously.   He was an inspiration to us  (drudge, dredge).    May his spirit haunt these pages with vigor.     Onward...