THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503180018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Over three years, more than 25,000 Chesapeake Bay license plates have been sold to Virginians for $25 apiece. The buyers were promised that $15 from each sale would go toward improving the Bay, but for three years, the money has lain idle.
Last month we urged the governor to keep faith with the motorists and spend the bucks. At the risk of being ignored again, we say again: Spend the bucks, as promised - all 385,000 of them.
Under legislation passed by the 1995 General Assembly, the money would be spent over the next two years to finance half a dozen projects, including ones for better public access to state parks, fish passages across blockages, oyster restoration and shoreline-erosion protection. A commission would be created to oversee plate funds in the future.
Secretary of Natural Resources Becky Norton Dunlop now will recommend that Governor Allen sign, veto or amend the bill. She said late this week that the bill has not yet been printed and that she will make no recommendation before reading the final version.
She made two things clear:
(1) She opposes creation of a special commission, saying state government has plenty of groups already.
(2) She favors returning the money to the counties or cities it came from, with the elected local soil- and water-conservation district boards deciding how to spend it to help the Bay. ``The Allen administration trusts the people,'' she said.
The license-plate money would have to be spent on either projects or education programs that would benefit the Bay, she said. For example, a district might spend money educating homeowners to spread less fertilizer on their lawns, since much of it washes into the Bay.
Some environmentalists say Dunlop's plan would allow conservation districts to use the license-plate money to make up for budget cuts - rather than for specific Bay improvements.
A second concern is that some cities - including Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News and Hampton - have no soil-and-water- conservation districts. Dunlop said special boards could be set up for those cities, possibly including Chesapeake Bay Commission members and local government officials.
We prefer setting up a special commission to handle the license-plate funds, as the legislation would require. That way, the money is kept separate from other funds and license-plate buyers can see more clearly the good their money has done.
If the public perceives that the license-plate money is being mingled with other conservation funds, the allure of a very good program will be diminished.
Above all else, spend the $385,000 soon, and on programs that will help the Bay. A clean Bay is a blessing to Virginia. by CNB