If they can be stupid...

On my morning drive I listened to a story by the local NPR affiliate on development in Chesterfield Valley. Needless to say, I’m offended by the myopia displayed by significant development in a flood plain that Mother Nature took back as recently as 10 years ago.

The tidbit that makes this worth logging is the beauty of our balkanized politics, though. Missouri holds the distinction of being the only state that did not enact post-1993 legislation to curb flood plain development. So, a local group has been working with municipalities directly to convince them that building on land that the rivers claim as their own is, well, stupid. Their present battle is in the confluence area of St. Charles County. The nature of the resistance from local officials? St. Louis got to build a bunch of stuff on their flood plain, so we should be allowed to, too.

It’s only fair that everyone be allowed to make the same mistakes. Let them build, just don’t use my taxes to build their levees or repair the inevitable damage. For that matter, tax them to pay for the damage the river constraint will cause upstream.