KY's Enviromental Commission On Brink Of Dissolution; No Director, Funding
The decades-old Kentucky Environmental Quality Commission, which once functioned as a semi-independent watchdog over state environmental programs with diverse political voices, has fallen into limbo after a year under the Bevin administration. With no executive director and only four of seven board positions filled – two of those by people whose terms expired at the end of last year – even the commission's chairman now questions whether it's time for the General Assembly to get rid the ombudsman-like advisory body it created in 1972.
"If there isn't a commitment to it, is there really a need for it?" asked Steve Coleman, the commission's chair. "Has the EQC been missed this past year? There doesn't seem to be an outcry."
Former commissioner Gordon Garner, an engineer and former Metropolitan Sewer District executive director, agreed. "If governors and legislators aren't going to listen to EQC, appoint people to EQC who care about the state's environment, and fund it to hold public meetings and provide information, then it might as well be dissolved and let the current group of leaders own the results," said Garner, who is also president of the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, a water advocacy group. He said he worries about future environmental degradation and disasters.
In an interview, Coleman said he wasn't even sure he was still on the commission because his term expired Dec. 31. Cabinet spokesman John Mura wrote in an email that Coleman "will stay on for now."
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http://www.courier-journal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2017/01/24/ky-environmental-body-faces-potential-demise/96787668/
