Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law - Cite This Source
Main Entry: ben-e-fit
Function: noun
1 : something that provides an advantage or gain; specifically : an enhancement of property value, enjoyment of facilities, or increase in general prosperity arising from a public improvement
I heard Herb Bergson, Mayor of Duluth, Minnesota on the radio last night (Oct 16th). He´s ticked that the US Coast Guard is conducting war-training exercises in the Great Lakes. Is it because he´s against the war? No. It´s because he, like the millions of US and Canadian citizens that take sustenance from the largest freshwater lakes in the world, is worried about what the pollution (350 000 rounds of lead per exercise) will do to the drinking water. Did someone miss the history class where the Roman civilization fell because they lined their aqueducts with lead?
The Coast Guard, in an effort to straighten out the thinking on these exercises, planned to meet with the Great Lakes Mayors last night (Oct 16th)-the US one´s. The Canadian one´s weren´t even notified.
I grew up on Lake Ontario, and I sailed around ´the island of great mystery´ near Rochester. We all know where the US Coast Guard is doing their exercises. Why can´t they fire rocks at each other? It´s supposed to be live rounds...rocks would do enough damage to simulate that, no?
Water is going to be the new petroleum very, very soon. Ask millions of North Africans, or Middle Easterners which commodity they´d rather have. To know that we are poisoning fresh water to ´make us safer´-maybe-- must be nauseating for those people. It sure is for me.
Since 2001, I would hope that the Coast Guard is actually catching the drug, gun and people smugglers that have been operating since the 1500s along the Great Lakes boarder between the US and Canada. If these war exercises really do help, that´s a benefit. If they poison the drinking water for 200 million people, then I´d like to know why they even bothered.
