The land use bills introduced in the state legislature probably did cause some commotion in the Sussex County Council, but I can assure you that these bills were greeted with enthusiasm by thousands of Sussex County residents. For 20 years, we have watched in utter dismay as our once beautiful county has been submerged in a sea of sleaze. Subdivisions sprout from corn fields and forest is clear-cut for roads and golf courses, instead of cleansing the air and providing cool habitat for wildlife. So much development has been approved in and near wetlands that road flooding occurs even in summer thunderstorms.
Huge highways contribute oil-laden runoff to the groundwater and inland bays.
Even so, traffic in the summer is a total nightmare. Almost all of this devastation has been approved in spite of anguished protest by local residents. The county council have approved developments that are strangling Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach, and now this enormous Americana Bayside threatens the Bethanies and Fenwick Island. Almost all of this has been done without giving a thought for the infrastructure, so that 80 percent of the area is still on septic tanks, which seep human waste into the sandy soil and down into groundwater and the bays. These bays, for all the lip service paid to them, are still over-enriched and full of algae.