The Canary in the Coal Mine

For those unfamiliar (are there such?), the purpose of a caged canary in a coal mine is to react (by dying) to early and undetectable gas accumulations, so miners will know a disaster is imminent, and they will get out of the mine.  More generally, the concept is intended to suggest seemingly minor and subtle irregularities that herald more dire eventualities.  The purpose, of course, as with coal miners, is to allow reaction to the minor and subtle irregularity, before the bigger problem comes.  Ideally, the bigger problem can even be averted.

For not entirely clear reasons, people do not like to recognize dead canaries, and they do not want to address the problems that resulted in the canaries' deaths.  It could be laziness, or it could be general lack of initiative, or sometimes, for those short-sighted enough, it could be a disinclination to commit to, and pay for, whatever will avert the impending big problem.

In the Village, we have streets that are shredded at the edges.  About 10 years ago, Village residents who live on the canal complained about water leaching up into their homes when the tide was unusually high, like after heavy rains.  More recently, some Village residents have complained about water pooling (literally) in the streets after heavier rains.  Sometimes, those spots on those streets are not easily passable for a while.*  There appears to be general agreement about a rising water table in south Florida, affecting the Village as well.  On 121st Street, between 11th Avenue and 11th Court, there is an access point to a drainage reservoir, and the iron access cover, as well as the support around it, have sunk about 4-5 inches below street level.  Apparently, this devolution is not new, since we have attended to it with patches over the years.

(* Last week, I was at Costco after a significant rain.  About 1/3 of their parking lot was so under water that no one could park there, and then walk to the store.  If it could have been argued that the heavy pooling would be gone in several hours, that fact would not have done Costco any good.  Had I not happened upon a spot where the grade was higher, Costco would have lost my business for that day.)

It is perhaps arguable whether this water problem is coming from above, in the form of excess precipitation, or from below, caused by rising seas and a rising water table.  What should not be arguable is that our current mechanism for removing water is not working well enough to protect our ground from oversaturation.

Some of us hope that the fix is easy, with only a necessity to clean out the drains and reservoirs we already have.  Others are concerned that we may need rebuilding, redesign, or even new construction of the water diversion system upon which the Village relies.  Unfortunately, there are some among us who don't even want to know the problem exists.  If they can somehow look the other way, explain away what the rest of us can see, or just get a car which rides higher off the ground, they can declare that there is no problem.  It's not surprising that those whose properties are directly affected are more vocal about the problem, and those who argue that there is no problem are not as directly affected.

What's also interesting is that if I think of the neighbors who are most vocal in arguing that there is no problem, or at least not one that needs to be fixed, some of them are among the more fastidious about maintaining their own personal residences.  They are also among those who are less willing to pay higher property taxes.  It seems as if their dedication and their commitment is to the building where they sleep and cook, not to the Village as a whole.  "Home," to them, is narrowly defined.

These neighbors don't want a canary in our coal mine.  It's not that they have any special affection for canaries.  It's just that they don't want to have to do what has to be done when the canary dies.  At this point, the canary appears to be having some significant distress.  It is, as they say, not at all well.