So Environmental Protection Commissioner Patricia Aho suddenly is “committed to the protection of the environment” (“Maine DEP chief requests oversight of Amtrak plan for Brunswick layover facility,” Aug. 30)?

Let’s take, for example, Commissioner Aho’s actions on docks and wharves. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has long used a difficult and time-consuming dock application process to protect our coastline from overdevelopment.

The DEP’s own rules state that “no dock will be permitted if there is a practicable alternative.”

Yet during Aho’s tenure, 311 of 312 dock and wharf applications have been approved. Apparently in the commissioner’s mind, all the various commercial marinas along our bays just aren’t viable alternatives for the wealthy persons who wish to build their dream docks at their waterfront homes.

One fine example of this is in Falmouth, where Commissioner Aho approved a 376-foot dock – longer than a football field – which has been built next door to an existing commercial operation.

Paul Walsh, the man who wants the dock, had actually been accessing his boats via the commercial operation for over 10 years.

Yet he stated in his application that his commercial neighbor was not an alternative for him. Most reasonable people would conclude that if you live next door, and have actually been using the place, then it fits the definition of “practicable alternative.”

The DEP is a huge organization. If they are simply rubber-stampers (311 of 312 applications), then why are we, as taxpayers, supporting this enormous bureaucracy?

If they are not simply rubber-stampers, then I challenge Commissioner Aho to explain to the people of Maine how and why 311 of 312 applications are approved, and why a multimillionaire contributor to the Republican Party in Arizona, who lives literally steps away from a practicable alternative that he’s actually been using for a decade, is somehow exempt from Maine DEP rules.

Marjorie Getz

Portland

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