Evidently out of step
Your Ol' Editor must be out of step. After of a professional career spanning portions of seven decades it's highly possible that his logic is not in time with current trends.
First it was the months, in fact years, of controversy over locating a regional landfill at Marion. His logic made sense, to him, but was rejected by many.
Opponents said a landfill would be a disgrace to the community, an eyesore, stink, and become an environmental hazard.
The OE visited several such sites and found them to be neatly maintained, with far less odor than our sewer ponds, less blowing trash than a discount store or fast food parking lot, and the proposed location would have filled a big hole that's more than a mile from the highway and isn't visible to passing traffic.
But, folks voted that they want no part of it. The result will be that instead of benefiting from a million dollars a year in revenue, receiving taxes and local payroll, taxpayers will eventually spend hundreds of thousands if dollars each year to dump local trash, will underwrite construction of a new landfill with upwards of a million dollars from each community, pay for operating expenses, and the list goes on. All outgo, no income.
They turned down an economic opportunity and are now considering a taxpayer financed project that to build a county/district owned, landfill. Pay to use it and pay to maintain it. Also on the agenda is a scheme to charge each parcel of land in Marion County with taxes to underwrite a local transfer station to the tune of $400,000 a year, and that list goes on too. (We haven't mentioned, for example, the millions the former Aulne landfill may cost the county — that's, we would be the ones who pay).
One wonders, were folks voting their hearts or their spleen? They certainly weren't using their brain.
Some admitted the major issue was whether to provide a path for Rocky Hett to prosper. It was a vote against Rocky, or perhaps a vote against "that damned editor." It wasn't based on logic.
But, lets get on with it.
Your OE never learns. He's offended another group. First it was the NIMBY's (not in my back yard) and now it's the tree huggers.
The OE has often wrote that discarded newspapers, plastic, and tin are not really recycled, but go to a landfill. Only aluminum cans are recycled, said the OE, and they should be given to the Girl Scouts to help the troop earn a buck or two.
Wrong. Several telephone calls from near and far pointed out how wrong the OE is on that subject, too.
Aluminum is profitable, they say. The other recycled products like paper, plastic and such are not profitable but are recycled anyway "to cut back on landfill space." They admit that recycling those products must be subsidized by taxpayers or the recyclers wouldn't be able to stay in business.
We're going to look into it. We'll have ace reporter Rowena Plett investigate and let us know the real story on recycling. It's being published this week. Read it, please, and make up your own mind.
— BILL MEYER
