Task force on drilling needed
The Otsego County Representatives
met to consider some important issues
such as wellness, health insurance
costs and restrictions on smoking. The
legislators passed a resolution barring
cigarette smoking closer than 50 feet
to a county building. This was all very
admirable.
But I was there to urge the county
to table a resolution that would have
favored natural-gas drilling on county
lands. And I was there asking the
county, again, to appoint a Task Force
to study the health and safety effects of
natural-gas drilling. This, the largest
health care issue ever to be faced by
our county, the representatives did not
take up.
There is something disconcerting
about watching our representatives
genuinely worry about tobacco use
and extra pounds, while we are being
threatened with plans to allow the use
of more than 240 chemicals, many of
them unidentified, but many others
among the most-serious human carcinogens
ever invented, including xylene,
toluene and ethylbenzene, within 150
feet of our drinking water sources.
These chemicals have proven track records
for causing cancer, birth defects,
brain abnormalities, auto-immune and
muscle disorders and genetic problems.
The plans for natural gas drilling
in our county call for thousands of
gas wells, and thousands of pounds
of these chemicals per well, to be
transported on our roads, mixed in
open pits with millions of gallons of
fresh water, and then injected into our
ground, where 70 percent of them will
be left behind to kill another day. What
will the health costs of this process be?
To deny the risks posed by hydraulic
fracturing with carcinogens within 150
feet of our wells and water sources is
like accepting the cigarette manufacturers’
claims that smoking doesn’t
cause lung cancer. We must study these
issues now, before they are launched
against us. Appoint a task force now.
Nicole Dillingham
Springfield Center
DILLINGHAM is president of the Otsego 2000
Board of Directors.
Unwanted kids often suffer
I must agree with former Pastor
Thomas Clemow when he says that
abortion is not a “new experiment”
and, unlike Jane Romano, that is not
the only part of his letter I agree with.
As a lifelong atheist, I was pleasantly
surprised to see such a logical position
from a pastor and not at all surprised
to see his “fellow Christians” begin to
attack.
Jane, you state that the consequences
of an unplanned pregnancy should not
fall on our unborn. There is no way
that the consequences can fall anywhere
else. These unwanted children
often suffer horrendous fates _ where
is your “All loving God” while the
torture (mental and physical) is going
on? Prayers to an imaginary friend are
not enough.
I couldn’t agree more with one thing
you said: “We are the victims of ignorance.”
Take a real close look at your
Bible, the whole thing, not just little
parts that fit your needs at the time.
Perhaps Thomas Paine could help.
He did a great analysis in “The Age of
Reason.” All the contradictions, horrors,
rapes, genocide, murder, intolerance
are laid bare for all to see. All the
Bible study classes in the world can
not make sense out of a senseless book.
We, as a species, can do better. We
must do better. Life is wonderful.
Don’t squander it living in fear of some
imaginary creature. Use your natural
abilities (all humans are born atheist)
to remove the ignorance from your life.
Stop allowing yourself to be bullied
into a belief system that makes no
sense. It is not easy because the brainwashing
of religion starts early and is
very entrenched in our society, but,
like quitting smoking, it’s a wonderful
feeling when you kick the habit! (No
pun intended!)
R. W. Blanton
East Meredith
BLANTON is a Freedom from Religion Foundation
and American Atheist member.
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