Your opinions: Letters to the editor for June 24
Many to thank for Quittie Garbage Museum Editor: The Fourth Annual Grand Opening of the Quittapahilla Creek Garbage...
Your opinions: Letters to the editor for June 24 Many to thank for Quittie Garbage Museum Editor: The Fourth Annual Grand Opening of the Quittapahilla Creek Garbage... Check out this story on ldnews.com: https://www.ldnews.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/06/23/your-opinions-letters-editor-june-24/32455735/
Many to thank for Quittie Garbage Museum
The Fourth Annual Grand Opening of the Quittapahilla Creek Garbage Museum would not have been possible without the active participation of thousands of individuals and organizations.
The tons of plastic trash flowing down Quittie Creek each year are only made possible by the immense power of big business, a public sphere slavishly beholden to the interests of private capital, and the active indifference of thousands of folks right here at home.
The Garbage Museum is especially indebted to the plastics industry, the oil and gas industry, electronics and pharmaceutical industries, food and packaging industries, the entertainment industry, and many more — from ExxonMobil and Disney to PepsiCo and Frito-Lay — thousands of companies producing millions of tons of disposable, throw-away plastic, regardless of the environmental consequences, all vital ingredients in the Quittie's endless flows of rogue plastic trash.
We are equally indebted to federal, state and sometimes local governments, mainly for abdicating their responsibility to put the public interest above private interests and protect citizens' health and safety by protecting the viability of the natural world, upon which all human life depends.
A big debt is also owed to those who wince at the above, who turn a blind eye to global relations and networks of power that systematically subordinate public interests to private ones, or who do not perceive their intimate connection to the natural world.
But mostly the Garbage Museum depends on the active indifference of thousands of ordinary folks right here in Lebanon County.
Smokers flicking butts and spent lighters into our city streets; drivers pitching 5-hour energy drink bottles out car windows; pedestrians, young and old, dribbling candy wrappers and chip bags and soda bottles and Styrofoam cups and endless varieties of plastic doo-dads into our streets and parking lots. Property owners and renters ignoring bits of trash accumulating in front of their homes and businesses and letting it all wash into the creek during rainstorms.
Together, we here in Lebanon County can ensure a continuing flow of noxious waste straight into the Chesapeake Bay, and more artifacts for the museum.
All it will take is continuing indifference, inertia, and the status quo. We can make it happen!
Michael Schroeder, executive director, Quittapahilla Creek Garbage Museum, Annville
Land group backs gas severance tax
The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, which is made up of 75 of Pennsylvania's leading land conservation organizations, endorses the governor's proposed natural gas severance tax proposal and asks you to support it.
• Natural gas development imposes costs on our shared environment — some immediately apparent, some which may take years to become evident.
• History demonstrates that those who extract natural resources seldom if ever fully compensate the public for the costs of the extraction to our shared environment.
• Eighty percent of the severance tax revenue would come from out of state.
Strong needs exist for boosting the commonwealth's investments in the conservation of our land, air, water and wildlife. The Governor's proposal takes a good step, but substantially broader investments in the protection and restoration of Pennsylvania's natural resources are much needed.
Andrew M. Loza, executive director, Harrisburg
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