Ideas to make MOSA work

The Daily Star’s May 21 edition carried a story on Otsego County’s anticipated shortfall in sending the county’s guaranteed annual tonnage, or GAT, of solid waste to the Montgomery-Otsego-Schoharie Solid Waste Management Authority.

In explaining part of the shortfall, Otsego County Representative Greg Relic, Solid Waste committee chair, is quoted as saying, "... our recycling numbers are up, so maybe people are doing a better job recycling.

Similarly, the story states that Terry Bliss, the county’s solid waste coordinator, agreed and said the county’s metal recycling program, with several drop-off boxes available, also might explain the shortage of trash.

Hopefully these gentlemen are correct, but their statements demonstrate the basic conflict between the GAT and recycling: a disincentive for the counties and residents to produce less waste when MOSA will charge them for it anyway. This was pointed out by local residents opposed to MOSA nearly 20 years ago when the authority was formed and an agreement signed with the counties. As might be expected, it fell on deaf ears.

If MOSA insists on a guaranteed tonnage to meet its fiscal obligations, then the agreement with the counties should be altered to keep the GAT as the minimum amount of trash to be delivered but allow recyclables diverted from the waste stream to be credited toward meeting this figure. This would remove the bias against recycling.

All three counties would also do well to take action against backyard trash burning.

Those smoldering burn barrels not only poison their neighbors and spread toxins through the environment, but they financially penalize the counties and those residents who properly dispose of their trash.

The garbage burned in Otsego County could well make up the GAT shortfall and avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in surcharges.

Andrew Mason

Jefferson

Editor Sam Pollak on May 12 mentioned the 1960 movie "Inherit the Wind" (Scopes "Monkey Trial") in his column. Does he realize the story is a fake? It was concocted by the civil leaders of Dayton, Tenn., to put their little town in the center of the evolution controversy. Scopes, a teacher, was solicited to take part in the publicity stunt. He agreed to be prosecuted, although he never taught biology.

In the Hollywood version, the brave high school biology teacher, Scopes, was nearly lynched by fundamentalist Christians who stormed his classroom. He was arrested, jailed and terrorized.

Scopes never taught biology, was not a science teacher and spent no time in jail. His teacher’s contact was renewed when the trail was over.

The "trial of the century" was a fraud but is still shown in history classrooms and treated as historic fact.

In the "Descent of Man" 1871, Darwin suggested morality was the result of biological evolution and differed only in degree from the social instincts of animals. He insisted man’s social instincts, too, had developed by natural selection. (This isn’t authentic "science.")

Darwin’s materialist account of morality highly influenced German intellectuals of that era. (Examples: Haeckel, von Carneri, von Gizycki, Hellwald, etc. ). Between the publication of "The Descent of Man" (1871) and the 1930s, the sanctity of human life came under all-out attack. ("From Darwin to Hitler" by Richard Weikart.)

Rita Armstrong
Oneonta

Worldwide, tobacco use causes nearly 5 million deaths per year. Nearly 21 percent of U.S. adults (45.1 million people) are current cigarette smokers. But, based on everyone who smokes, I think there may be at least a few who want to quit.

Facts have been stated that about 70 percent of those who smoke want to quit completely, and more than 40 percent try and quit each year. From what I’ve researched about death from cigarette smoke, an estimated 38,000 of these deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure. For every person who dies from a smoking-releated disease, 20 more suffer with at least one serious illness from smoking, which should not have happened at all.

My research found that women smoking during pregnancy increase the risk of pregnancy complications such as premature delivery, low-birth weight infants and stillbirth. It’s estimated that 18 to 25 percent of women smokers quit smoking once they become pregnant. From what I have seen, this does not guarantee that the mother will deliver a totally healthy baby. Women who smoke are also at an increased risk for infertility, making it more difficult for them to become pregnant.

I hope that smokers who read this letter realize that tobacco is one of the leading causes of death in America. I strongly hope that smokers quit using tobacco and tobacco companies quit using people!

John Hughes
Oneonta
Hughes is a GED2 student at Job Corps.

Re: the May 26 Daily Star article, "Board divided on tax refunds" _ my advice to the board members is that they should do what they said they would do, ie: issue refund checks.

There is no perfect answer to the problem. Therefore, I think that in a situation where there is no good answer, the best thing to do is be good to your word. Issue the refund checks. Move on.

Rosemary Markert
Oneonta