• miltontimes.com •

MWRA Plan Doesn’t Pass Smell Test
To the Editor:

Many citizens of Massachusetts recognize and enjoy the Blue Hills Reservation as a priceless natural area in our highly developed urban and suburban landscape. We are not happy to see our beloved reservation continually nibbled away through various schemes hatched by state government insiders and politically connected developers and contractors.
The MWRA strategy of leveraging Sept. 11 fears to bypass wetlands laws and advance its “one day of emergency water” project is cynical and manipulative. Furthermore the project fails the standard smell test for pork barrel development deals. The added insult to taxpayers is that we are being asked to pay to demolish our own natural resources. The MWRA project plainly stinks in more ways than one.
I humbly suggest that a more effective and less expensive strategy would be to mail out a pamphlet instructing water consumers in Quincy, Milton and Boston to maintain a back-up supply of five gallons (or whatever quantity sufficient for one day) of drinking water per family of five. The water could be secured using MWRA’s own tap water or purchased from a grocery store or other private source. An additional campaign of public service television spots could be used to support the message and increase public participation in drinking water emergency preparedness. The cost of such a campaign would be a fraction of $30 million and result in zero destruction of precious high-quality freshwater habitat in the Blue Hills Reservation. With the money saved perhaps the MWRA could focus on upgrading Quincy’s dilapidated water mains. Now there’s a good use of taxpayer dollars!

Andrew Joslin

more . . . Letters

21.APR.05 Ms. Stillman Asks for Votes
21.APR.05 Good Race Relations Are Everyone’s Responsibility
21.APR.05 The PLA is the Real Culprit
21.APR.05 MBA Resolution on PATRIOT Act
21.APR.05 Proposed Marian Manor Site Would Cast Ugly Shadow
14.APR.05 Masters of Semantics
14.APR.05 Authority Says Thanks to Library Friends
14.APR.05 Thanks to All for Rabies Clinic Success
14.APR.05 MWRA Plan Doesn’t Pass Smell Test
14.APR.05 Peacemaker Pope Condemned Iraqi Invasion
07.APR.05 Onions to the Times, Roses to the Donors
07.APR.05 A Careful Process is Used
07.APR.05 A Message from PTO Presidents
07.APR.05 MFE Board of Trustees Approves Request
31.MAR.05 He Trusts Feds Over MFP
31.MAR.05 Library Official Sends Thanks to the Warrant Committee
31.MAR.05 LWV Thanks the Public Library for its Space
31.MAR.05 Reader Opposes Patriot Act Resolution
31.MAR.05 Resolution is an Affirmation of Values
31.MAR.05 ‘Week of the Young Child’
24.MAR.05 Student Nurses Visit Winter Valley
24.MAR.05 More Opposition to the Patriot Act from Peace Group
17.MAR.05 Social Security Change is Needed
17.MAR.05 MECA Committee Seeks New Members

{ website powered by bulletlink.com }

^Top