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Pasco Letters to the Editor

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 8, 2008

Investigation Urged

Do Pasco County residents have environmental and health concerns in their backyard? The contaminant of concern is molybdenum.

Environmental contaminates can affect our groundwater, air quality and, most importantly, our health.

Air quality is impacted by roadway emissions, and while wastewater is comprised mostly of sewage and stormwater, it also contains varying concentrations of industrial and household waste as well as runoff from our roads.

There is a need to establish and enforce environmental criteria governing the use of byproducts used in roadway surfacing and paving applications. More knowledge is needed concerning the variation in paving operations that can alter the quality of such byproducts and their impacts to our health and environment.

The specific content of asphalt products varies, as it is dependent on the crude petroleum, source production techniques and process temperature, and the altering impacts vary as a result.

More specifically, there is a need to investigate and analyze the environmental impacts of paving materials and resources that may contain molybdenum to assess human health effects. Molybdenum, which is and can be found in recycled asphalt, can be a source of toxic poisoning (air and water).

The public needs to be informed and raise concerns over the lack of available information on the environmental and human health effects of using recycled pavement.

With the rising costs of paving material, a temporary moratorium was passed that precluded enforcement of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. This legislation mandated that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Transportation evaluate environmental health effects associated with asphalt.

Ask yourself this important question: Is our health being placed in jeopardy for a cost-savings measure? Addressing the environmental health needs of Pasco County needs to be our top priority.

Acute molybdenum poisoning may cause severe gastrointestinal irritation, diarrhea, liver/kidney damage, central nervous system changes, and coma and death from cardiac failure.

Why is Pasco County ranked one of the dirtiest places in water and air quality (90th and 95th percentiles, www.scorecard.org)? Why is Pasco ranked sixth in Florida with 777,813 person days exceeding national ambient air quality standards (scorecard.org)?

I urge you to look into this matter and write your county officials and state representatives - those who are supposed to be protecting our health - about this serious health concern.

EVERETT HENNESSEY

Port Richey

Social Security History

Regarding "Not Just Baby Boomers' Issue," letters, Jan. 27:

Maybe the writer, instead of complaining about how much money Social Security pays out to retirees and how they spend this windfall, ought to consider how it used to be.

I started working and paying SS taxes in 1950. I continued even through the 10 years I "took off" to birth four children when I only worked as a typist, typing envelopes two for a penny, accumulating a net per box of 500 envelopes of $5.

I still managed to take in roughly $40 a week for that slave labor and looked forward with great anticipation to a time when I could go back to work like normal people.

I've continued working all my life, through illness and whatever else strikes you after a while, until just five years ago when I lost my customer service job to outsourcing (another pet peeve). Seems no one has a place or job for a 75-year-old.

You also must remember that children today are not saddled with direct support of their aged parents thanks to that Social Security check. Back when there was no Social Security beyond the $37.50 a month my widowed mother received in 1950, you would have had to take on that responsibility as well as your own. And Medicare wasn't available then, either.

So please don't be so small-minded when it comes to the aged. They could be you one day - if you live long enough!

MARION MEIER

Dade City

Tolerance Needed

Regarding "Scooter Boomers," letters, Feb. 3:

I'm sure that Dan Chalfant knows everything about the laws and regulations for Social Security regarding the purchasing and use of scooters and wheelchairs. I really wonder what he would do if he was the one who needed this form of transportation.

My husband and I are both disabled. He cannot walk due to a spinal cord injury. I can walk short distances, but I have purchased my own scooter.

There are many disabilities not obvious to the eye.

When I have a large group of items to buy, I readily avail myself to the motorized carts provided by Wal-Mart. I will not allow myself to be led around by anyone. I guess I'm an "Independent-Minded Disabled American Woman." What bothers me is that so many people are so narrow-minded and insensitive. Whatever happened to good manners?

I'm sorry that someone in a scooter brushed Chalfant's leg. I only wish they could have aimed a little higher. Practice tolerance.

DOROTHY A. HORVATH

Wesley Chapel

Thank A Democrat

Ah, yes, they're out there in droves - the people who think that Democrats invented Social Security, which was just for retired, older people to get help in their later years. Remember, it is their money, not the government's.

Then, the same Democrats took the money and started giving it away to undeserving people who never put a dime into it. These same Democrats put medical care into it, again for people who never put a dime into it.

If the Social Security program were put into the stock market, guaranteed by the government at the get-go, every retired person would be a millionaire. President Bush is right.

As for the so-called mortgage crisis, the government has nothing to do with it. It was put into play by bankers and mortgage companies who tried to put people who didn't qualify for a loan at all into houses at high percentage rates and 100 percent financing.

The bumper sticker should read: "Social Security Screwed Up? Thank A Democrat."

JOHN LALLEMAND

Dade City

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