Letters to the Editor Policy

June Is National Dairy Month

June is National Dairy Month, and there is no better way to celebrate this than with a cold glass of milk or a refreshing ice cream cone. But there are many more dairy products that flavor the foods you eat every day, cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, the sour cream in your favorite dip, the many cheeses to snack on, the half ‘n half in your coffee or the infant formula your baby drinks - the list goes on. Dairy is such an important part of our diet the new MyPlate food guideline, just released by the USDA, highlights milks importance in our daily diet for adults and children alike.

We all know how important milk is to a growing child’s body, but a new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, show that older men and women are not getting enough calcium which they need to prevent osteoporosis. Milk provides nine essential nutrients and making it an important part of your diet helps to reduce your risk of conditions like osteoporosis, hypertension and type II diabetes.

Agriculture is Pennsylvania’s #1 industry. Studies show the average dairy farm spends around 85% of its income locally, strengthening its communities and surrounding area. The dairy industry itself creates more than 40,000 jobs throughout the state. Over $7 billion dollars annually are generated into the state’s economy from dairy production and associated businesses. In recent years however, dairy farmers have been struggling through one of the worst periods ever of low milk prices, which forced many farmers out of business. The farmers who survived are still facing huge debts and although milk prices are continuing to rebound, production costs are also rising because of higher feed and fuel prices.

So as you enjoy a cone or milkshake during National Dairy Month, please also take the time to reflect on the dairy industry and its importance to the state’s economy, your community and your health. Better yet, take the time and thank a dairy farmer yourself for all the hard work they do for us!

Sincerely,

Pauline Fallon

Susquehanna County Farm Bureau

Who Ya’ Gonna Blame?

Well, somebody has to get blamed when those notorious Bush tax cuts get rescinded. Suddenly, those tax payers with a yearly income above, say, a million bucks have to cough up wads of cash, thick enough to choke that proverbial horse.

And that is not all that’s going to happen. Wage earners, who are just barely getting by, notice their net pay has gotten a little lighter.

Just so happens, there shall be only one suspect. And that suspect has both the motivation and, certainly most crucial, the nitty gritty clout to coerce our government into rescinding those tax cuts.

According to a preeminent economist at Cornell University, the United States is in debt to the People’s Republic of China to the tune of some one point seven trillion dollars ($1,700,000,000,000).

The sheer interest alone on that debt is more than enough to arouse anxiety about the “full faith and credit” of the United States. Let’s face it. The people in charge of China are only human.

So, naturally, they will demand some sign of good faith that our government is serious about paying that interest. To provide just such a sign, our government can do no better than rescind those Bush tax cuts.

Sincerely,

A Alexander Stella

Susquehanna, PA

Now That’s Bad Alignment

Last Tuesday, when I was in Montrose, I saw a thoroughly disturbing sight: Someone's vehicle had been crudely painted in large red, white and blue letters reading, "Clinton-gate, Edwards-gate, Weiner-gate/Sarah Palin is a Saint." This is so wrong in so many ways! But I resisted the urge to put a brick through the back window and decided to use my words instead.

First of all, notice how totally slanted it is. Democrats do not have a monopoly on impropriety. Has our disgruntled partisan forgotten Arnold Schwarzenegger already? Didn't Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY) just resign and cost his party 150 years of control of his district? Didn't Sen. John Ensign's parents pay off his mistress with laundered funds? What about Gov. Mark Sanford (The Happy Wanderer) and his Argentine soul mate? Rep. Mark Foley and his lust for young male pages? Sen. Larry Craig and his foot-tapping follies? Sen. "Diaper Dave" Vitter? Why weren't any of these names on his car? (Could've bumped the old Clinton story. Get over it already!)

Second, notice how his disgruntlement is all about sex, as if that's the only thing anyone can do wrong. Hey, where's Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham? In prison. Where's Rep. Bob "Freedom Fries" Ney? In prison. Where's Tom DeLay going? Prison, to join his pal Jack Abramoff. Republicans all. But since they're all in trouble for corruption, not sex, I guess that's not important.

Finally, the idol worship of Sarah Palin. Not only is she utterly unworthy of it, but certainly our moralistic friend should see it as a potential violation of the First Commandment. I feel he even thinks of her as a political Messiah who's going to ride to the rescue, rout "evil Liberals," and solve all our problems. (In a pig's eye!) If this suspicion is correct, I'd worry about letting someone like that operate a motor vehicle. Or vote. Or breed. Meanwhile, the local police should ticket him for obstructed visibility, something he suffers from in more ways than one.

I hope I've done more good than a brick.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA

Spinning Yarns And Weaving Tales

Gas companies are adapt at drilling wells and spinning yarns. But it is at the latter that they are most inventive. But the cloth that's woven from this yarn is a fragile fabric of self-severing tales that are easily unraveled.

Let's give these yarns a tug and unravel seven tales.

Tale: Gas drilling will bring jobs and prosperity to Pennsylvania.

Unraveled: Drilling has provided about 35,000 jobs. But that's only 0.55 percent of Pennsylvania's 6,335,000 workforce, a fractional one-half of 1 percent.

Tale: Natural gas (NG) is a clean-burning, green fuel that “produces one-half the carbon dioxide of coal.”

Unraveled: NG is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the Earth. Additionally, two Cornell professors wrote a peer-reviewed paper published in Climatic Science stating that NG, due to leakages and venting, has 105 times more global warming impact than the carbon dioxide in coal. NG also produces significant amounts of carbon dioxide.

Tale: NG will give the U.S. energy independence from foreign oil.

Unraveled: Most of the NG extracted in not used in the U.S. but is sold to China. China owns one third of Chesapeake Energy, the second largest producer of NG in the U.S.

Moreover, NG and oil are not interchangeable. Oil has unique properties that cannot be replaced by NG. The U.S. dependency on foreign oil will not be affected by NG production.

Tale: Fracking fluid is 98.5 percent pure water. Only 1.5 percent are additives.

Unraveled: The average frack well uses 5 million gallons of water. This means that a standard horizontal well injects 75,000 gallons of chemicals into the ground.

These chemicals include biocides, surfactants, defoamers, emulsifiers, gellants, resins, and viscosifiers. They have been linked to adverse effects on the brain, heart, lungs, liver, skin, and developmental abnormalities in the unborn and children. Many of these additives are carcinogenic.

Tale: Gas drillers are starting to recycle frack fluid.

Unraveled: According to Chesapeake Energy, “The majority, 95 percent of produced water [i.e., flowback] with its high salt content is too salty [for] recycling.” And Halliburton: “We're still in the infancy of trying to figure out how to recycle [flowback] water.”

Tale: Recovered frack fluid is sent to processing plants and discharged into rivers where it is diluted and rendered harmless.

Unraveled: The DEP predicts that 20 million gallons of waste water a day - that's a day - will be created this year. According to ProPublic, waste water treatment plants in Pennsylvania can neither process this volume of back-flow fluid nor completely clean it.

Further, dilution does not make the contaminates disappear; they are just spread out. Dr. Steven Wing, epidemiologist, says that while it reduces each person's risk, it does not reduce the number of adverse effects; they remain constant whether the backflow fluid is diluted or undiluted.

Also, since 20 million gallons per day of flowback waste water is only 20 percent of the total frack fluid, then every day 100 million gallons of this toxic gruel accumulates underground and unmonitored.

Tale: Gas wells are drilled thousands of feet below fresh water aquifers and private wells. This depth makes gas drilling safe.

Unraveled: The average depth of the Marcellus in northeastern Pennsylvania is about 7,000 feet. True, this is thousands of feet below fresh water aquifers and private wells. But the strata in between are not monolithic. They are marked by innumerable cracks and fissures.

The extreme pressure of the fracking process added to the pressure generated by the explosives used in shattering the shale, force frack fluid into all openings including vertical ones. Three million Pennsylvanians rely on a private well for drinking water. Gas companies cannot guarantee the safety of private wells or groundwater.

Mining oil, coal, or NG, is a dirty business. Characterizing one as being better than the others is delusional They all degrade the environment, contaminate water, and befoul the air with fumes and noise. But NG extraction is the only operation that purposely pollutes the one resource upon which we all depend - water.

Then Judas, who had sold his Master for 30 pieces of silver, went away and hanged himself.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

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