Letters to the editor
Share with others:
Thanks to reporter Karamagi Rujumba for his balanced view on the financial factors involved when retrofitting dirty diesel school buses ("Districts Largely Uninterested in Funds for Retrofitting Buses," Feb. 17). Cleaning up these polluters-on-wheels does have its pecuniary drawbacks. But we're not talking about paper vs. plastic here -- we're talking about the health of our most vulnerable citizens: our children.
Lawrence Korchnak, superintendent of Baldwin-Whitehall School District, says he hasn't yet made a decision for his school district, yet the 75 percent retrofit fund match from the Allegheny County Diesel School Bus Retrofit Program has been available for three years. Sounds like the decision has been made.
How do we tell our children? "Sorry, it costs too much to keep your air clean. Maybe in 30 years all the buses will be better." How many young couples have considered moving to Pittsburgh, only to turn away due to our terrible pollution levels?
Change is coming, and Pittsburgh can either lead the way or get run over by a fleet of retrofitted buses from other cities.
JAMIN BOGI
Plum
The writer is a member of the Group Against Smog and Pollution.
The human toll
The Feb. 17 article "Districts Uninterested in Funds for Retrofitting Buses" overlooks the role of diesel emissions in causing human illnesses and premature death.
The cancer risks associated with diesel exhaust particles are about 10 times higher than the cancer risks from all other hazardous air pollutants combined. The average cancer risk associated with diesel emissions is 580 per million -- 80 percent of the total estimated cancer risk from all hazardous air pollutants.
Particulate matter, a major component of diesel exhaust, has been linked to a wide variety of serious health problems including upper and lower respiratory diseases such as asthma attacks and possible asthma onset, heart attacks and premature death. These problems affect the general population, not just children and drivers who occupy the buses.
However, children may have particular risks because their lungs are still maturing and because their high activity levels cause more rapid breathing with greater inspiration of diesel exhaust particles.
In addition to retrofitting engines, other actions can be taken to reduce diesel emissions, including the use of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and adoption of anti-idling laws.
The reduction in exposure to ambient fine-particulate air pollution results in significant improvements in life expectancy in the United States.
STANLEY J. GEYER, M.D.
Fox Chapel
Good move for PIT
I am encouraged in reading Mark Belko's article describing Pittsburgh International Airport's plan to cut landing and passenger fees ("Fees at Airport to Be Cut Again," Feb. 14). This can only be a step in the right direction.
Jim Gill, Allegheny County Airport Authority chief financial officer, understands that our airport must begin to be considered as an economical alternative to other airports on the East Coast. It would be interesting if Mr. Belko could do a follow-up article with the passenger and landing fees of Philadelphia, Newark and Charlotte as a comparison.
As a frequent flier, it saddens me to land at "Greater Pitt" and see that there are more empty gates than occupied gates. After a very busy first 10 years, our airport has become a ghost town. The ratcheting effect of lower use and higher fees has been a downward spiral that must be curbed if the airport hopes to be a draw to business in southwestern Pennsylvania and a boost to our economy, as it was designed to be.
FRANK CULVER
Union Township
Ads everywhere
Regarding "Onorato Orders Halt to Removal of Artworks" (Feb. 16): As a teenager and art lover, I was horrified to hear that Pittsburgh International Airport would consider removing artwork to make room for advertisers. However, my shock increased as I read, "The county is aggressively exploring ... selling advertising in public buildings and other public places like parks and ice rinks."
Advertising surrounds us. I cannot ride a Port Authority bus six miles from the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland to my home without being bombarded by numerous billboards, ads in and on the sides of buses, company cars with glaring neon mottos and posters covering every inch of telephone poles. To escape this onslaught of advertisements, I seek refuge in the serenity of a nearby park. If the county chooses to place ads in these outdoor sanctuaries as well our streets and buses, will we ever be able to find peace in our hectic lives?
Our country is in a recession, and our nation is sinking deeper into debt. But if the only way to recover is to replace our national and cultural treasures with billboards and commercials, we must question whether the monetary gain is really worth the community's loss.
CHRISTIANNA BARNARD
Forest Hills
Barbarism reprieve
Many thanks to Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato for instituting a moratorium on the removal or destruction of public artwork until a committee can be established to review requests on a case-by-case basis. To replace artwork with advertising (as is being suggested by the airport authority) is commercialism at its most barbaric.
Can we ask for another bold move? How about commissioning a significant piece of art that would camouflage the new casino's Soviet-bloc-style parking garage that is such a hideous excrescence on our shoreline?
MARY M. MAZZIOTTI
West End
Balancing act?
Sometimes, looking at patterns in numbers can be fascinating. Take for instance, President Obama's stimulus package. Its $787 billion price tag is about the same as our $750 billion trade deficit for 2008.
Is it possible that there's a message in the similarity of those numbers? Maybe, if we didn't have such huge trade deficits, year after year, we might not even need this financial stimulus package.
Nah, it couldn't be that simple, could it?
M. VAGIAS
Baden
What we are asking for is proper research
I am writing in response to the Feb. 14 article "Autism, Vaccine Debate Not Over for Some."
While the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration and American Academy of Pediatrics would like us to believe that the debate is not over, there are still many unanswered questions. A large comprehensive study has not been conducted, to date, that compares vaccinated to unvaccinated children. Parents are simply asking that the research be done, but that request has been repeatedly denied.
Even Dr. Bernardine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health and Harvard-educated physician, has repeatedly urged that the vaccine-autism link be further researched as have thousands of parents around the globe who truly believe and have seen with their own eyes their children regressing into a world of isolation immediately following a vaccination.
While this recent court ruling denied a vaccine-autism link, it is important to remember that just months ago the court ruled in favor of the Poling family and conceded that vaccinations were a causal factor in the onset of Hannah Poling's autism.
It is also important to note a key factor not mentioned in the PG article. Dr. Paul Offit, the physician most often quoted in publications around the globe in favor of vaccines, is a vaccine patent holder and has a paying position as a consultant to Merck Pharmaceuticals. I would certainly consider that to be a conflict of interest, at the very least.
This vitriolic debate will continue until the proper research is conducted and parents, like me, who believe in the autism-vaccine connection will continue to espouse our views and advocate for our children until we see that research conducted.
MARLA JO GREEN
Lower Burrell
First Published February 24, 2009 12:00 am
