Published, 07/29/07

Birmingham News

People die while ADEM delays:

"Honest" Trey Glenn's mother took him to the ballgame. He did not know that bad men from Alabama Power Co. bought the tickets and would be there to possibly do a little coaching of their own.

Give me a break!

This supposedly innocent adventure of Glenn's is only a couple of weeks after he was asked to appoint a committee that will determine whether to accept a petition from 18 environmental groups - a petition that would cause Alabama Power and others to reduce the amount of carcinogens they can lawfully discharge into our waterways.

The current accepted rate in Alabama is 1 in 100,000. The petition, based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency national limits, would reduce the cancer rate to 1 in 1 million. Do the math. It equates to thousands of Alabamians spared the horrors of cancer care and deaths.

At a little more than 25 people per day who die of cancer in Alabama, hundreds will die while the Alabama Department of Environmental Management delays. The Alabama Environmental Management Commission voted to delay the decision for possibly months while Alabamians die of cancer at an alarmingly higher rate than most of the country. The decision was to determine the economic impacts to Alabama Power, the Alabama Coal Association, the Alabama Pulp Association and many other business interests.

Will the commission take into consideration how much it takes to care for sick and dying relatives? How about the loss of income of a provider with cancer and the inevitable deaths of some of our loved ones?

The clock is ticking. Is Glenn in charge?

John L. Wathen
Tuscaloosa