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opinion.

Herald & Lantern 28 March '84

Our Readers Write Middle’s ‘Health Gamble’

To The Editor: What I’ve heard and read of the current Middle Township sewage treatment controversy indicates a willingness of township government to gamble, which I find surprising compared to its otherwise conservative nature. This gamble is multi-levelled. First there is the question of legality of type of facility. It is a primary treatment installation, which means sewage is put through a screen, to simply decrease the size of the chunks, before chlorine is injected into the chemically unchanged raw sewage before it is let flow into the wetlands. Such a facility, or anything else less than secondary treatment, has been illegal by State Department of Health regulations since before 1967 — the earliest date of documents in my files BY GIVING APPROVAL for its continued operation, the state is violating its own rules, just as ft did when it approved discharge from the Crest Haven plant into Holmes Creek But as the Holmes Creek case showed, this does not make the state legally liable: the county alone stood liable, regardless of state approval, because they were the ones committing an illegalact. The same would hold Tor the Middle Towmship plant in the event of legal charges. Next is the question of the potential for legal charges. This is where the big gamble — the health gamble — enters the picture. Historically, the more distance a culture has put between itself and its sewage, the more it has prospered. Army field units even have kits which include plastic holding pools for algal digestion of raw sewage. - NOT HAVING EVEN that, what does it mean that the facility is operating under or over capacity? Either way. fecal matter is not biologically transformed, sewage sludge, is not created, and the full load of phosphates, nitrates and other nutrients is jiassed on, with a high biological oxygen demand resulting in a high likelihood of eutrophication in receiving estuaries. If it is over capacity, then there will also be larger fecal chunks and higher bacterial counts. But even now, prior to , Put Dollar 1st To The Editor: The Indians didn't build on the Barrier Islands to ruin them and be subjected to storms. The first white settlers didn’t either, instead choosing to build at the edge of the woods where it meets the wetlands The realtors and builders changed all of that. They put the dollar first over everything else. They filled in the wetlands denying water, air and land creatures a place to live and breed. They ruined the protective dunes, building too close to the waterand causing all taxpayers to spend money to save endangered houses. Now if they are prevented from ruining new land, they want to build higher and bigger buildings, so are replacing small, one-family, homes with condominiums, causing land that should not have been built on and is already overpopulated to become more over-populated, causing too much water to be pumped from below the island which can cause salt water intrusion to ruin the water supply, too much sewerage, land surface pollution to pollute all our waters, both ocean and back waters. We h*ve officials who are supposed to represent the homeowners and prevent the greedy from sacrificing our shore for their gains. But if the officials are realtors, builders, friends of ; theirs or receiving gains themselves, we won’t see this destruction end before it’s too late to prevent irreversible ; catastrophe. Our water supply can’t stand more people, our sewerage Can’t stand more people, our back waters can’t stand more people, our fragile land surface can’t stand more people. There must be an end. ROBERT H. WILSON

Avalon

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the proposed additional hookups, bacterial counts are greatly elevated. Fecal poliforms aren’t the disease threat; they are simply indicators of pollution, for treatment which leaves them alive also releases viable pathogenic bacteria and viruses, such as can cause typhoid, polio, etc. Hospital and nursing home sewage has a higher ratio of pathogens to normal fecal coliforms than does ordinary sewage. This makes it a double gambjg to take on more of both when discharge even now doesn’t meet ordinary standards for coliforms. THERE IS ANOTHER danger which may be the biggest gamble of all. It isiww known that when chlorine combines with varius organic molecules, even in relatively uncontaminated water in reservoirs, cancer-causing organic chlorides a reformed. Add all the organics in sewage, including contained institutional chemicals, and all those in the marsh, then consider that to make up for all other shortcomings, very high concentrations of chlorine are used in the Middle Township facility. If a foreign power tried to devise an easier, cheaper way to produce cancer-causing chemicals and insert them into our human food chain, it is doubtful they could succeed! Added hookups would assure that more of this microbial and carcinogen soup is supplied repeatedly to crabs and fish taken for food at the Scotch Bonnet bridge and from a broader expanse of navigable public estuaries. SEPTIC TANK treatment of sewage is much more complete than that at the Middle Township plant. Septic tank — drainfield overflow from Jamesway into a relatively confining adjacent lowland represents far less health hazard than lesser treatment of that same sewage followed by broadcast into the local marine habitat. Odor is a lesser consideration, but one which could be handled far safer by pumping overage into trucks for proper confined disposal. There may be no alternative to allowing increased discharge of pathogens from Burdette Tomlin so near that there could be airborn return to hospital and community. Doesn’t that make it all the more important that if a nursing home is to be built nearby, it provide for treatment, confinement and/or disposafof its wastes until such time as adequate and effective municipal facilities exist? . IF ONLY the possibility of bacterial contamination such as typhoid, etc., for which cures exist, were at issue, it would be bad enough. What is far worse is the hazard of viral illness and cancer, for which no cures exist. The number of people at risk of exposure at Scotch Bonnett or boating on waterways within a mile or two of it may not be large enough to generate valid statistics, so a first line of defense may be the only one. The seriousness of the situation regarding Middle Township sewerage is greater than was the seriousness of the situation regarding Crest Haven plant discharge which was corrected in 1979 as the result of a 10*year effort by just one person. If the entire Township of Middle cannot marshall an equally effective effort, then perhaps it deserves to stew in its own poisons. ^ RUSSELL J. DOWN, M.D. (ED. NOTE: Dr. Down gives Merritt Island, Fla., and Cape May Court House addresses.)

On Hold :. | Lookin'and Listenin' 3-Cent Supper By DOROTHY D. FREAS Looking recently at the newspaper notices of dinners as the coming events of organizations in our county, reminded us of the church suppers held in Cape May county over 40 years ago. As city dwellers on vacation, we were not acquainted with “Three Cent Supper” or “Five Cent Supper." However, they sounded interesting, proved to be good, and so we always planned to attend those that were on any church calendar while we were vacationing here. One friend of ours donated all the strawberries needed for the shortcake. Her friend supplied the cream and two other ladies brought homemade biscuits. THE MEAT VARIED at these affairs. It might be roast beef or chicken and occasionally, ham. The latter wqs usually an autumn dinner, for by then local cabbage was plentiful and also potatoes, beets and carrots. Apple or Pumpkin pie or assorted cakes were favored desserts at that time of the year. The chosen meat course, beef or chicken, with asparagus or peas, or any available early vegetable tasted delicious in early summer, with that shortcake. A generous slice of beef, a serving of each vegetable (these usually donated from several farms) added up to 12 or 15 cents on the "Three Cent Supper" evenings Dessert, three cents without cream on the strawberries and biscuit, but only three cents extra for rich cream over all. THE TOTAL WAS less than a quarter, but some folks with hearty appetites requested double or triple servings, although to us. the size of the meal was ample Of course no one left without adding a doUar bill to the basket at the door for each meal served. Telephone calls before the date of the dinner had produced donations of coffee, tea. sugar and butter from ladies whose families did not live on a farm. It may have been early inflation that took the price from three cents each portion, up to five cents, but the fun and friendliness that filled the room at those suppers, was beyond price.

fo Mock Mv White Shoes The Koala Bear’s Stoned

By JOE ZELNTK

Ever do anything really awful, like crush your little girl’s cat beneath the automatic garage door? That’s the way I felt at a recent gathering of the county's most prestigious people — queued up for half-

price drinks.

I was wearing a green sweater. The person talking to me stopped short, reached out, rubbed my sleeve between his forefinger and thumb, and sniffed, "Cotton, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Rushing the season a bit aren’t you?” he asked

Guilty.

I’ve been rushing the season since I started plaving doctor with little girls at the age of 3, instead of 5 or 6. TIMING IS everything. Think twice about asking the woman out and you’ll read her engagement in the paper. Delay a week on making an offer on a shore home and the mortgage rate jumps two percent. Wait one second too long and the beer foam runs over the side of your glass. Throughout my life, my timing s been off. And getfing It right seems to be as difficult as adjusting my toaster. Either the bagel pops up still frozen, or stays dowTi until the smoke detector goes off. I got gray hair while still in high school. I fell in love with my wife right after she told me she wanted a divorce. And shortly after concluding that polifics and poliUcians are a joke, I moved to this county. Guess the first thing I was told? “They take their politics serious down here." * I “RUSH THE SEASON,” though, for good reason It’s my way of rebelling against winter, which I got enough of by living my first 21 years near Buffalo, N.Y. Even that works both ways I know a fellow in Rio Grande who's still scanning the March skies looking for snow clouds the way Chick Guhr is hunting committee person support for the Republican freeholder nomination The snow enthusiast has a couple $2,000 snowmobiles that

barely got their runners wet this year.

But my goal is to compress winter between Thanksgiving and New Year's. And I sweeten the dismal season betttSu£”'t4 and " arm weather by ‘‘“P 1 ' 1 * “p my Tndi-Jo s Pizza in Stone Harbor outdoes me in that; its tree is up year-round, with decorations running the gamut from hearts to shamrocks to Easter eggs to American But I go them one better, too. My tree is.real That proV I^ 3 c ? nv ' ersat t ion Piece. How many people have pine

needles stuck to their socks in February or March?

A TH ^ WINTER blahs by wearing summer cloth« from mid-February through Thanksgiving, thus I was the only person at Henny's St. Patrick’s Party wear-

ing a green teeshirt. They still served me.

Dr^sing unseasonably can have its advantages. For one thing, I m always able to shop the clearance racks People are walking around in gloves and scarves and I’m buying bathing suits at half-price. Ask Janey Hughes at

the Ship and Shore in Cape May.

Of course this kind of thing — white shoes in December shorts in February — can open one up to ridicule by perXr^* 10 ° n t that outer appearance means TAKE THE KOALA bear, Australia’s national mascot for example. Everybody thinks it’s cute. Actually, it’s got

1,8(1 breath (like your dog) and is perpetually stoned from eating eucalyptus leaves. Honest. Environmentalists and geneticists have HashoA

why my timing is off , but *ne theory blames it on the fact that my last name startsMith “Z.” That put me last all the phone SxA 6 Ch ° W ■ 8t S raduation exercises, in the To see if that explanation made sense, I called the last name in the county phone book: Charles ZyUnsky. It was a blustery, rainy Sunday afternoon and anyone in his right

mind would have been at home. He wasn’t.