Auburn waste editorial

Tuesday’s letters: Auburn waste editorial, Breivik not a Christian, Gillibrand’s misguided bill, shabby Westcott Reservoir | syracuse.com.

 Auburn waste editorial,

Published: Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 5:00 AM

By Readers’ Page
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Editorial overlooked facts on Auburn waste

To the Editor:
Is the erosion of the fourth estate at hand? One would expect hyperbole and condescension from cable news pundits, but newspapers, the last bastion of credibility, are they too caving into the economic pressures of the current news climate? My cause for concern is the July 25 editorial, “Money-Loser: Wastewater ban will cost Auburn’s ratepayers next year.”

The tone of the piece was drenched with derision and offered little to no facts. A fact that was glaringly overlooked was that Municipal Utilities Director Vicki Murphy asked the natural gas companies to stop delivering because pre-treatment testing showed that pollutant levels were out of compliance with the permits. So the fiscally responsible members of Auburn City Council, namely Mayor Michael Quill and Councilors Gilda Brower and Thomas McNabb, wanted to be prudent in not budgeting money from this tenuous revenue stream. They knew the money would not be there.

The $600,000 figure is an arbitrary figure used by Councilor Matt Smith for political gain. There is no sound, documented evidence that the 2011-2012 budget should have included that figure, given the fact that the companies were out of compliance in the previous fiscal quarter.

So that leaves us with the question: Why did the editorial board slam a small group of native Auburnians trying to protect their downstream neighbors from the contaminants in gas drilling wastewater? Perhaps it was easier to listen to an angry, uniformed, opportunistic politician than to research and look at the documented facts.

Terry Cuddy
Auburn