Jim Kelley wrote in
:

Michael Coslo wrote:

In our area, we had a world class trout fishing stream. when I
say
that, I mean that people from all over the world came here and spent
a lot of money to fish, and stay in hotels, eat in restaraunts.

We also had a chemical production company that wanted to do a lot of
things that some of the populous didn't want them to do. It got to
the point of township meetings. Some folks said that the companies
practices were going to destroy the local watershed. The company and
a lot of people accused them of being anti-business, anti job, anti
growth, and worse.

The chemical company got it's way.

Fast forward to today....


The watershed has been destroyed by two chemicals that leaked from
poorly constructed holding areas. The world class trout stream is no
more. No more visitors spending all that money - it was millions in
the 60's, who knows what it would be now. The chemicals have reached
a lake about 30 miles away now, and people aren't supposed to eat
fish from either the lake or stream.


And the chemical company? They aren't in business any more. They were
bought out by a european company who then closed down the
competition, took a write off, and left. That isn't all they left.
The bill for the cleanup is with us.


The end result:

Jobs are gone.

World class fishing stream gone.

A nice lake downstream gone as an added benefit.

No one can say they didn't know. They didn't listen.

What a disaster - and a huge tragedy. Clearly the world would be a
better place....if it was uninhabited.

I guess a better message would have been that holding areas should not
be poorly constructed, rather than just shouting the tired old
eco-mantra 'corporations are evil' - which nobody listens to. But eco
groups aren't exactly the best listeners either.

Jim, I'll give you a universal truth. It is all about money. Nothing
else. Either through the chemicals or the world class fishing stream.

Take your pick. Have a company that comes in, pays about 20 people a
little above minimum wage, and maybe 5 managers a decent wage for a few
years. Or a setup that keeps returning money as long as it can be kept
up?

Know what the problem with well constructed holding areas is? If you try
to insist on them, it will cost the company more money, and in an effort
to avoid that, you are painted as an eco-nut or a tree hugger. I was
perhaps remiss in that the quality of the holding ponds was part of the
controversy. You might be glad to know that the design settled upon saved
the company a lot of money. Great, huh? Showed the tree huggers a thing
or two. Problem was, it leaked like a seive. Roughty equivalent to just
pouring th echemicals on the ground, which would have saved the company
even more money.

Contrast that to millions that would have come in if the fishing stream
was protected and maintained.

As a person who stood to make money on one of the two endeavors,
which would you prefer? One that could make you a whole lot of money over
a long long period of time, or the ten year model that puts a lot less
money into the community, eventually leaves you footing a very large
bill. What we did, we lost money on, not made money.

No tree hugging, no Sierra club, no leeeburuls, no "Corporations are
evil", nothing but pure bottom line. Money. Why would you be against
making as mouch money as possible? I like capitalism myself, how about
you?


- 73 de Mike N3LI -