Letter to the editor: Plan trashed

By Burdette Payne, Tulsa - 11/1/2009


Here we go again on the trash burning plant, an idea that has drained precious tax dollars from Tulsans for decades. With those hundreds of millions of wasted dollars we probably could have repaved every street in the city and built new bridges, too. Instead, we spent all that money wasting trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to burn trash at a rate three or four times more than landfill costs.

The benefits? Oh, we got to breathe the fumes, some quite harmful after it was discovered the plant was importing and burning trash from other states that contained heavy metals, chemicals and worse. Funny, the media buried their heads in the sand when this was discovered.

Who are the people behind this who lined their pockets with our taxes? I can guarantee Tulsans one thing, when the thing goes back in operation, the cost of running it will triple or worse, costing taxpayers even more than before.

If you don't care about wasting natural gas, money and breathing harmful fumes, then vote this sucker back into operation. Maybe we can help the new president waste money at an even faster rate by shovelling in dollars from Washington to burn.



Letters to the editor are encouraged. Each letter must be signed and include an address and a telephone number where the writer can be reached during business hours. Addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters should be a maximum of 250 words to be considered for publication and may be edited for length, style and grammar. Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Tulsa World, Box 1770, Tulsa, Okla., 74102, or send e-mail to letters@tulsaworld.com.


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Tulsa World Reader Comments
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Que, Terlton (11/1/2009 10:35:40 AM)
Last week I read that the trash incinerator would save Tulsa money and produce energy. Which is it?

moogle, Tulsa (11/1/2009 2:21:04 PM)
Can't we work out a deal with Arkansas: You dump your chicken litter in our rivers, and we dump our trash on your hills. Everybody goes away happy. I recall when I was a kid growing up in a part of Tulsa with no commercial or city trash pickup, we enjoyed the fragrant aroma of burning our trash in the back yard in a 55-gallon drum. Maybe it's time to resurrect the 55-gallon back yard drum.

FUTURE WORLD, Tulsa (11/1/2009 2:38:20 PM)
que, BOTH. I would love to have the option of burning my trash in the back yard.

dustyoutlaw, Tulsa (11/2/2009 7:52:39 AM)
How did I know that this was going to be Obama's fault?

IrishQuaker, Tulsa (11/2/2009 12:14:36 PM)
I didn't think we could vote on this. The Tulsa Trash Board decided. Isn't that a case-closed situation? I agree with the letter writer. The previous operator was importing trash from California and Texas. We were burning Vietnam-era naval yard waste from California--because California protects its environment and wouldn't burn it there. We were burning industrial waste from Texas. And we can just imagine that circumstance. Because I can't imagine that Texas would care at all about what was burned down there. Bottom line: it was burned in Tulsa. The state inspectors found 14x over the legal limit FOR DIOXIN. I don't like the fact that the Walter Hall is firing up again. At least this time the EPA required a dry scrubber.

Elusive, the burbs (11/2/2009 5:59:53 PM)
The writer does not have his/her facts state. Covanta now owns the plant. They do not import trash from Ca/TX. They do not use natural gas. The cost to burn is cheaper than burying it in the landfill. There are no dangerous fumes, what is burned is filtered and montitored 24/7. It has been running for over a year now.



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