Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Dayhoff writing essays Trash WTE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dayhoff writing essays Trash WTE. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

20080416 This week in The Tentacle


This week in The Tentacle

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

How to Make Trash Go Away

Kevin E. Dayhoff

Tomorrow the Carroll County Board of Commissioners will deliberate in open session and – hopefully – make a decision regarding the offer from Frederick County to join forces to make 1,100 tons of trash a day go away.

In recent separate interviews with Carroll County Public Works Director Mike Evans, and Carroll County Commissioners Mike Zimmer and Dean Minnich, the conversation quickly turned away from the actual choice to the intellectual, critical criteria necessary in order to make such a legacy decision.

Both commissioners bristled over the political threats and emotional advocacy and pleaded for more scientific information.

Commissioner Minnich immediately identified science and long-term safety as a decision driver. Commissioner Zimmer also identified science; and both commissioners agreed that a thorough public education and discussion process was critical.

And what an education process it has been so far. In a series of recent conversations with a few old-timers, all agreed that we have never witnessed such an exhaustive and open public discussion and education process on any public policy decision or environmental issue.

Bear in mind, a review of my files indicates that this is my fourth go-round regarding what to do with trash in Carroll County in 41 years – going back to 1967. It was a few short years after the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, that trash really hit the fan in Carroll County.

Read the entire column here: How to Make Trash Go Away


Las Vegas Bound

Tom McLaughlin

Viva Las Vegas! Viva Las Vegas! The Elvis Presley tune has not left my brain since I decided to visit that city in the desert.


Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Havemus Papam!

Roy Meachum

After the cardinals' votes are counted, a white plume from the Sistine Chapel tells St. Peter's Square and the world "We have a pope!" "Havemus Papam," in Latin, once the customary language within the Vatican's walls.


A Change in Direction Needed

Nick Diaz

As your son or daughter and their friends were moving from elementary school to middle school, you may have noticed that a number of them did not want to be identified as “smart kids” – even though they had always done rather well during their elementary years. Some of them were afraid that they would be picked on by other students if it were known that they were bright. Others just wanted to fit in.


Monday, April 14, 2008

General Assembly Journal 2008 – Volume 9

Richard B. Weldon Jr.

It never ceases to amaze. The Maryland General Assembly Session is 90 days long, as defined in the state constitution. Legislators are summoned to Annapolis on the second Wednesday of January every year. At that moment, the 90-day session seems almost eternal, the thought of time away from home and family adds burden to those long winter nights.


Charlton Heston: A Commentary

Steven R. Berryman

I would never pretend to write a biography or obituary for Charlton Heston, and certainly have nothing first hand to offer as does The Tentacle’s Roy Meachum, but I have been affected by his life and his death. And his work.


Friday, April 11, 2008

Mother Egypt Cries – Again!

Roy Meachum

Lurking in newspapers' back pages, correspondents report there are riots along the Nile over the scarcity and cost of bread. For Egypt's millions of poor, it is not simply "the staff of life." Those flat loaves are life itself.


"Leatherheads" & "Smokey Joe"

Roy Meachum

Much to my surprise, "Smokey Joe's Cafe" enchanted and George Clooney's new flick did not.


Thursday, April 10, 2008

Sine Die Came Too Late

Chris Cavey

This week the General Assembly was dismissed from Annapolis to return home to the real world. And not a moment too soon. The annual legislative session is like a visit to the dentist; you know it has to happen and you’re glad when you are finished – especially if you had a political root canal.


An Open Letter to the Commissioners

Joan McIntyre

I want to thank you in advance of the adoption of next year’s budget. I do this primarily because I know this may well be the most difficult budget year in many of your careers. There will be very little thanks in this particular portion of your job.


Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Wendi Peters – Mount Airy’s Steel Magnolia

Kevin E. Dayhoff

People were delighted to see former Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., last Friday when he came to Frederick County in support of Mount Airy Councilwoman Wendi Wagner Peter’s re-election bid.


Fallen from Grace

Tom McLaughlin

I have trouble equating human life with money. It’s like combining an apple and an orange to make a new fruit. Shakespeare and algebra simply will not go together in a publishable book.


Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Bemoaning Rick Weldon's Farewell

Roy Meachum

The legislative process, state or federal, frequently invokes the image of grass growing; it is generally long and tedious, unmemorable. The real trick for a journalist comes from watching out for "moles," the bills that work slightly undercover, like the fuzzy critters.


How to Avoid Getting Run Over…

Farrell Keough

Sometimes you are the bug and sometimes you are the windshield. It seems that recently we taxpaying residents of Maryland have been the bug. Of course, this covers a multitude of sins.


Monday, April 7, 2008

“1984” Predicts 2008

Steven R. Berryman

Enabling legislation passed by our Maryland General Assembly will allow Frederick to use red light cameras for law enforcement. Frederick is now one small step closer to becoming Montgomery County. Your accuser may be “Big Brother” instead of a police officer. Beware the trend.


The Yin and the Yang of Annapolis

Richard B. Weldon Jr.

This place is really odd. There is just no more appropriate one-word definition. We begin our legislative session in middle of winter’s icy grip, and we end it in all of spring’s emerging glory.


Moses Without a Chariot

Roy Meachum

Charlton Heston and I met a couple of times in Washington. He went to testify before a congressional hearing, something about the American Film Institute.

Monday, March 17, 2008

20080309 The Sunday Carroll Eagle: “History will know us by our trash”


Sunday Carroll Eagle

History will know us by our trash

Sunday Carroll Eagle March 9, 2008 by Kevin Dayhoff

Folks have asked me where they may find my March 9th, 2008 Sunday Carroll Eagle column... Well... I cannot find it on the Westminster Eagle web site...

Sooo... Pasted below, please find the column as it was written. It is my understanding that the column was altered for publication…

Ever since the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, many of us has felt that the best management approach to solid waste was source reduction and recycling. It would take 18 long years to get the Maryland Recycling Act passed in 1988. That legislation required a recycling rate of 20 percent.

Twenty years later, getting the recycling rate increased is still illusive. In 1998, on the 10-year anniversary of the law, the Baltimore Sun ran a lengthy analysis in which the Maryland General Assembly member who spearheaded the recycling initiative, Montgomery County Sen. Brian Frosh, admitted “that recycling has been costlier than expected. His 1988 bill predicted significant cost savings…”

Later in the article, the $250 million cost of recycling 2.5 million tons was compared to the $83 million it would’ve cost to landfill it instead. The rest of the article went downhill from there.

Those of us who are opposed to landfilling were less than pleased. Four decades after the first Earth Day, the recycling rate in Carroll County is only around 30 percent.

Meanwhile, on May 29, 1997, Commissioners Donald Dell and Richard Yates voted to transfer the trash out of the county. Commissioner Ben Brown wanted - as many of us wanted - to build a co-composting facility.

This decision came after thirteen years of study which began in 1984 when Carroll, Frederick, and Howard County investigated “building a regional waste-to-energy incinerator,” according to an old press clipping. The commissioners opted instead to build another landfill.

In subsequent research, on a June 17, 1993 visit to the Lancaster County waste-to-energy plant, one of the fascinating components of the operation was mining an existing landfill.

After two years of research, on April 21, 1994, a second “Waste-to-Energy Committee” rejected building an incinerator. The 23 members “instead recommend(ed) aggressive recycling programs… to extend the life” of the landfills.

That was followed on April 24, 1996, when Mike Evans, the Carroll County director of public works first warned the Environmental Affairs Advisory Board (EAAB) that Northern Landfill, which began operations in December 1988 was going to run out of capacity in 15 to 20 years. It takes 10 years to site locate, permit and build a landfill.

The EAAB, for which I was chair at the time, exhausting investigated increasing our recycling rate, co-composting, landfilling, waste-to-energy and charging for trash pickup by weight. The research involved a number of field trips, including a trip to the co-composting facility in Sevierville, TN.

Nevertheless, in spite of our best efforts, our investigation could not justify the economic feasibility of co-composting or convince us that an incinerator would not cause more problems than it solved.

Fast forward to today and the European Union has the strictest environmental regulations in the world. In several EU countries, landfilling has been discontinued in lieu of a waste-to-energy and recycling interactive waste management.

It was noted in a German Federal Ministry for the Environment study released in September 2005: “In the eighties of the previous century, waste incineration plants came to be the symbol of environmental contamination… Today, more than half of all household waste (55%) is recycled… Since June 1, 2005, untreated waste is no longer landfilled. And because of stringent regulations waste incineration plants are no longer significant in terms of emissions of dioxins, dust, and heavy metals…”

Much of the opposition to waste-to-energy these days is based on information that is decades out of date.

Meanwhile many of us are concerned that we cannot increase our recycling rate quickly enough to avoid the costly and environmentally suspect method of hauling our trash to Virginia and throwing it in a hole.

Nevertheless, hopefully Northern Landfill is the last trash dump in the county’s history.

In consideration of the ability to generate and sell electricity and the opportunity to mine all our existing landfills and restore them to a productive use - -waste-to-energy appears to be today’s worthiest trash management option.

One of the earliest references to a landfill in Carroll County is when the Bark Hill landfill began operations in 1892 near Uniontown. The county it over in 1972 and closed it in 1981.

Throughout history there have been around 30 trash disposal sites in Carroll County. How many can you name? What memories do you have of getting rid of trash years ago? How many folks remember one of the first trash hauling companies in Carroll County, G. L. Cubbage?

E-mail me your memories and we’ll throw your name in a hat and draw one for a famous Sunday Carroll Eagle coffee mug. You can use it instead of a throwaway cup and avoid contributing to the trouble with trash.

When Kevin Dayhoff is not recycling, he can be reached at: kdayhoff at carr.org

####

Footnote:

The Sunday Carroll Eagle: October 28, 2007 - On October 28th, 2007 the publication for which I write, The Westminster Eagle and The Eldersburg Eagle, (which is published by Patuxent Newspapers and owned by Baltimore Sun); took over the Carroll County section of the Baltimore Sun.

“The Sunday Carroll Eagle ” is inserted into the newspaper for distribution in Carroll County. For more information, please contact:

Mr. Jim Joyner, Editor, The Westminster Eagle

121 East Main Street

Westminster, MD 21157

(410) 386-0334 ext. 5004

Jjoyner AT Patuxent DOT com

For more posts on “Soundtrack” click on: Sunday Carroll Eagle

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/search/label/Sunday%20Carroll%20Eagle

20071028 The Sunday Carroll Eagle introduction

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2007/10/20071028-sunday-carroll-eagle.html

Also see: Monday, October 22, 2007: 20071021 Baltimore Sun: “To our readers”

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2007/10/20071021-baltimore-sun-to-our-readers.html