Special Op-Ed- `No Way, No Time, No How` - Right Out There On The Courthouse Steps.

(Salem) - Tell the media, assembled at your call, that you and your companion Commissioners have come to that final decision already. Tell them all, now: There will be no more dangerous dioxins distributed; no more inevitable micro-ash menace and inevitable air pollution added to our atmosphere in Marion County and Oregon. `No Way -- No How -- No Time": It is essential for us to hear it, now, from all three of you Commissioners, `loud and clear" -- and very publicly. Answer, once and for all, those assorted rumors and raucous stories raising continuing doubts about what was really meant and managed with the distorted reporting resulting right after the Sears-summary of SWMAC`s months of flawed and tumultuous group process. Published reports then seemed to leave the stacks-at-Brooks open for more tons and tons of that murderous mess of infectious hospital waste to be pressured through out there; awaiting only demand from desperate out-of-state corporate service suppliers `on the hook" to find a new dump --or larger-- disposal-hole, somewhere, rapidly before being overwhelmed. That`s mightily worrisome since NOW we know the desperate drive to lift the cap-limit much higher --millions of pounds higher-- was manufactured while actual tonnage arriving from out of state was much lower than the already-existing cap. The current limit tightly on top at Brooks is 1,500 tons; the SWMAC `advisory" seeks to set it up to 2,500 tons. Anyway you cut it --or, rather truck it across Oregon highways-- that is 1000 tons x 2,000 lbs = TWO MILLION MORE POUNDS OF THAT DAMNABLE STUFF !! ?? Then, too, Sam, you said: `More than that, we`re not advertising or looking for more outside medical waste." Why all the furor then, Sam, to move that tight limit on up --much higher !!-- unless and until the necessity so demanded simply and only for waste originating within Oregon ? Why all that long-understood `initiating emphasis" to seek further income from incineration of that stuff from outside ? $100,000 was the amount sought --significantly by the Finance sub-group within SWMAC-- when this dance for the dollars first started, right ? That malarkey about using those dollars for a public education campaign to LOWER BACKYARD BURNING at all costs -- obviously even at huge additional and unavoidable dangers-- is just that: `Malarkey". Call it sugar-coating, if you prefer. But real leadership demands DOING what you demand from others -- and by this action the BOC builds a bunch of real reasons to suspect the motivations driving these manipulations, far beyond any connection to reality. Killer-count here, Sam, is that it stands to reason `the decision" should never, ever, whatever the income-generated, be made by and for the convenience of corporate interests from outside of Oregon. Yet those published `news reports" informed us that `a decision to increase the cap won`t come until the county receives a firm offer from a company wanting to bring enough medical waste that it would push or exceed the existing limit." That`s shorthand for dollar-decision whenever offered, Sam. Anyone able to read will so understand even that contrived wording. SO -- now`s the time, Sam. Unholster those simple words suggested. Fire them -- in any sequence you prefer, just so they are loud and clear -- and very public. Ask your sister Commissioners to join you, Sam, right out on those Courthouse steps. We need to hear you all say it, straight and simple. It`ll make a great picture, Sam -- one your Aunt Susan will surely love. It might just lead on to other, bigger things, too. Or NOT -- as the case may soon be.