The wrong decision

To the editor:

Obviously the decision by the U.S. Secretary Of The Interior to kill the casino proposal in Monticello was the wrong decision, and I assume influenced by bigger fish in Washington. It’s no secret that money from Atlantic City was opposed to the deal, and money talks in Washington.

Now all the naive do-gooders who opposed the casino on moral grounds and cried of the traffic and congestion that might have come can have their lonely roads and poverty stricken town to themselves.

Rescue us from a casino

To the editor:

Public radio recently aired a Middletown Times-Herald Record reporter speaking about the decision by the Secretary of the Department of the Interior that has halted casino development here. She repeated the usual inaccurate platitudes about poor, downtrodden Sullivan County, whose economy needs to be “rescued” by casinos.

This brought to mind what I once heard from a long-time resident of our area; that the racetrack was built to “rescue” the hotels, then the airport was built to “rescue” the racetrack.

Now we have the Racino, which was also supposed to “rescue” the racetrack, and which is apparently losing $1 million a year. So, what we need to rescue the Racino is—you guessed it—a casino!

Maybe what we need to be rescued from is greedy, lazy, inept business owners. Let’s contrast the comment I heard in the supermarket about the Racino, “ ...went there for New Year’s Eve ...thought they would do something nice ...it was horrible” with the comments heard all summer long about how wonderful Bethel Woods is.

I, for one, was really proud to bring guests to Bethel Woods. There are many, many successful tourist and non-tourist businesses thriving here. Let’s drop the negative comments about the Sullivan County economy, support the healthy, creative businesses we have, and be grateful that we have been rescued from having the only failed casino in the country.

Susan Sullivan

Narrowsburg, NY

The only true flood protection: restore the floodplain

To the editor:

To implement a deal cut between the watershed states and New York City, the Delaware River Basin Commission is taking public comment on a new reservoir management plan, the so-called Flexible Flow Management Plan (FFMP). The FFMP is contingent upon a fundamentally flawed assumption: that the Upper Delaware needs to be further dammed to achieve the goals of drinking water, fishery and ecosystem protection.

Higher dams and more water storage are not what is needed or wanted for our river. The FFMP is going to be implemented for four years without bigger dams or additional storage, so clearly bigger dams are not needed for the plan to work. In addition, the FFMP calls for releases to provide flood protection, releases that could jeopardize drinking water and fishery protection goals, without providing reliable and complete flood protection.

Altering flow releases to prevent dam spills that contribute to flooding in communities immediately downstream of the dams makes sense. But beyond these communities, suggesting that bigger dams (or current dams) could provide flood protection to communities further down along the Delaware is misleading and unfair. Promising undeliverable flood protection to downstream communities encourages flood-prone homes to remain on flood-prone lands, and encourages new development in these same dangerous places. Promising undeliverable flood protection also means that our communities and region will not have the time, resources or the inclination to seek out and fund truly effective flood protection measures.

The best flood protection, the only true flood protection, that we can provide is to prevent new development in the floodplain, to remove existing development where it has occurred and to restore the floodplain to natural function. This supports the goals of a healthy fishery, clean drinking water, and vibrant ecotourism as well. Restored floodplains protect and benefit us all.

Reason and religion not mutually exclusive

To the editor:

While I appreciate the efforts of Mr. Carullo on behalf of our planet and the Upper Delaware River corridor, I believe his passion has clouded his perception and logic.

He has taken two separate items (the article on the efforts to repair flood-water damage to the Barryville United Methodist Church and Linda Henz’s letter on her view of some presidential candidates and the issues of the upcoming election), lumped them together and then gone on a tirade against religion.

It is obvious that he is passionate about the environment (many of us are), but to put down others who have a different passion (Ms. Lenz’s anti-abortion stand) is hurtful.

Apparently, it was Ms. Lenz’s statement of “religion of global warming” that allowed Mr. Carullo to make the illogical connection between these two very different topics, because he then made the giant leap of including Pastor Vonderhorst in his arena of attack. By stating that “community leaders who follow ‘signs’ are making our world unsustainable and ever more dangerous…” he is making a totally illogical statement. Does he not know it is possible to utilize reason and logic and also have a personal relationship with our creator? Does he not realize that one of the roles of a pastor is to do just what Pastor Vonderhorst did, to speak about how it is we discern God’s will for us?

Whether or not Mr. Carullo has any relationship with the creator of our world, it is unfortunate that he used a public forum as a vehicle for hurtful remarks that disparage and demean others (calling people of religion “limited”). I would suggest that there are many religious people who use their minds. This very day, my own pastor, in his sermon, spoke of the need to use reason and logic (as well as other tools) in the process of making decisions.

Would not a better approach to our differences be level-headed discussion and respect for one another? Shame on you, Pat. You’re better than that.