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Letters to the Editor

Handicapped Ugly?

Dear Editor, I have nothing against anyone in St. Clairsville, but I am a handicapped person. I have lived there for 30 years. I look normal because I was part-time and park close to home when I can. I work until 5 p.m. When I come home, all the parking spaces are empty. When I go to the doctor’s office or run errands during the day, I come home and there is no place to park. In the summer I can park behind the building, but during the winter, the alley to the parking lot is ice. I have back and knee problems from a fall, and have been told that if I fell and landed on a hard ...

Frack waste barging puts our water at risk

Dear Editor, Would you drink a glass of fracking wastewater? We wouldn’t, either. But the oil and gas industry’s latest maneuver places the Ohio River, a drinking water source for 5 million people, one spill away from fracking waste contamination. According to industry reports, the DeepRock Disposal Solutions barge terminal, located near Marietta, Ohio, was scheduled to begin receiving barges filled with hazardous fracking brine and condensate in the first quarter of 2021. Fracking wastewater can contain a mixture of toxic additives, heavy metals, and even radioactive ...

National EMS Week

Dear Editor, National Emergency Medical Services week will be celebrated May 16-22 this year. In 1974 President Gerald Ford authorized EMS Week to honor the dedication of those who provide the day-to-day lifesaving services of medicine’s “front line.” So what has changed in 47 years? I would like to take the time to ask everyone, what would you do if we didn’t have EMS to respond to your emergency? Would you jump in the car and drive yourself or have a family member or friend take you to the emergency room? How long would that take you with the I-70 construction today, ...

Right to work is wrong

Dear Editor, Nearly 60 million people say they would join a union today if they could. The problem? Union-busters, big business and woefully outdated laws continue to undermine the right to collectively bargain. Just take “right to work” laws, for example. Across the country, anti-worker legislators are relentlessly fighting to pass right to work, which has a more than 70-year track record of lowering wages, reducing benefits and making workplaces more dangerous. Right to work is a Jim Crow relic that was designed to keep White and Black workers apart, playing on our worst fears ...

Give gas and oil a fair chance

Dear Editor, I write to express my family’s disappointment to the May 8 piece from Ms. (Jill) Hunkler and her negative thoughts regarding our elected officials and the natural gas industry. I am attending Ohio University to get my master’s degree in engineering to hopefully follow in my dad’s footsteps and work in the oil and gas industry myself. My dad worked for various pipeline companies in the area for the last few decades. That hard work provided for our family, and we are proud of him. We also leased our family farm to a gas company to drill, and my family used that ...

Racism and brutality must come to end

Dear Editor, Though many citizens of the Ohio Valley may disagree, a milestone in American History was reached upon conviction of Derek Chauvin. Police were testifying against other officers and although many thought it was easy to say that Mr. Chauvin murdered George Floyd, many citizens still sat patiently awaiting an acquittal due to precedent. With the conviction on all counts and a fairly lengthy prison stay awaiting him, some say the decision in the case of officer Chauvin has brought justice to Floyd’s family and other members of the black community. In the opinion of ...