Letter to the Editor - July 31, 2008 - Robert Forrest

Dear Editor:

This is in response to "Tempers Flare at PSD Meeting&" (July 16, at Snowshoe) in your July 23 issue.

I was at the meeting. My temper flared, along with the tempers of other Snowshoe homeowners. It flared because the PSD, with callous indifference, declined to actually listen to our concerns. It flared because Russell Holt tried to make people believe that, despite his ownership of some 500 acres along the pipeline path, he is not a developer and does not stand to gain from the plant. It flared because the 1850 Snowshoe mountaintop homeowners will be footing nearly the entire bill for a plant that far exceeds our needs, and which will serve mostly to improve the wealth of the few major landowners in the valley, along with the real estate people who stand to develop that land. It flared because even though I have happily invested in Pocahontas County in taxes and support of local businesspeople for over 20 years, I am obviously still considered a "cash cow" to be milked at will, while at the same time I am tagged as unwilling to support the local economy.

I am in favor of a regional solution to the sewage problem. I am willing to pay my share of that solution. I am, quite reasonably, not happy to pay several times my share of the solution, merely to allow landowners and real estate people in the valley to profit from my investment. I firmly believe that if I am to pay for my share of that solution, I should also have a say in how the solution impacts the environment - my environment, your environment, our environment, because we are in this together.

The sewage discussion is now political. The meeting demonstrated that the project is not being guided by sound technical, environmental and economic factors: it is being driven by politics - and the special interests of the relatively few people who stand to benefit from it.

There are other alternatives to locating a single huge plant in an environmentally fragile area, a plant that would put at risk the beauty of the land and the wildlife that we all love about this area. There are distributed alternatives that allocate the burden of the cost of the facility fairly and equitably to those that are to benefit from it. The PSD is focused only on the one-plant-serves-all approach, to the point where the discussion is only about where to place that plant, rather than about whether that approach is a good one.

There are two distinct and separate communities to be served by this facility: The 1850 mountaintop homeowners at Snowshoe, and the 50-to-100 owners some 2000 feet below and four-to-10 miles away in the valley. It makes logistic, environmental and financial sense to address the two communities separately but in a coordinated fashion - one facility for the mountaintop and one or more smaller facilities for the valley. Each facility would be funded by those who use that facility.

Since the current PSD is inherently committed to serving the interests of the valley owners at the expense of the mountaintop owners, I suggest that a second PSD be established to address the needs of the mountaintop, and allow the current PSD to deal with the problems and funding of the valley. The Mountaintop PSD should comprise representation from the people who have a vested interest in that community.

Bob Forrest,
Lynchburg, VA
Snowshoe