Reader responses Home Edition

• Published in: The Atlanta Constitution
• Main Author: Mary Carole Cooney, Jan Ferrara, Janet Miller, Blake Guthrie, Sandy Ray, Curtis Zanone, Ward Pafford, Mark Solomon, Jennie Trotter
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Atlanta, Ga Atlanta Journal Constitution, LLC 02.04.2001
• ISSN: 2473-1609; 2690-8093

I want to clarify my position on the city of Atlanta's plan to clean its stormwater. Because separation of pipes captures waste water entirely but does nothing to treat the runoff that pollutes stormwater, separating sewage and stormwater will not, by itself, prevent further pollution. I learned this long ago as the city grappled with the problem of bringing its streams into compliance with the Clean Water Act. The city's 19 square miles of combined sewers will require a far more sophisticated plan to prevent further pollution. Atlanta's engineers have submitted such a plan to the federal EPA and Georgia EPD. It combines partial sewer separation with the construction of tunnels and dedicated combined sewer overflow treatment facilities. It's quite obvious that the keepers of Martin Luther King Jr.'s estate have either lost touch with his life's mission or are desperate for cash ("Commercializing an icon? Estate OK'd ads with MLK as pitchman," News, March 29). Though King did indeed have book and record agents during his lifetime, it's highly unlikely that he would have used them to negotiate big ad deals with corporate interests while he was engaging in a struggle for civil rights and a campaign against poverty. The dream he spoke of seems to have whisked right over the heads of those who are today in charge of licensing his words and image. Alaska is 378 million acres. The ANWR is 19.5 million acres. By law, only 1.5 million acres are available for commercial use. Of that, only 2,000 acres are needed for drilling. The acreage identified for drilling is about one-fifth the size of many large U.S. airports.