Task Force Birthday Card for President Carter
The Pine River Task Force had a table today (Saturday, Sept. 28) at the fall fair called Gratiot Day-Out collecting signatures on a large birthday card to be sent to President Carter. Signatures also will be collected on Tuesday, Oct. 1 from Noon until 6:00 p.m. at Ballyhoo Books in Alma. See text of news story below that ran this morning in the Morning Sun:
Pine River Task Force asks residents to sign 100th birthday card for Carter
Former president supported Superfund law
By Greg Nelson | gnelson@medianewsgroup.com | The Morning Sun
It’s been nearly 45 years since legislation was passed by Congress that has poured billions of dollars into efforts to clean up contaminated sites throughout the United States.
That law was the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or better known as Superfund.
The bipartisan legislation was signed by former President Jimmy Carter, who will be celebrating his 100th birthday on Tuesday.
To mark the milestone, members of the Pine River Superfund Citizens Task Force want to allow local residents to express their gratitude to Carter for supporting a law that has brought more than $400 million into Gratiot County and the Pine River watershed to help remediate contaminated properties, including three current locations that have been designated Superfund sites that were heavily polluted by the former Velsicol Chemical Co. plant in St. Louis.
That cleanup work is still ongoing and will likely cost more than an additional $100 million before it’s complete. according to task force estimates.
“Not only does the act clean up dangerous contamination in places like St. Louis, it established a method of funding the program that both raises money for cleanups independent of other demands on the (U.S.) treasury, and discourages use of dangerous chemicals by raising their price,” Task Force Vice Chairman Ed Lorenz stated in a press release. “It achieved these two goals by taxing the contaminants themselves.”
Prior to the Superfund law the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency often had to delay remediating contaminated sites due to the lack of funding, he added.
“While some may shake their heads at this huge amount of spending, we must be clear it is caused by Velsicol’s irresponsible production and disposal methods that both exposed people in the past and continues to do so from the contaminants EPA is working to contain or destroy on-site,” Lorenz explained. “We must not forget that the contaminants have been linked to such serious human health outcomes as male sterility, miscarriages, various development abnormalities in youth as well as certain cancers.”
In 2008, the task force and Alma College received the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for campus-community collaboration for their work in support for an effective cleanup of the Pine River watershed and St. Louis.
Community members who would like to sign a 100th birthday card for former President Carter will have the opportunity to do so at Ballyhoo Books and Brew, 111 W. Superior St. in downtown Alma. from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Originally Published: September 27, 2024