READERS RESPOND

Ocean City takes a responsible approach to waste management

I’m writing to respond to a rubbish complaint. Letter writer David McClure recently kvetched about Ocean City’s lack of municipal recycling, saying we’re not “green” enough because we canceled our program in 2010 (“Ocean City needs to recycle its trash,” Aug. 26).

What Mr. McClure failed to mention is the robust and successful waste-to-energy program that took its place. The resort now trucks its refuse to a Pennsylvania incinerator that converts garbage into electricity for the regional grid. Under our old recycling program, less than 10% of waste was actually recycled. Now, we’re repurposing 90% of our waste stream and saving Ocean City taxpayers big bucks in the process.

Did Mr. McClure know that back in 2009 our public works department had to solve the problem of an unsustainable recycling program? Our local landfill was charging us to recycle at nearly twice the going rate for trash and the national financial crisis was sending municipal budgets like ours into a cost-cutting tailspin. Something had to be done. In 2010, we found a solution in the waste management company Covanta. Their waste-to-energy service, which is overseen by the EPA, translated into a savings of nearly $500,000 in taxpayer dollars in the first year alone. The next year, Ocean City parted with its fleet of recycling trucks and in doing so shed the electric, fuel and personnel costs that went with them saving another $800,000 in the process.

The tax dollars saved went back into environmental programs and grants. We’ve invested in public works services that clean the beach of garbage and debris every summer night. We focus our attention on reducing and reusing and we believe we’re offering an alternative to active recycling that’s good for our town. People can still recycle locally using Worcester County facilities. Resort leaders are now working to extend their contract with Covanta.

It’s an imperfect and possibly even controversial system, but maybe it’s time to rethink just what environmental responsibility looks like in the face of a municipality’s fiscal obligations to its taxpayers. I’d say this program strikes the balance.

Brian Shane, Ocean City

Vote David Harding for mayor of Baltimore

There is another candidate for mayor of Baltimore in the November election — David Harding (“Voter guide: David Harding, Mayor, Baltimore City,” Oct. 5). Dave is the candidate of the Working Class Party and a longtime friend of mine. We and other volunteers worked for many months to get more than 14,000 signatures from people around the state of Maryland to allow another party on the ballot. When I said the two big parties don’t represent the interests of ordinary working people, some were particularly eager to sign the petition.

Dave works in computer operations at the Maryland Health Department and has been a union activist there in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). He worked many years ago at Bethlehem Steel where he was also a union activist.

Dave and I have both lived here for decades and see the same problems many others do — inadequate schools for most children, continually breaking water and sewer mains as residents pay higher and higher fees, a lack of affordable housing, racial injustice that never gets addressed which leads to much higher poverty and unemployment for some in the Black community. Part of the Baltimore population lives near the poverty line, people whose health was poor long before coronavirus struck.

There’s an obvious answer to all these problems: money. And where can we find it? Look at big companies like Under Armour or Whiting-Turner or big institutions in Baltimore like Johns Hopkins. They get money and tax breaks from the city. That is the money that should be taken to meet the needs of the population. That’s what this new party will say.

We also will say we won’t have our hands on any money until working people are ready to make a fight for it. And that means the whole working class — Black and white, employed or unemployed or retired, young or old, women or men, born here or born elsewhere.

Voting in an election is not enough to change the population’s situation. But with their votes, people can say they agree with this perspective.

Cathy Permut, Baltimore