Letters to the Editors

High-speed rail could help solve water shortage

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 30, 2000

The voters have spoken, and Florida will build a high-speed rail system that will link all major cities together. Such a transportation system brings both opportunities and challenges. Although this rail system may contribute significantly to alleviating our future congestion, our dynamic state will continue to grow.

Along with this growth we will continue to search for long-term solutions to another major challenge. We must ensure that an adequate supply of water is available to sustain future population, commercial, and industrial growth without endangering the quality of life of our existing citizens and our unique environment.

The high-speed rail project presents us with one of the most important infrastructure investment opportunities in the history of our state. The rail system could provide economical right-of-way access to simultaneously build a statewide wastewater collection and distribution system. A system that could link all the major coastal cities and the sandy Central Florida ridge.

The Central Florida ridge presents significant opportunities for large-scale wastewater re-use. Florida's sandy ridge is a vast aquifer recharge area and a major agriculture region. It is also attracting large-scale residential "community" developments and is an attractive area for industrial expansion. The industries attracted to this region include electric power generation plants; the future availability of electricity happens to be another one of our major concerns.

This region of the state currently has significantly lower population densities than the coastal regions. Therefore, additional north-to-south rights of way for construction of wastewater re-use distribution lines may be readily available.

The residents and politicians of this state should be concerned that our coastal cities pump every day more than 500-million gallons of highly treated wastewater into the ocean, gulf, and deep wells. All citizens would embrace responsible redistribution and re-use of this water as being both a very valuable and a highly scaleable water conservation solution.

How would we pay for it? There are valid solutions that citizens and businesses may find popular. Unfortunately, I doubt that any of the water agencies would agree. Water is a statewide issue, and the several state water districts could consolidate into one management agency. As with any business merger, there are significant initial and continuing cost savings in eliminating redundant internal support functions. These savings and attractive pricing to reuse customers could fund a significant percentage of the project.

Although Florida does have a water problem, it is also a water distribution and lack of re-use problem. Building a statewide wastewater collection and distribution system backbone adjacent to the High Speed Rail would make a powerful statement in Florida's commitment to long-term solutions to all of our future challenges, including water.
-- Wayne R. Gray, Tampa

The real cause for voter alarm

I find it hard to believe that this state is still discussing the presidential election when the real cause for voter alarm was the overwhelming "yes" vote for the Florida High Speed Rail. When we wake up from our "chad" and "dimple" nightmare, what will the rest of the country think of our willingness to support a possible $20-million-per-mile price tag on a transportation project that will affect so few Floridians? This is especially true when we as taxpayers begin to wonder where all this money is going to come from. Is it any wonder we were labeled "Floriduh?"
-- Nancy Hart, Clearwater

Covering for the recession

Re: Recession might not make Bush frown, Dec. 21.

The present recession rhetoric by President-elect George W. Bush and the Republicans appears to be nothing more than pre-inauguration spin-doctor hype for "cover your backside." He remembers that the Democrats blamed his father, George H.W. Bush, for the recession after he became president.

Using the slight downturn in the economy and saying, "The signs of a recession are on the horizon," they will be covered both ways. Should we have a recession in the next few years, they can place blame on the present administration by saying, "It's their fault. We saw a recession on the horizon before we took office and warned the American people about it, but it had progressed too far for us to stop it."

Should we not have a recession, they can then say, "Are we not great? We saw a recession on the horizon before we took office and warned the American people about it; then we took measures to head it off."

And some of the same people had the nerve to refer to President Clinton as "Slick Willie"!
-- A.E. Lang, St. Petersburg

Unite behind our new president

Now that the nightmare of a presidential election is over, a new challenge faces the American people. It is to set aside the division that was created in this election and unite behind George W. Bush, our new president!

Some of us may feel the election was stolen because the long and complicated recount procedure was not completed. Whether or not we feel this way, we now must do what the American people can do better than any people in the world. We must give President Bush our full support!

Threats of demonstrations at Bush's inauguration will only stain what should be another triumph of our democracy. Let's hope they are minimal or don't happen at all.
-- Barry Sleesman, Spring Hill

Gore's New York victory

I keep hearing that George Bush can't lead the country because the majority of Americans didn't vote for him.

Ponder this: Al Gore's popular vote lead was approximately 500,000 votes nationally. In New York City, Gore's margin was more than 500,000 votes.

If not for the Electoral College, the "nation" would have elected Bush as president by popular vote, but New York City would have put Gore into the presidency.

Thank you, Jefferson, et. al., for the Electoral College. Changing the Constitution every time the wind changes direction clears my vision as to how stupid we've become.
-- Mark C. Brown, St. Petersburg

Curing the ills of recession

On Jan. 20, when George Bush assumes office of the president, he will have to deal with a multitude of problems. One of them is the threat of recession. Fiscal and monetary policies are suggested by economists to counter economic downturns while in Afro-Asian and other developing countries, fiscal policy is considered to be an effective tool. In well-developed countries, a proper mix of monetary and fiscal policies could be followed to ease the situation.

Instead of a general tax-cut policy -- which gives greater relief and help to middle-income families, which constitute 45 percent of all families -- various spending programs by federal and state governments will be more appropriate. They should be mostly located in those areas where poverty and unemployment rates are high. Hence the members of federal and state legislatures, rising above their party differences and loyalties, must pass anti-recession laws and programs in time to ease the situation. Monetary measures like cuts in interest rates, differential interest rate policy and increases in the money supply will also be primary tools for curing the ills of recession.
-- H.V. Rao, Palm Harbor

Taxes contradict family values

I believe that the first order of business for President-elect George W. Bush and Congress should be the end of the marriage penalty tax and the Marxist estate tax.

Our Judeo-Christian heritage forms the cornerstone of Western civilization and as such, sees the family as the basic and most vital unit in a free society.

In a nation that was founded under God, why would we discriminate against an institution ordained by him?

There should be no law that takes away a person's property because of death. It should go to the next of kin, no matter how much or how little.

The majority of the rich are rich because they were able to keep their wealth in their families. I believe that the president-elect can attest to that! Both taxes go against the very foundation that has made America great and must be eliminated if we are to continue as family-oriented society.
-- Ryaan S. Aubrey, Tampa

Gore could be a great defender

I submit that Al Gore had a duty to defy Supreme Court Justices William Renquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas; not the Supreme Court, but the illegal action of a few reactionary persons.

As the vice president of the United States and a representative of a majority of the votes cast, it was his duty to defy them in the name of free speech and a free election and vote. They lacked any statutes to substantiate them. It would have forced Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor to support him or produce a constitutional crisis.

I believe he would have won in the end, and he would have gone down in history as a great defender of the right of the common man, of which I am one.
-- Richard S. Williams, Orlando

A fool's errand

I think doubling the police patrol on the Sunshine Skyway to prevent or reduce the number of suicides is stupid. When we live in a world where people are being murdered who don't want to die, people are being robbed who don't want to be robbed and women are being raped who certainly don't want to be raped, I feel it is a terrible waste of police officers to send them on a fool's errand -- to stop people who are eager and willing to commit suicide.
-- Carl Moen, Clearwater

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