Ten bite-sized
nuggets of news for Progressive Charlestown readers
By
Will Collette
Congratulations
to state Representative Donna Walsh for making GoLocalProv’s
“Who’s Hot” list.
This weekly list is one of GoLocal’s popular political features and notes who
made a difference (“Who’s Hot”) and who screwed up (“Who’s Not”) that week. She
not only made the list, but was their lead.
Donna
was featured for her new legislation that would mandate collection of food
scraps from commercial establishments so it can be diverted for composting and
recycling, rather than take up space at Rhode Island’s Central Landfill which
is rapidly filling up.
Found in space
Congratulations
also to Scott MacNeil and the Frosty Drew Observatory for a terrific photo that
was featured on Space.com, one of the
leading on-line astronomy journals. It’s a great shot; click here to see it.
Money Makes the
World Go Around
South
Kingstown super Kristen Stringfellow came in at #7 with an annual $151,008
salary, the only other South County administrator to reach the top ranks for
pay. The top-paid school superintendent in Rhode Island is Susan Lusi of
Providence at $190,000
Amen to that
The
American Bible
Society came out with its rankings of the 100 largest metropolitan areas for
“Bible-Mindedness.” These rankings were based on the percentage of adults who
answered their survey about whether they read the Bible every day and believed
what it said. The Providence Metro
area (including Charlestown) ranked dead last, while Chattanooga, TN rated
first place.
I
asked for comments from the only person I know with direct recent personal
experience in both parts of the country, former Charlestown Town Clerk Jodi
LaCroix who retired from town service and followed her husband to his new job
in Chattanooga. Jodi’s comment: “I find it so funny that I moved from last
place to first. Now is that a good thing or bad?”
Steve Hartford
lands on his feet
Former
Westerly Town Manager Steve Hartford
just landed a $110,000 gig working for Governor Lincoln Chafee. Hartford
recently resigned under pressure due to rapidly declining Town Council
confidence in him, brought on to a great extent by his mishandling of the Copar
Quarry mess that has roiled Westerly and Charlestown neighbors of the infamous
Bradford operation.
Hartford
will become Chafee’s “Special Advisor to Policy and Legislative Affairs,” a
position that pays $110,000. Said Chafee: "I welcome
Steve to my staff. Steve is a proven leader who has served as the chief
executive officer of a municipality and as an attorney."
It’s
a short-term job, given that Governor Chafee is not running for re-election and
his term ends this year. Hartford was not out of work long, compared to his
colleagues, former Charlestown Town Administrator Bill DiLibero and former
Narragansett Town Manager Grady Miller.
Increasing
safety limits on silica dust delayed
Also
related to Copar: one of the neighbors biggest health concerns is the silica
dust that blows off the Copar Bradford site every time the company blasts and
just about every time the wind blows. Click here for details.
Neighbors
have noted that medical research shows silica dust to be the cause of a wide
range of health problems. The federal Occupational Safety and Health
Administration has been in the process of trying to reduce the allowable amount
of dust workers may be exposed to in half.
Those
efforts have met strong resistance from industry, especially from the
construction and mining industries. OSHA just announced that it was extending
the comment period for its proposed regulations by two weeks to February 11.
The process has already been delayed once.
After
the comment period closes, OSHA is expected to begin public hearings on March
18. OSHA’s attempt to increase worker safeguards from silica is considered one
of the 10 most
controversial regulations from 2013.
Not so Smartie®
I
recently reported the latest thing some people in Rhode Island are worried
about: kids crushing up and then snorting or smoking those old-fashioned sugar
candies Smarties® and, among other things, attracting flies to lay eggs in their
noses where they spawn into maggots.Portsmouth RI parents received notice from school authorities warning parents to be vigilant about this new peril.
Lizzie Crocker at the Daily Beast took on the
story and didn’t think much of this latest drug epidemic:
“But the
only epidemic in this case is a moral one—an outbreak of chimerical social
concern, existing only in the fevered minds of Portsmouth Middle School
administrators. (There is no empirical data suggesting snorting Smarties® or
smoking candy cigarettes makes kids more likely to experiment with the hard
stuff.) When officials and parents aren’t cracking down on kids experimenting
with real drugs, they’re panicking about kids mimicking drug experimentation—and a
resulting case of Maggot Nose.”
Here’s something
else to worry about
According
to Buzzfeed, Rhode Island
now has its own “official” cocktail called “The Rhode Island Red” and concocted
to honor the 350th Anniversary of our state’s Royal Charter. It’s
made with, chambord, lemon juice, agave nectar, orange bitters, and ginger
beer. Oddly, this cocktail combination was created in 2009
by Vincenzo Marianella at Copa d'Oro, Santa Monica, CA, not in Rhode Island. Get
the recipe here.
And yet another
thing to worry about
If
you’ve ever seen a Charlestown Town Council meeting where septic systems or
sewage is discussed, you’ve probably seen Town Council Boss Tom Gentz react
with shocked embarrassment anytime someone uses the word “toilet.” I’ve seen
this several times and it appears to me that he has some visceral issue that
may require a considerable amount of time with a therapist.
Anyway,
that word, Tom, is about to come up, so please avert your eyes.
It
seems that there is a serious recall
notice
issued by the Consumer
Products Safety Commission noting that the high-tech Series
503 Flushmate III flushing system could cause your toilet to explode. I’m not
making this up.
This
system is sold at Home Depot, Lowes and many other home goods retail outlets.
Pressure can build up in the unit, burst and then shatter the tank or lift and
shatter the tank lid posing a serious threat of injury.
This
particular problem has been going on with the Flushmate Series 503 since 2012,
and this latest notice is being called an “expansion” of their previous recall.
Flushmate has already recalled almost two and a half million. This “expansion”
applies to over 360,000 more. Flushmate is a subsidiary of the Sloan Valve Company.
And if you still
don’t have enough to worry about yet
Operators
of the Millstone Nuclear Power plant outside of New London say they want to
learn the lessons of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in the wake of the
devastating 2012 earthquake by hardening the site against natural disaster.
According to the
New London Day,
Millstone plans to spend $10 million for facilities and equipment to help the
power plant handle natural disasters such as hurricanes. The most visible
feature will be a 10,000 square foot reinforced concrete dome that will house
emergency equipment. It will 38 feet high and be 115 feet in diameter and will
be designed to resist hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, built 30 feet above
sea level.
Though
tsunamis do not happen as often in the Atlantic as they do in the Pacific, they
do happen. The most famous was the quake and tsunami that virtually wiped out
the city of Lisbon, Portugal in 1755 and killed as many as 100,000 people. A 1929 tsunami hit Newfoundland, generating a 40-foot high wave that killed 28 people. Thirty feet may
not be high enough based on the geological record.
Over three
million pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste is being stored, more or less
permanently, at Millstone. Breached cooling ponds were the cause of the most
devastating radioactive fires at Fukushima which sent a deadly plume of
radiation fifty miles out from the site. Charlestown is only twenty miles,
mostly downwind, from Millstone. But I guess that’s another good use for the Rhode Island Red cocktail (see
above).