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Show So who cares? We tend to be too damn selfish. ownership of material things that we let our elf.shne detriment. It's the American dream, its chrome an t n cumulate our possessions and cuddle and coo to them, pe care for them, mother them. And in complete contrast, things we don't own, we don't care tor. That's- precisely why oU7--m2uhta:tt7a:s:wl'dVonUrwnt don't care about it. We don't care about t because we We can't take it aside and claim part of . t a our ownddle coo to it, polish ,t and show , off On the contra y environment, which means ultimately that none ot u ow environment is a common asset; there are plenty to use it but take care of it. Recently the Chronicle ran articles on two of Utah's ronmenU. disasters the Vitro Chemical Plant's tailings in Sa t Lake Loumy, e Bureau of Reclamation's latest in its series of damming renz es, the China Meadows project on the north slope of the Uinta Moun a?ns One an urban environment problem, the other .s a wilderness environment problem. Both, however are plagued with the same d f-ficXsTL f-ficXsTL problem of getting public and private mstitutions and agencies to respond to public desires. The Vitro Chemical situation is this: The company used to be in the nrocess of refining uranium ore until they packed up in 1958 and Tandoned their8 plant and their tailing. The tailings very radioactive are now resting on 40 acres of land which Vitro had m the LDS church in order to dump tailings. The State Bo rd o Hea th and other public agencies have demanded that the church clean up the mess. The church refuses They claim the Atomic Energy Commission said long ago they would dean it up. They a so claim the AEC issued a report saying there ,s no hazard. The AEC says no such thing ever happened, to both claims. There are no local or federal laws which can make the church remove the hazard. It will cost the church money to remove it, so they won't; a classic case ot a private institution irresponsible Lo public demand. The Bureau of Reclamation project is a similar situation, but is even worse, in that it is a case of a PUBLIC agency failing to respond to public demand. The bureau is building an utterly senseless proiect at great expense for the questionable benefit of a few to the obvious detriment of many. An out-of-the-way, unpublicized, formality of a hearing was held, after which the bureau finalized plans for the boondoggle. boon-doggle. Now that the secret has leaked out, 1200 people have demanded a fair hearing, yet no hearing is forthcoming. But who cares? We don't own it, and you don't own it. Why should we care, if we can't cuddle it and show it oft' If we try to do something about it, you won't support us, and our effort will be wasted. You don't care, why should we? It's not ours to own, so who cares? Get the point? |