The right priority — 05/29/09 » Editorials » Daily Independent (Ashland, KY)

Editorials

Discussion

May 28, 2009

The right priority — 05/29/09

Stimulus funds target city’s greatest infrastructure need

Anonymous The Daily Independent Thu May 28, 2009, 11:17 AM EDT

The $400,000 loan Ashland has received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is an excellent use of federal stimulus funds that attacks the most serious infrastructure problem in the city: Aging sewer lines. Not only will the loan — 50 percent of which will be forgiven — benefit city residents by reducing the cost of federally mandated improvements to its sewer lines, but it will benefit other river communities by reducing the amount of untreated sewage Ashland dumps into the Ohio River during heavy rainfalls.

Ashland will use the loan to help finish the Putnam Street Sewer Improvement project. The city already has budgeted $400,000 and the loan will enable city to do more with that money and help speed the completion of the city’s sewer problems.

The Putnam Street sewer runs approximately 4,000-feet from the AK Steel Coke Plant along U.S. 23 to Putnam Street. City Manager Steve Corbitt, an engineer, called the 37th Street overflow, which the Putnam Street sewer feeds into, one of the city’s worst sewer problems. The line — which was laid decades ago — has many cracks which allow water to flow into the city’s waste treatment system and overwhelm it during heavy rains. Unable to treat the volume of sewage and rain water coming into the city’s treatment plant during those periods, untreated sewage is dumped into the Ohio River.

Replacing ancient sewer lines that are underground and unseen is not the type of public works project that gains elected officials many votes. But too often in the past elected officials have opted for more visible projects and ignored maintenance on existing infrastructure. That’s why the levees that collapsed in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina had not been repaired despite approval of funding to do so.

There are other public improvement projects that Ashland certainly could do, but they all pale compared to the need to replace ancient sewer and water lines. Even without the grant, Ashland had been ordered by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency to replace its oldest sewer lines. The grant simply means that city will have to shift less of the cost of those required improvements on its own water and sewer customers in the form of rate increases. Rates still likely will have to be increased but not by as much as they would have been.

There is reason for concern over the wisdom of the $787 billion stimulus package approved by Congress to boost the economy. Simply put, it is spending money that the government does not have. We are borrowing from our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to pay for today’s programs.

But we disagree with those communities that are refusing to accept the stimulus money because they oppose the stimulus bill. The money is going to be spent somewhere, and it would be foolish to turn it down. And at least in Ashland we can say, without reservation, that the money is being well spent to meet a real need.

Text Only

Editorials

Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.

February 10, 2012
Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.

February 9, 2012
'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.

February 7, 2012
Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.

February 7, 2012
Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.

February 6, 2012
Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.

February 6, 2012
Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.

February 4, 2012
Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.

February 3, 2012
Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.

February 2, 2012
Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.

February 1, 2012
More Editorials Headlines

Editorials

Search Results

Discussion

The right priority — 05/29/09

Stimulus funds target city’s greatest infrastructure need

Site Map

Contact Us