Water battle over
The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County will not withdraw an extra 17 million gallons of water per day from the Yough River. The 15-month fight over our water has finally come to an end, at least until April 1, 2007. At that time, an extra 5 million gallons of water may be taken out by the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County, however, the Corps of Engineers will first review our water supply in the Yough River to determine if the release of the water will be detrimental to Fayette County. The struggle to prevent withdrawal of the water has been extremely difficult. As in any cause, a few have fought for the many. As chairman of the Concerned Citizens Committee Against Water Withdrawal, I would like to thank those who actively opposed the removal of the water: County Commissioners Sean Cavanagh, Ron Nehls, and Vince Vicites, Uniontown Mayor James Sileo, Robert Eberly and Mike Krajovic of Fay-Penn Development, Robert Softcheck of the North Fayette Municipal Water Authority, U.S. Rep. Frank Mascara, state Reps. Peter Daley and Larry Roberts, Robert Galasso and Robert LaPorte.
A special thanks to the following who were instrumental in this project: attorney Richard Husband, Connellsville Mayor Judy Reed, former Dawson Mayor Pat Trimble, Roger Uhazie of the Yough Area Fishermen’s Association, state Rep. William DeWeese and his aide Jo Lofstead, U.S. Sen. Arlen Spector and his aide Brian Aiello, U.S. Rep. John Murtha and his aide Colonel John Hugya, and most importantly, state Rep. James Shaner and his aide Mary Jane Orazi who were responsible for arranging all eight meetings, including the meeting with the Department of Environmental Protection in Harrisburg, and who made his office and equipment available when needed. Finally, thank you to the thousands of citizens who signed our petitions.
Let this struggle be a warning. All of us must be aware of Fayette County’s resources and the threat of these resources being taken away by outside agencies. We must remain involved and knowledgeable on the issues that affect our survival and livelihood.
Dr. William F. Colvin
chairman, Concerned Citizens
Committee Against Water Withdrawal, Connellsville
Challenge to businesses
The interest your newspaper is devoting to a potentially expanding future of the Connellsville Airport is inspiring.
With national, state and perhaps even local election politics, terrorism and the state of the economy consuming most people’s attention, the need for public awareness of the plight of small community airport utilization as a vital source for local economic development couldn’t be more valuable.
Throughout the county, local public officials and airport agencies by their very nature generally portray a type of “cocoon” mentality when focusing on their local airport development. This most often is based on financial constraints. By analogy to the political adage that “It takes a village to raise a child,” it takes an entire community to build an airport. That community must not only be the local geographic area, but a more global community, involving many sources of our entire nation if not the world. Aviation’s needs mandate a global involvement.
Our company has invested very large sums of out-of-state money for aviation related capital improvements at the Connellsville Airport and in addition has paid local property taxes for more than 20 years. Can and will other outside companies follow this lead?
We believe the current airport authority board and Fayette County officials are attempting to break out of the trap of parochial thinking to economically encourage other private “outside” investment which is so vitally needed. This will then result in the necessary private-public partnerships, which have proven to be the necessary energizing force in planning and eventual realization of airport growth. Local business thinking and expertise is also vital and we hope that they too will step up with input as you suggest.
We hope your newspaper’s interest won’t stop with this inspiring editorial, but stay the course with more and continued input.
Richard E. Nensel, president
TOL Aviation, Inc.
Toledo, Ohio