OPEN COLUMN
Midkiff muddies waters for real environmentalists

Editor, the Tribune: Ken Midkiff’s Sept. 12 column makes the connection between chlorine and trihalomethanes. Good for him.

It is interesting to note that Ken, the Sierra Club and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment were vicious advocates for requiring the disinfection of wastewater - disinfection using chlorine, which, as Midkiff correctly informs, leads to the formation of trihalomethanes.

Look, I’m an environmentalist. I hunt and fish, eating what I take (you elitist catch-and-release people have entirely too much time and money). I also canoe and hike quite a bit. I grow a lot of my own food; I recycle. I support initiatives, rules and legislation that support my enjoyment of the outdoors and preservation of our waters. I have single-handedly built a rain garden on my property. Right, go me.

I don’t like being lambasted for my position on such things because people affiliate my opinions with Midkiff. Ken, you aren’t doing the environment any favors when you contradict yourself like that.

Some of us are demonstrably trying to change peoples’ minds about the environment, but there you have to go and screw it all up through supporting disinfection of wastewater, even in dry ditches, and then wailing about trihalomethanes associated with disinfection. And then we get associated with you, Ken, talking out of both ends of your intestinal tract. Thanks, buddy.

Will you do us real environmentalists a favor and take a hike?

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Scott Goodin

1803 California St., Jefferson City

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