Dear Editor,

As reported in this paper, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced on Sept. 21, 2006 that it had tightened the air pollution standard for fine particles from 65 micrograms per cubic meter of air measured on a daily basis to 35 micrograms. EPA&8217;s new air quality standard for particulate matter will prevent between 1,200 and 13,000 deaths annually, according to an EPA produced impact analysis.

The analysis also claims that a more stringent standard advocated by the agencies Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee would prevent between 2,200 and 24,000 deaths annually. The analysis says the benefits from reduced death and illness, as well as improved visibility, far outweigh the costs.

It is time for people in Alabama to write their legislators and demand that they pass legislation requiring that the more stringent recommended standards be put into place. We need to tell them we want to save more lives and improve health (including cancers and respiratory ailments) and we want the stronger clean air standards recommended by the EPA&8217;s own advisory committee to be enacted.

We in the Pelham, Alabaster, Calera and Saginaw area where the lime plants air particulate is not routinely measured, as it is in Helena, need to demand something be done to monitor our air on an ongoing basis and to clean up our air as well.

In the summer months the visibility is horrible in Pelham (and all these cities) all the way down Highway 31 because of the thick white lime fog. The government studies do not factor in our smaller metropolitan areas at all.

If they did the lives saved by enacting the more stringent particulate standards would be much higher, and perhaps more than double the numbers they report.

The only thing that will clean up and save our world&8217;s environment and consequently improve our health and life span is each one of us.

Please join me and become proactive and demand that our legislators do more to clean up our environment on our behalf.

Robbie R. Kidwell

Pelham

Dear Editor,

In the Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007 edition of the Shelby County Reporter, you ran an article about an Alabaster man that was charged with enticing a 7-year-old child for immoral purposes. After reading and re-reading this article, there is one detail that confuses me. Why did this very brave and intelligent little girl wait until she got to school to tell anyone about the incident? If she were playing in her own front yard when this man tried to abduct her, why did she not instead go inside immediately and tell her parents? And why does no one else seem to publicly question this break from traditional protocol?

Derek Tombrello

Columbian