Yuck
Lobbyists can be obnoxious.
Every year, Montpelier High School students spend a few hours one day in September cleaning up the river that runs behind the school. Because of the dozens of abandoned tires they take out every single year, the students started working years ago on a tire deposit bill as a way to solve the problem of tires being dumped in the river.
The cleanup was yesterday (Friday). The Burlington Free Press wrote a story about it. What was different this time -- when the students came back from the cleanup with all the abandoned tires they fished out, they were greeted by tire dealers and lobbyists who examined the tires, and noted their model, make and other information - all to prove that the bill is not necessary, of course. That's the first time they'd done that, and it just seems, well, yucky.
And I just went to the Free Press website for the story, and decided that readers can be obnoxious too. I'm just speechless at their comments:
When these students become productive tax paying VOTING members of society, they can lobby for stuff like this however, a lot of us are tired of these "still wet behind the ears" nimrods pushing for this tax and that. Fire that teacher.
and
Why fire the teacher? The teacher has done a very effective job of brainwashing the students and indoctrinating them to liberal extremism. These kids will never be productive members of society.
This is a good thing that these kids have been doing, and their good deeds are being undermined and criticized instead of being appreciated.
The whole story is below the cut, just in case some former MHS students want to read it.
Students, tire dealers go round and round
By Terri Hallenbeck
Free Press Staff Writer
September 15, 2007
MONTPELIER -- A group of Montpelier High School students hauls a load of trash to the bank of the Winooski River next to the school. In slightly more than an hour they had gathered a canoeful of bikes, bottles, a tent and sleeping bag, and tires. Their classmates later add seven canoes filled with trash.
As they unload their finds, a team of tire dealers zooms to examine the tires. They wipe away mud to look at each tire's make, model and other information, which they carefully catalog. "We're trying to prove they've been there a while," said Dale Franklin of Partner Tire & Service in Colchester, who was joined by representatives of other tire retailers. "We've been policing our industry very well."
The trash-collecting students and the tire dealers represent conflicting sides of an issue that could play out a few blocks away at the Statehouse next year.
Some of the students and their predecessors at Montpelier High have been pushing for years for tire deposit legislation they say would cut back on the number of illegally discarded tires in rivers and along roadsides. Every year, Montpelier students have a cleanup day in the river, and every year they find more trash, but tires are the most common item, said Bill Haines, a retired social studies teacher who led the river cleanup Thursday. "What we've noted more than anything else is tires," he said.
Haines plans to lead an unusual class -- independent of any school and open to the public regardless of age -- starting this fall that will follow the latest proposed tire legislation as it unfolds in the Statehouse. That bill would charge $1 per tire to pay for tire collection events.
The tire dealers, who are lobbying against a deposit or a fee, are out to prove that the legislation is unnecessary because most of the tires are old -- a number stamped into the side of a tire indicates the date of manufacture -- and that indicates there is not an ongoing problem.
"They are trying to legislate a problem that doesn't exist," said Terry Sheehan of Goss Tire, which has five Vermont stores.
Aviva Markowitz, a Montpelier senior who is co-president of the school's Earth Group, isn't buying that. "Every year you go into the river and there's so many tires. You think, 'These tires are here again?!'"
Legislation calling for a tire deposit has been proposed for the last four years but has gone nowhere amid opposition from tire dealers.
Rep. Jon Anderson, D-Montpelier, who was appointed to the Legislature this year, has opted instead to pursue a $1 per tire fee when consumers buy new tires. Thirty states have a similar fee. The money would pay for tire amnesty days, when Vermonters could dump old tires for no charge.
"I believe the deposit bill would be more effective, but I don't think it has much of a chance of passing," Anderson said.
Tire dealers raised questions about how the deposit would work logistically if Vermont were the only state requiring manufacturers to emboss tires with a deposit.
The Montpelier High School Earth Group has thrown its support behind Anderson's new approach, in hopes that it will fare better than its predecessors, Markowitz said.
Tire retailers dislike the deposit more than the fee, but they worry that a fee will hurt business and be a management nightmare. "We are trying to work with them to try to come up with a solution," said Dick Cole, executive director of the New England Tire & Service Association. "We're in hopes there would not be a cost to the public."
Mounting tires
Cole and the tire dealers contend Vermont does not have a tire problem. Most tire dealers charge $2 or so per tire and consumers let the dealers take care of disposal, Cole said.
Haines and Tom Sabo, Montpelier High science teacher, who have supervised years of river cleanups at Montpelier High School, contend there is a problem. One year, two cleanups yielded 326 tires, Haines said. Last year, students hauled out 72, Sabo said. This year's take: 39 at Thursday's student cleanup and 63 at a Saturday community cleanup farther upriver.
"There is a problem," Haines said. "I don't know the answer."
The first tire the dealers examined at Thursday's cleanup was about 50 years old, Franklin said, which he said meant it probably had not been thrown into the river recently. Others in the first pile of tires were 4 and 12 years old.
Sabo said the dealers' argument that the tires are old doesn't hold water. Even if some of the tires were manufactured a decade or more ago, that doesn't indicate when the tires were sold, when they came off the vehicle or when they were tossed over the riverbank, he said.
The Winooski River isn't the only place where tires are dumped. At Green Up Day in May, volunteers around Chittenden County collected 1,754 tires, said Nancy Plunkett, waste reduction manager at the Chittenden Solid Waste District. That was just a month after a tire amnesty day brought in a record 4,905 tires, Plunkett said.
Aside from the twice-a-year amnesty days (including one in October), Chittenden Solid Waste District charges $2.75 a tire at dropoff centers, or $2.25 in Williston, where the tires are collected.
Not every solid waste district offers amnesty days. That's what Anderson hopes the $1 fee would help fund.
The state Agency of Natural Resources, which would manage the fee if Anderson's bill passes, has not taken a stand on the bill, but generally does not consider tires to be a particular problem, said Cathy Jamieson, solid waste program manager.
"We feel like they're being effectively managed," she said. "There's other solid waste priorities."
Every year, Montpelier High School students spend a few hours one day in September cleaning up the river that runs behind the school. Because of the dozens of abandoned tires they take out every single year, the students started working years ago on a tire deposit bill as a way to solve the problem of tires being dumped in the river.
The cleanup was yesterday (Friday). The Burlington Free Press wrote a story about it. What was different this time -- when the students came back from the cleanup with all the abandoned tires they fished out, they were greeted by tire dealers and lobbyists who examined the tires, and noted their model, make and other information - all to prove that the bill is not necessary, of course. That's the first time they'd done that, and it just seems, well, yucky.
And I just went to the Free Press website for the story, and decided that readers can be obnoxious too. I'm just speechless at their comments:
When these students become productive tax paying VOTING members of society, they can lobby for stuff like this however, a lot of us are tired of these "still wet behind the ears" nimrods pushing for this tax and that. Fire that teacher.
and
Why fire the teacher? The teacher has done a very effective job of brainwashing the students and indoctrinating them to liberal extremism. These kids will never be productive members of society.
This is a good thing that these kids have been doing, and their good deeds are being undermined and criticized instead of being appreciated.
The whole story is below the cut, just in case some former MHS students want to read it.
Students, tire dealers go round and round
By Terri Hallenbeck
Free Press Staff Writer
September 15, 2007
MONTPELIER -- A group of Montpelier High School students hauls a load of trash to the bank of the Winooski River next to the school. In slightly more than an hour they had gathered a canoeful of bikes, bottles, a tent and sleeping bag, and tires. Their classmates later add seven canoes filled with trash.
As they unload their finds, a team of tire dealers zooms to examine the tires. They wipe away mud to look at each tire's make, model and other information, which they carefully catalog. "We're trying to prove they've been there a while," said Dale Franklin of Partner Tire & Service in Colchester, who was joined by representatives of other tire retailers. "We've been policing our industry very well."
The trash-collecting students and the tire dealers represent conflicting sides of an issue that could play out a few blocks away at the Statehouse next year.
Some of the students and their predecessors at Montpelier High have been pushing for years for tire deposit legislation they say would cut back on the number of illegally discarded tires in rivers and along roadsides. Every year, Montpelier students have a cleanup day in the river, and every year they find more trash, but tires are the most common item, said Bill Haines, a retired social studies teacher who led the river cleanup Thursday. "What we've noted more than anything else is tires," he said.
Haines plans to lead an unusual class -- independent of any school and open to the public regardless of age -- starting this fall that will follow the latest proposed tire legislation as it unfolds in the Statehouse. That bill would charge $1 per tire to pay for tire collection events.
The tire dealers, who are lobbying against a deposit or a fee, are out to prove that the legislation is unnecessary because most of the tires are old -- a number stamped into the side of a tire indicates the date of manufacture -- and that indicates there is not an ongoing problem.
"They are trying to legislate a problem that doesn't exist," said Terry Sheehan of Goss Tire, which has five Vermont stores.
Aviva Markowitz, a Montpelier senior who is co-president of the school's Earth Group, isn't buying that. "Every year you go into the river and there's so many tires. You think, 'These tires are here again?!'"
Legislation calling for a tire deposit has been proposed for the last four years but has gone nowhere amid opposition from tire dealers.
Rep. Jon Anderson, D-Montpelier, who was appointed to the Legislature this year, has opted instead to pursue a $1 per tire fee when consumers buy new tires. Thirty states have a similar fee. The money would pay for tire amnesty days, when Vermonters could dump old tires for no charge.
"I believe the deposit bill would be more effective, but I don't think it has much of a chance of passing," Anderson said.
Tire dealers raised questions about how the deposit would work logistically if Vermont were the only state requiring manufacturers to emboss tires with a deposit.
The Montpelier High School Earth Group has thrown its support behind Anderson's new approach, in hopes that it will fare better than its predecessors, Markowitz said.
Tire retailers dislike the deposit more than the fee, but they worry that a fee will hurt business and be a management nightmare. "We are trying to work with them to try to come up with a solution," said Dick Cole, executive director of the New England Tire & Service Association. "We're in hopes there would not be a cost to the public."
Mounting tires
Cole and the tire dealers contend Vermont does not have a tire problem. Most tire dealers charge $2 or so per tire and consumers let the dealers take care of disposal, Cole said.
Haines and Tom Sabo, Montpelier High science teacher, who have supervised years of river cleanups at Montpelier High School, contend there is a problem. One year, two cleanups yielded 326 tires, Haines said. Last year, students hauled out 72, Sabo said. This year's take: 39 at Thursday's student cleanup and 63 at a Saturday community cleanup farther upriver.
"There is a problem," Haines said. "I don't know the answer."
The first tire the dealers examined at Thursday's cleanup was about 50 years old, Franklin said, which he said meant it probably had not been thrown into the river recently. Others in the first pile of tires were 4 and 12 years old.
Sabo said the dealers' argument that the tires are old doesn't hold water. Even if some of the tires were manufactured a decade or more ago, that doesn't indicate when the tires were sold, when they came off the vehicle or when they were tossed over the riverbank, he said.
The Winooski River isn't the only place where tires are dumped. At Green Up Day in May, volunteers around Chittenden County collected 1,754 tires, said Nancy Plunkett, waste reduction manager at the Chittenden Solid Waste District. That was just a month after a tire amnesty day brought in a record 4,905 tires, Plunkett said.
Aside from the twice-a-year amnesty days (including one in October), Chittenden Solid Waste District charges $2.75 a tire at dropoff centers, or $2.25 in Williston, where the tires are collected.
Not every solid waste district offers amnesty days. That's what Anderson hopes the $1 fee would help fund.
The state Agency of Natural Resources, which would manage the fee if Anderson's bill passes, has not taken a stand on the bill, but generally does not consider tires to be a particular problem, said Cathy Jamieson, solid waste program manager.
"We feel like they're being effectively managed," she said. "There's other solid waste priorities."