Written/Posted by Drew Magill June 13, 2024 Take a dying coal town with hundreds of unemployed miners, thousands of acres of abandoned mine lands and all the streams polluted by acid mine drainage. Have a self serving chamber of commerce form an economic development...
Michael Sauers April 8,2024 Part 2 The scenarios painted in Part 1 were not unique to Hazleton. No, these same disastrous and ill-fated economic development plans, along with coal mining, plagued all of Northeastern Pennsylvania. While the names changed the results...
Part 1 Michael Sauers April 6,2024 In April of 1990 I helped organize an "Earth Day" celebration unlike any the greater Hazleton area had ever experienced. Community groups and individuals put together an educational event that covered scores of environmental topics....
Posted by Michael Sauers on December 10, 2023 Letter to Editor, March, 2011 Corporate welfare has been and continues to be abusive whether on the state or federal level. It has taken many billions of dollars away from initiatives that would benefit a majority of...
July 12, 2023 Michael Sauers Why do we support an economic system that produces enormous amounts of waste from beginning to end? Why do we support an economic system that pollutes air, water and soil? Why do we support an economic system that pits people against...
A Public Dialogue Is Necessary June 8, 2023 Michael Sauers Recently, I was invited to attend a public meeting regarding the proposed Encina Plastics Recycling proposal. Encina, a Texas based company, is proposing to build a chemical process (pyrolysis) plastic...
Mike Sauers May 14, 2023 Decades ago the fossil fuel industry convinced the world that extracted coal, oil and gas were the supreme sources of energy. They knew at that time how dirty and polluting these energy sources were/are but they assured us that the positives...
April 25, 2023 Michael Sauers As if acid mine drainage, industrial production effluent, subpar sewage treatment plants and helter-skelter residential development aren't enough, our streams and rivers now have a new source of pollution. According to American Rivers the...
Mike Sauers February, 5 2023 The article that recently appeared in the Hazleton Standard-Speaker, (1-16-23) entitled, Report: Cancer cases in region top US rates, was deja vu for those with attentive minds and tenacious memories. It is enraging, horrible and...
Mike Sauers January 25, 2023 The following is an opinion piece that recently appeared in The Sunbury Daily Item. It was written by Karen Feridun who is a co-founder of the Better Path Coalition and an organizer of the Pennsylvania Climate Convergence. Last summer, the...
This letter appeared recently in the Hazleton Standard Speaker. Editor: Local conservationists have recently received some unaccustomed good news. On the global level the Inflation Reduction Act provides substantial funding to combat climate change. On the national...
Mike Sauers May 30, 2022 In the 1967 movie, The Graduate, the main character, Ben, receives a one word piece of advice from a friendly businessman. That word was "plastic". The plasticity of plastic enables it to be formed into endless configurations. They are light,...