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LETTERS / Help The Children Near Location of Proposed Asphalt Plant

Dear Editor and Watauga County Residents,

There are over seven hundred students who attend both Two Rivers Community School and Parkway Elementary School. Both boys and girls. Smart, lively, excited, healthy, beautiful. Beautiful boys and girls. Children. Children that need protection, that need love, that need your assistance. They need your assistance now.

In fact, they might only need your assistance slightly more than our board of commissioners for the county.  For it seems that our board of commissioners might be in the position to put the profits of one business before the safety and well-being of children. Seven hundred of them. In addition they may be jeopardizing the safety and well-being of other residents in that area, the tourism industry, and the overall health of the land, the rivers, and the quality of life of Watauga County residents.

The proposed asphalt plant on 421 will be a source of toxic pollutants, known carcinogens and neurotoxins. It will be at the gateway of the county. It will drastically lower property values and attract other heavy use industries that have far reaching negative consequences to the environment, to the people, and yes, to the children. But you need to know, that right now, you live in a county that is being led by five individuals who are acting on YOUR behalf to decide whether or not a facility, that is known to release highly toxic and cancer causing pollutants into the air, will or will not be located two miles from two schools.

Two miles from over seven hundred children. Seven hundred children with the potential to do lots of things. Lots of wonderful and important things. Who have journeys ahead of them that will be hard enough without the constant onslaught of toxic and poisonous chemicals released into their environment by the proposed asphalt plant. Our job is to make those journeys easier. The commissioner’s jobs are to do the same.

Even if you don’t live near the proposed site of this facility, you live in THIS county. You live in a county that would have the ignorance, the moral and ethical failure, the lack of consistency of belief and faith to even consider endangering the health, the well-being, the futures of not just one child or one school, but two schools containing over seven hundred children. That to me speaks for itself and it calls into question what kind of people we are and by what ethics, morals and faith do we live by.

Join me and your fellow concerned citizens of Watauga County in making sure the County Commissioners fulfill their obligation of protecting the citizens and in doing what people of character should always do, put people first and protect the children. Come support people doing right and ask for a moratorium and public hearings, Tuesday, June 16 at 6 p.m. at the Courthouse and find out more at www.highcountrywatch.com.

Thank you,

David Stetter

Deep Gap, NC