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January 6th, 2012

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - Oyster Prices
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Letters to the Editor: TNR in Cedar Key
December 30th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - CK TNR
December 9th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - A Christmas Remembrance
December 9th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - Cedar Key T-N-R Legal Fund
December 8th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To The Editor - TRAP NEUTER AND HOARD?????
December 7th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To The Editor - Take a breath and put yourselves in the neighbor’s shoes
December 6th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - CK TNR
December 1st, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - CK TNR
November 30th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - CK TNR
November 29th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor - CK TNR
November 29th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Christmas South of #4
November 19th, 2011

Letters to the Editor: The Tarmac Mine
October 1st, 2011

Letters to the Editor: Letter To Editor
September 28th, 2011

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Another View of the Pulp Mill Pipeline

Another View of the Pulp Mill Pipeline

Letters to the Editor

November 14, 2005

Cedar Key News

Dear Editor:

Howard Drew from Buckeye Technologies has argued that their plan for improving Fenholloway water quality will be benefical to the coastal ocean environment, by reducing pollutants (especially water color and nutrients) that have historically caused problems like seagrass dieoffs off the Fenholloway mouth. Part of that plan is a pipeline that would carry their effluent to the Fenholloway estuary, bypassing about 23 miles of the river. Concern has been raised that by dumping into the estuary rather than into the river upstream, the polluted water might reach the ocean in greater amounts or higher concentrations.

Mr. Drew is right in his claim that the main pollutants of concern to us here in Cedar Key (color, nutrients) will not be increased through transport of them by pipeline rather than the Fenholloway River channel. Those pollutants are not significantly reduced or permanently stored by being passed along such a short river, so it really does not matter to amounts reaching the estuary whether those amounts get there through a pipeline or a river channel. It is Buckeye's treatment improvements at source that will make the difference, not how the remaining pollution gets moved to the ocean. A few things like biochemical oxygen demand may be a bit higher in the estuary than they would if there were no pipeline, but those things are not ones that should directly concern people here.

Cleaning up the Fenholloway could create some great riverfront land development opportunities for Buckeye, and you might wonder whether a polluter ought to be allowed to benefit that way from investments in cleanup, but we really do not have good grounds for complaining that they are going to make matters worse in the coastal environment.

Carl Walters

Professor of Fisheries

University of British Columbia

(and Cedar Key winter resident

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