(A News and Sentinel Op-Ed - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

I’m writing this week to make a quick correction to a piece of mine that was published in the News and Sentinel last weekend and to discuss a few other subjects. In my piece last weekend, I mistakenly referred to 900 households or “units” in Parkersburg, for which the city has tentatively agreed to pay Ohio company Rumpke for contracted recycling services if this number or fewer units participate in an optional recycling program, as being 0.69% or 0.75% of a possible 12,000 to 13,000 household participants.

As I’m sure many noticed, I mistakenly typed calculator results without moving my decimal point. It was an embarrassing oversight that I feel compelled to correct. The figures obviously should have read 6.9% or 7.5%. I think it’s entirely plausible that these low numbers represent the to-be-expected participation rate in a program structured like the one the city has worked out with Rumpke, though a vote on the first reading of an ordinance ratifying this or an amended proposed recycling contract will not take place until Feb. 10.

A vote on the final reading of the ordinance ratifying the trash collection contract the city has proposed with Waste Management will have taken place on Tuesday, Jan. 13, prior to this piece’s publication. I’m hoping the city will have taken the advice of former City Councilman Jeff Fox and considered Jeff’s proposal, which Jeff submitted to all councilpersons, that would keep both trash and recycling collection with the city’s sanitation department, while raising wages for 22 (a slight reduction from the current 25) sanitation employees to $25 per hour for CDL drivers, $18 per hour for ground workers and a salary of $58,000 annually for department management. I have yet to see the math and overall feasibility of Jeff’s proposal successfully refuted.

I’d also like to discuss the headline of a news report published in the News & Sentinel on Jan. 12 that read “Protesters meltdown over Trump, ICE in Vienna, Marietta.” The report offered coverage of two protest events held last Saturday and Sunday in Vienna and Marietta, respectively, wherein demonstrators spoke out against the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, MN by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent and other human rights abuses by ICE, as well as the illegal invasion of Venezuela and deposing of the sovereign nation’s leader by the Trump regime.

I attended the Vienna demonstration and personally know many of those who attended the Marietta demonstration and I can assure you that no demonstrators had a “meltdown.” The only behavior one could equate with hysterics was that exhibited by a few passers-by in traffic.

I understand that this headline was intended as a play on words with “ICE,” but myself and other participants found it wildly inappropriate. I do, however, consider WTAP’s coverage of the event in Vienna fair and accurate reporting and appreciate that reporter’s time spent with participants.

Lastly, while I appreciate the work the city is doing to drain, clean and dredge the City Park pond–making the pond deeper while protecting the pond’s viability over the long term and simultaneously working to address stormwater issues near the pond and at the corner of Park Avenue and 23rd Street–it is my understanding that the fish in the pond were not relocated during this process. The city has stated that under state code, neither the city nor the Division of Natural Resources has authority to relocate fish from the pond during these efforts.

I love fishing and have since I was a kid and I understand that this is a catch and release pond where the fish are stocked there for this purpose but I find this barbaric. Surely some entity is permitted by state code to relocate fish when this kind of maintenance is undertaken. Or surely the fish could have been gathered up and released in the Little Kanawha or Ohio Rivers and the pond restocked entirely when the maintenance is completed.

Choices of words in headlines matter. Decisions regarding living creatures matter. Recycling matters and is a crucial part of managing our waste streams that should not be penalized with costly pay-to-play schemes but should be incentivized and encouraged and even rewarded. Municipal trash collection is a core civic service that shouldn’t be farmed out to a profit-motivated private entity because a municipality doesn’t want to effectively deal with personnel compensation issues. We can and must do better.

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Eric Engle is a resident of Parkersburg.