79 - OQ « VQ << UR Ce CALL IN NEWS.....to Hazel Baker [Marietta] 426-3643 Cherie Dillow [Mount Joy] 653-1609 The Susquehanna Times 426-2212 or 653-8383 SUSQUEHANNA TIMES Susquehanna Times & The Mount Joy Bulletin Vol. 79, Neo. 33, August 22, 1979 Zelda Heisey tells why she opposes Creekside Promoters of Creekside, proposed subsidized apart- ment complex in Mount Joy for low income families, faced fierce opposition from local residents last Wednes- day evening at Beahm Junior High School. The promoters had pre- sented their plans to a silent and attentive audience and stated that 220 families in Mount Joy had incomes low enough to qualify them as tenants in Creekside, and that nearby industries could employ the Creekside ten- ants. But as soon as the floor was open to questions from the audience, trouble began for the promoters. It was revealed that the estimate of 220 eligible families in Mount Joy had been based on the last census in 1970, when dollar incomes were much lower than now. It was further revealed that local residents would not be given any priority as tenants. Moreover, a member of the audience said he had made a check of nearby industries and had found no job openings. The promoters’s present- ation was generally con- demned by members of the audienve as ‘‘invalid.”’ Much of the opposition to Creekside is based on possible concrete problems that might arise if the project is built: 1.) crowding schools, 2.)increased crime and consequently increased policing, 3.) overburdened sewage and water capaci- ties, 4.) higher taxes, 5.) increased unemployment during a likely recession, and 6.) no proven local need for the project. It was apparent, however, last week, in the emotional tones of the speakers, that something more than these specific worries was at stake. Several speakers made clear that they felt their fundamental way of life was endangered by the idea of the Creekside project. One of the speakers from the audience who was opposing a principle as well ' ‘as concrete, problems was Zelda Heisey. Visited in her home by the Susquehanna Times, she told this paper that she was opposed to the basic philosphy which underlies the Creekside project. She had made clear at the meeting that she was opposed to renting an apartment for $592, $230 of which would be paid by the tenant, the other $362 by the federal government, which, she had said, ‘‘means that I and you and you and you will be paying that $362.” With each ‘‘you’” she had pointed her finger at different individual mem- bers of the audience. In her home she told how her husband Daniel Dourte Heisey had been out of work 19 years ago. He refused to apply for unemployment insurance, because he had said he wouldn’t be able to keep his self-respect and not earn his family’s keep. Likewise he had refused the offer of his landlord, who was also his father-in-law, of having his house rent-free until he could find steady employ- ment, for the same reason that he could not accept unemployment insurance. He took any kind of jobs he could find: construction work, washing dishes, anything rather than a hand-out. Zelda took a job as janitor in’ a laundry to help pay the bills. “I'm worried,”” Zelda says, ‘‘about all these give-away programs... don’t think we should have to pay half a guy’s rent, because he doesn’t want to earn it himself.”’ There is another funda- mental reason why Zelda is opposed to the Creekside project. Laing Properties, which frankly states that it expects to make a profit from the operation, is a British owned’ company. “It sickens me, the way foreign companies are buying up U.S. farmland and banks. Next they’ll be buying the schools. “I love this country and the freedom we have. So— I'm a flag-waver. [continued on page 2] MARIETTA & MOUNT JOY, PA. Trooper Romaine Engle Trooper Engle enjoys helping the public When Romaine Engle was first starting out as a state trooper she was asked by an older officer whether she would shoot her gun in a situation that demanded it. ““I would shoot, if it was his life or mine,’’ she said, “but then I’d probably run up to him and do everything I could to save his life.”’ Trooper Romaine Engle was a nurse before she was a trooper in the Pennsylvan- ia State Police, and when she retires as a policewo- man, she may go back to nursing. “I'd rather talk my way out of a situation than shoot my way out,”’ she says. But there it is, that gun on her hip, if she ever needs it. She told the Girl Scouts in Sico Park a couple weeks ago that she had only drawn her gun once so far in her career, and she’s been a trooper ‘since 1972, station- ed with Troop J on the Lincoln Highway east of Lancaster. The time she Irew her gun she was entering a burglarized warehouse a- lone and pulled it as she went through an opened door. She says that some troopers retire after 30 years service without ever having had to draw. Romaine, who comes from Hummelstown, did not like to hunt or shoot as a girl. She played basketball in high school, but she was not an avid athlete. Present- ly, she plays tennis, swims, hikes, and likes to garden. “l have a green thumb,” she says matter-of-factly, without conceit. For five years Trooper Engle was on patrol. As a woman officer her authority was never questioned by men. But some women were insolent. Other women were enthusiastic about being stopped by a lady trooper, and congratulated her, saying, ‘‘That’s the way to go!”’ Trooper Engle was among the first group of women to be selected for service in the State Police. No longer on patrol, she now conducts all sorts of classes for students and adults, teaching safety, driving, first aid, self-de- fense, cardiac pulmonary resuscitation. She enjoys working with kids. ‘‘If I can reach one kid, I feel I have done my job.‘ One of the most satisfying things that has ever happened to her was to have a girl she had arrested come [continued on page 2] FIFTEEN CENTS Anti-nuclear group formed in Marietta At least fifty people attended an anti-nuclear ‘“forum’’ at Marietta’s Com- munity House last week. After the meeting, signa- tures were collected as a first step toward forming a Marietta-based anti-nuclear organization. The meeting featured brief lectures by four experts on the shortcomings of nuclear power. Dr. Richard Fluck, asst. professor of biology at F&M, explained that scien- tists are unable to predict what the effects of low-level radiation on human health will be. Not enough data has been collected, yet, to predict how many cancers, for example, result from a given exposure to low-level radiation. With respect to Epicor II (the water treatment system recently built by Met Ed) I think you should know exactly what the risks are,” Dr. Fluck said. ‘‘Unfor- tunately, no one can really answer that question. “The government says that all releases will be within the federal guide- lines,’’ he continued. ‘‘How do government agencies arrive at those guidelines? They use a cost-benefit ratio. An increase in cancer and mutation will occur, but it will be a small increase— so small that we may never be able to measure it. The alternative, to store the water, costs too much. They are willing to make that trade-off.”’ During the question and answer period, Dr. Fluck was asked question after question about the health effects of the TMI accident. ‘““We just don’t know,”’ he repeated, many times. At one point he added, ‘“We don’t know what cancer is. A lot of things connected with nuclear physics are very poorly understood.’’ Mark Widoff, the former state consumer advocate, said that he had begun opposing nuclear power before the TMI accident. “I decided that it was safe, but a bad bargain for the consumer,””” he said. ‘I. believe that, eventually, people will refuse to invest in nuclear power, because it’s too darn expensive.”’ Because the laws of physics make electric power the most expensive source of ready energy, ‘‘elec- tricity, which is only one eighth of our national energy use, is produced by burning one third of all fuel,”” Mr. Widoff said. ‘Electric heat is more expensive than burning fuel in your home. Always has been; always will be. The utilities thought they could repeal this law of physics by going nuclear,” Widoff said. ‘‘Only it didn’t work out that way.” Unexpected safety prob- lems, increases in the cost of uranium, and equipment that wears out more rapidly than predicted made nuclear plants so surprisingly ex- pensivve, that the industry has virtually ground to a halt in the United States. The industry is trying to stay alive by selling over- seas,”” Mr. Widoff said, “but the marketplace is going to put an end to this headlong rush to nuclear power plants.”’ ‘‘Meanwhile, who's pick- ing up the tab? The taxpayer. We’re going to be paying for these nuclear dinosaurs for hundreds of years. Long after the last plant has been decommis- sioned, we'll still be paying someone to try to clean up the mess.” The TMI plant, Widoff said, was much more efficient than most, before the accident. ‘‘Most plants operate at SO per cent of capacity, but TMI was steaming along at 75 to 80 per cent. It was only after the accident that we learned Another speaker, social activist Betty Tompkins, talked about the dangers of uranium mining, and the how they were achieving that efficiency—what games they were playing with our health and safety, what chances they were taking.’’ - [continued on page 2]
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers