(56th in a series on Martin Tower)
Martin Tower demolition May 19
www.martintowerbethlehem.com
Martin Tower demolition
Rough notes on the question period at the May 9 evening meeting
(time notation keyed to audio on Gadfly blog)
(doesn’t start quite at beginning)
Gadfly loves this stuff. Democracy. Public participation. Nitschmann auditorium decently populated by interested residents. Asking questions. Making comments.
The presentations at the 6pm meeting were virtually the same as at the 3pm meeting, so we don’t have to repeat them.
But here, except for 3-4 questioners at the beginning of the session is a complete record of the public participation period.
Listen to the whole proceeding. Use the “contents” below to browse to a specific section in which you are interested. Use the index at the end to find topics. Whatever. But Gadfly invites you to live or relive democracy in action.
1) work safety: pregnant woman asking if it’s safe to go to work at Lowe’s. Not if the dust blows in that direction. Do what you feel comfortable with.
2) Wind (1:45): will wind be measured on site? What will be the velocity on site at implosion time? No Anemometer on site. Higher velocity is better; dust gets quite dispersed. Wind not a factor.
3) long-term health problems (7:50): asking for Health Department statement on long-term health problems. Health director responds it’s ok.
4) Monocacy Creek (16:00): effect? Casilio has been there for years. Screens present prevent contamination.
5) air quality (19:30): distribution of small particulates? Will air be monitored before and after? Yes, testing before, during, and after, and checking of size. Will info be published? Yes.
6) cost (22:06): who pays? Not the City!
7) dust (23:00): how wide an area affected by particulate and how long? Worst-case scenario is calm day. What is dust made of? Sand and lime. How long does toxicity last? Been doing this for 18 months onsite and not toxic. How is it cleaned up? Sweep dry first, then water. Where disposing it? On site. Clean fill.
8) air quality (26:38): machines to clean air? masks? No.
9) decision factors for implosion (28:00): safety for workers and time.
10) responsibility (30:07): How many people here are elected representatives? Not enough consideration for citizen safety. If this goes bad, who is responsible? Demolition team.
11) air quality (32:20): why is our air quality so bad? Have anything to do with the 18 months of demolition work? No.
12: approvals (33:27): who approves? City and State. When? Friday, Monday. What chemicals in explosives? They go off as gas immediately on detonation. What’s the City permit? Demolition permit. Who approved remediation? Asbestos, EPA. Lead? No. Why not measure particulates? Jars will be analyzed. How made public? The independent firm? Vertex. How much water will be used? 3 cannons, several hundred gallons per minute. Water goes to inlets that have protection. How monitored? Screens will be monitored. Any way to know what the long-term impact is?
13: doing business (51:16): when can my customers with respiratory distress come back? Monday. If the dust blows toward you, we’ll clean it up. Pets? Keep inside if worried.
14): people with disabilities (53:52): can you get my son out of there for a day or two? Let’s talk.
15): I-Beam (55:59): what doing with it? will be onsite or in museum.
16) Monocacy (58:12): Is there no water testing and are alerts dependent on casual observers? Is there no pro-active, official monitoring? Protection is in place, and it is monitored to function properly. Not dependent on casual observers. Site will be actively monitored.
17) media (1:04:30): How is the “stay inside” message getting out for people who won’t see the last slide? City web site, newspapers, media, probably will be upped next week.
18) the clean-up (1:06:16): how do you clean up? contractor sweeps up.
19) asbestos (1:07:36): what about asbestos left? None, all gone.
20) work safety (1:10:08): what time do I need to get out of my house to go to work? satisfied
21) against questioners (1:12:25): you people are doing a good job, why grousing, nobody worried about Minsi bridge.
22) asbestos (1:14:42): was air quality tested when it was being cleaned out? Yes.
23) Why? (1:15:38): why did we want to blow this building up in the first place? Effect on the school we’re in? Safer than a carefully managed step-by-step demolition? Do you think the voters would have chosen this method?
24) photographic survey (1:21:08): Yes, also seismographs. Residents aren’t aware; talk to them.
25) infrastructure (1:24:45): this is a “done deal” – but looks to future, feels it will be worse. Traffic concerns. Mayor described past history and the public comment process at some length.
26) recycling (1:30:27): business closed on Monday? No. Recycling? Yes, steel and concrete. Reiterated the “done deal” now but wanted openness in future, so Mayor explained the process again.
27) Mayor’s conclusion (1:34:12)
28) affordable housing (1:34:55): Looking ahead, senior citizen asked for a portion of the site be affordable housing.
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Index
air quality: 5, 8, 11, 12
asbestos: 12, 19, 22
approvals: 12
awareness: 24
business: 13, 26
clean up: 18
cost: 6
decision factors: 9
dust: 7
future: 25, 26, 28
health, long-term: 3, 10, 12
home safety: 9
I-Beam: 15
media: 16
Monocacy Creek: 4, 12, 16
people with disabilities: 14
pets: 13
recycling: 26
seismograph: 24
why?: 23
wind: 2
work: 1, 20
Is it only me or do I detect a lot of passive voice constructions in the responses?
The passive voice is the perfect way to hide responsible parties and to me is a syntactic equivalent to the “I’m sorry you feel that way” style of apology.