Radical and senseless

In response to Paul Hanson’s letter of Nov. 1, I believe some half-truths and misinformation must be addressed.

His minimizing of “radical environmentalists” is untrue. I live in a small town that was victimized by one of the more violent and radical of the groups, Earth First. In the spring of 1998, this group vandalized Lincoln Pulp and Paper. This “visit” and the resulting repair and clean-up cost the mill in the neighborhood of more than $100,000 in material and manpower. Along with the senseless acts of vandalism that had the potential for lost productivity and possibly severe injury to the workers and the protesters, mill traffic at the main gate was blocked and workers were prevented from entering or leaving their place of work. While this roadblock was in action, a woman who was attempting to get to work was assaulted.

Months later the group returned so one of its members could face charges of assault. Upon arriving in the town, the group was met by a large peaceful group of citizens who turned out in support of LP&P and to let the “activists” know that they were not welcomed and their presence would not be tolerated in their town.

This same group resurfaced again in Costigan the winter of the following year. This time they disrupted rail service and federal agents had to be dispatched to remove them. In June of that same year acts of vandalism were carried out in Orono. This time the victim of the attack was the agriculture department of the University of Maine. Among the acts of vandalism, a whole field of corn was destroyed. This field represented years of valuable research and was forever lost. In similar attacks, many poplar trees were destroyed because they were thought to be genetically engineered trees, but in fact were nothing more than hybrids that had naturally evolved.

The speech given by Dr. Patrick Moore to the Maine Pulp and Paper Association dealt head on with the issue of radical environmentalists in this state. This speech was very unlike others because the issues were handled without the usual “kid-glove” treatment.

The future of Maine will be full of many environmental entanglements and people such as Dr. Moore and Jonathan Carter will be part of that future. One group will inform and educate with reason and facts while the other will only offer us confrontation and discontent. Jeff Schick Lincoln