Water utility company looking for lead pipes to replace
There are still about 689,000 lead service lines in Pennsylvania, which are customer-owned pipes that connect a water main to a home. The Environmental Protection Agency is requiring water utilities across the state to create publicly available inventories by October that show whether customer service lines contain lead and copper. This effort will help meet our goal of removing all customer lead service lines.
Determining the material of your service lines is a huge undertaking, so we need your help. Customers can check and report the material of their service lines using our interactive map: pennsylvaniaamwater.com/leadfacts. If your line is made of lead, it will be replaced at no cost through our Lead Service Line Replacement Program.
While our company has no issues with lead service lines or lead levels in water, removing them is the right thing to do in the interest of the health and safety of our 2.3 million customers in Pennsylvania.
While we will continue to have the opportunity to identify service material over the next few years, I am asking Pennsylvania American Water customers to inspect and report their service line material before the EPA's first deadline. In 2023 alone, we replaced over 855 lead service lines, and we intend to double that number in 2024.
Justin Ladner
The author is president of Pennsylvania American Water, Mechanicsburg.
Biden and Harris should answer media questions
There is only one presidential candidate who has been president of the United States: Donald J. Trump. Press conferences are very important in determining the position of new candidates. A press conference is an unpredictable back and forth of all the media questioning the proposed president. A press conference allows the press to ask questions that the candidates are unaware of. There are no teleprompters. So far I have only seen one candidate do this. He was our president and always allowed members of the press to ask questions. Our current president, Joe Biden, did this so rarely that I wondered why. Joe Biden's vice president has not held a press conference in front of the press corps since she became a presidential candidate. I see Joe Biden stepping before the press, making a statement and not answering a single question. This is concerning. I have never seen the vice president stand before the press and be asked questions for a full press conference. The vice president has only accepted a debate. Not good
John Reilly
North Whitehall Parish
Trump is alienating voters, causing him losses in 2020 and 2024
During the 2020 election campaign, I noticed that several yards promoting lower-district Republican candidates in Slate Belt communities did not have a sign for Donald Trump. While Trump publicly claimed voter fraud (“the big lie”), his own investigator, Ken Block, found in November 2020 that 2 to 3 percent of Republicans voted for Republicans but not for Trump.
Four years later, Trump, who has been criminally convicted of falsifying business records and found guilty of sexual assault in a civil case, is the standard-bearer of the Republican Party. Republican politicians in Washington are all behind him. In today's Republican Party, you either have to fall in line or face not being re-elected. Take Nikki Haley, who said a second Trump presidency would mean constant chaos but now fully supports him.
The advisers who kept Trump's worst instincts in check, like James Mattis, John Bolton, John Kelly and Ty Cobb, are gone. If he is elected, people like fellow inmates Roger Stone and Steve Bannon could replace them and implement Project 2025's vision. Many of Trump's associates and vice presidential candidate JD Vance are associated with Project 2025.
If someone shows you who he is, believe him. In the coming months, even more voters will turn away from Mr. Trump.
Daniel Moore
Plainfield Township
Hamas could end the war in Gaza by surrendering
A recent edition of Your View argued for a ceasefire in Gaza, which could be achieved immediately if the terrorist aggressors, Hamas – which began the war with a brutal attack on Israel on October 7, in which it itself raped, burned, beheaded and murdered over 1,200 innocent civilians and took 250 innocents hostage – did what Germany and Japan did in 1945: surrender and release the hostages. Hostilities would end immediately. Instead, Hamas is deliberately sacrificing innocent Gazans, using them as human shields, while Israel is doing more than any other country in history to avoid civilian casualties. The result is the lowest ratio of civilians killed to combatants killed in any previous war, according to experts such as Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and American Major John Spencer, an expert in urban warfare.
There was a ceasefire on October 6. Israel cannot return to a ceasefire that promises another one on October 7. Hamas wanted war. It got it. It can end it. Anyone who cares about the innocent people of Gaza and really wants this war to end should call on Hamas to surrender immediately.
Elaine Langer
South Whitehall Parish
Trump's great success? Americans' trust in the government shaken
A July 28 New York Times op-ed criticized Donald Trump's lies about his tenure as president. Using real statistics, the article showed the following:
* Under Trump, job growth was lower than under Joe Biden.
* In 2024, there will be 2 million more jobs than workers, refuting Trump's claim that immigrants are taking Americans' jobs. In fact, the U.S. needs more workers, not fewer.
* Under Trump, the federal deficit grew, helped by his tax cuts for the rich.
* Crime has declined since Biden took office.
Although Trump failed to follow through on many of his promises as president, perhaps his most damaging “accomplishment” was poisoning Americans' faith in our government. There are now doubts that our elections are fair, that our once-lauded Supreme Court issues unbiased opinions, that our Justice Department bases its actions on the law rather than outside influences, and that our members of Congress are working in our interests to pass meaningful legislation. And despite Trump's claim that he wants to unite us, we are more divided than ever.
Marianne Phillips
Allentown
“Never buy anything from a man who sells fear”
A very wise man once told me, “Never buy anything from a man who sells fear.” Good advice when deciding who to vote for in November.
Robert Bauer
Bethlehem
The Morning Call encourages community dialogue on important issues. Send a letter to the editor at [email protected].
Comments are closed.