By Richard Romano, M.D. As an emergency room physician serving our local region for 30 years and a Hardwick resident, I would like to strongly object to Casella Waste Systems exploiting Emergency Medical Services to promote siting a regional landfill in our community.
This promotion is both deceptive and hypocritical, typical of Casella’s tactics. The likelihood of landfill revenues providing enough resources for EMS equipment and staffing for a town of Hardwick’s geographic size and population is nil.
These are not the old days of “scoop and run” ambulance services, staffed intermittently with local, well meaning volunteers. EMS staff in this day and age, are highly trained full time professionals running state of the art equipment with extremely rapid response times. They can perform life-saving procedures in the field on levels previously reserved for emergency rooms. That Casella Waste can mislead our town into believing that Hardwick can fund and maintain such a professional service exploits the fears we all have regarding medical emergencies. The logistics and cost of a town wide EMS in Hardwick would lead to a bloated budget and expanded government, leaving the local taxpayer holding the bag going forward.
Furthermore, that Casella Waste is concerned about our health is the height of hypocrisy. The leaking landfill in Bethleham, NH has put the carcinogen 1,4 dioxane into the groundwater. If that occurs in Hardwick, the Ware public water supply would be impacted as well as resident wells. Additionally, the risk of massive semi trucks carrying waste on our local town’s narrow backroads risk driver and pedestrian safety.
The shared highly professional EMS squads of Ware, Barre and West Brookfield remain our best option for our rural community. All things considered, as a physician committed to our community, keeping Casella Waste off our water sources and backroads is the healthiest choice we can make. Shame on Casella Waste for exploiting our health concerns,
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