Readers write

Buying local food would help our farmers, our diets

The recent article (“Recession slams state agriculture industry,” @issue, April 19) reports that commodity prices have fallen as much as 50 percent.

Georgia is caught up in a paradox. We produce plenty of food —- the state is No. 1 for chicken production, and sixth for overall vegetable production. Yet, of the $20 billion Georgians spend on food each year, $16 billion is going to out- of-state producers. Huge industrialized agricultural operations and global food distribution systems dominate the physical and political landscape of Georgia. The large-scale operations strain local economies, especially in rural Georgia, where state poverty rates are near the nation’s worst. And the poverty, in turn, perpetuates an unhealthy diet dependent on cheap, processed food. Buying from local sustainable farms would not only create a more healthy Georgia, it would also spur job creation across the state, empowering family farmers.

Alice Rolls, executive director of Georgia Organics

PSC needs to probe

It would be nice if the Public Service Commission would step up to the plate and investigate some of the sacred cows in the Georgia economy. The various state and local governments are having cutbacks in employment, as are a majority of the industries. The glaring exception is our electric utilities.

I had the singular pleasure of watching five Georgia Power linemen, complete with four monster trucks, install a power pole, replace a transformer and make power connections to two houses, all in the period of about two hours. Most of the time four linemen were standing around on the ground chatting while their buddy was in the cherry picker basket doing all the work.

With new home construction down, it seems reasonable for Georgia Power (and other electric utilities) to make some cutbacks in personnel and give customers a corresponding reduction in electricity cost.

Howard A. Stacy, Atlanta

State Assembly acted strongly to help businesses

The Georgia General Assembly voted this year to send a strong, unmistakable message to business leaders, entrepreneurs and site selectors around the globe: Georgia is open for business.

They closed a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall without creating new taxes and, more importantly, passed legislation to stimulate job creation and economic growth.

The legislation passed this year focused on providing employers direct incentives for job creation as well as additional tax reductions to free up capital for our state’s businesses.

Specifically, legislators passed bills that will provide tax incentives for hiring unemployed workers, repeal the state inventory tax, reduce regulatory fees and taxes on businesses, reduce capital gains taxes for businesses and individuals, and extend sales tax holidays on back-to-school items, as well as water- and energy-efficient products.

These actions should provide great encouragement to the nearly half a million Georgians who are currently out of work. In addition, at a time when government is still struggling to inject sufficient capital into the market, the proposed tax relief will provide businesses and investors more of their own money for economic investment and growth.

George Israel, President and CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce

CDC continues to stonewall crucial information

Thanks to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for informing people about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s refusal to release documents (“CDC sits on documents,” Metro, April 26). Knowledge of CDC’s resistance to transparency, and its tendency to circle the wagons, is essential to understanding the grave problems plaguing this agency.

Your article added a disturbing twist to what Washington, D.C., learned about CDC from our city’s 2001-04 water crisis. In March 2004, less than two months after the media uncovered that for 2 1/2 years our drinking water was contaminated with lead, CDC published a report claiming that no significant harm was done, even in the most vulnerable age groups: infants and toddlers. CDC’s report contradicted decades of scientific knowledge about the effects of leaded drinking water on the young, as well as individual cases of lead poisoning in Washington.

In 2009, a study in “Environmental Science & Technology” demonstrated that hundreds if not thousands of D.C. children experienced blood lead concentrations above CDC’s “level of concern” due to the 2001-04 contamination. The lead author of this study filed requests for the data behind CDC’s 2004 report more than three years ago. He’s still waiting.

It is unconscionable that CDC’s stonewalling of your reporters was accompanied by assessments of risk to the agency’s reputation if documents became public. Is this how the CDC spends its time and money when it receives inquiries for controversial agency records?

The only way CDC can redeem its reputation is by upholding the highest standards and answering questions —- not by hiding behind loopholes to cover up misdeeds.

Yanna Lambrinidou, president of Parents for Nontoxic Alternatives