Editor, Times-Union: To all Silver Lake area property and business owners: It is time for all of us to wake up concerning the future of our town and our waters.
Remaining quiet will guarantee further detrimental decisions made in favor of installation of CAFOs and stormwater drainage in our town. Under current government agencies and town board rules and decisions we are facing possible disaster. A confined animal feeding operation is being proposed one mile north of Silver Lake along Ind. 15.
IDEM is in charge of awarding permits and monitoring the operation if approved. IDEM sounds powerful but in reality is a total joke when it comes to actually “caring” about the environment. Looks good on paper but in reality does nothing but make matters worse. Reading an article in local papers last week concerning public meeting with IDEM at the Warsaw Library proves the point. Read about what Wawasee faced with IDEM in regards to putting in a CAFO within .8 miles from that lake.
Specialists were hired to check IDEM’s “facts” about an operation not affecting the environment. It was proven IDEM lies and that the CAFO proposed for Wawasee would in fact ruin Lake Wawasee in very short manor. Wawasee residents fought the IDEM and won. Our CAFO proposal is roughly .2 miles further from our lake and streams than Wawasee.
Setbacks for manure disposal is a joke as well. Really, IDEM, 100 and 300 feet from any water? And most don’t realize there is a proposal to allow manure, both liquid and solid, to be spread/applied zero feet from roadways and surface water and streams. If not careful that, too, will get passed and further risk our area waters. Twenty-one lakes in Kosciusko County are listed Class IV for contaminants and E-coli bacteria. Class V is the highest level. Silver Lake is on the list.
Very little more contaminants and our waters are useless. Add to the above the new storm water repair in town. Most along a major highway. Sand, gravel, salt, fertilizer and other debris will be entering the lake at a much higher level and faster flow rate. Our main inlet channel further becomes the state’s and town’s dumping ground.
And who’s responsible for cleaning up the lake and removing all the sedimentation brought in here by the storm sewers? Lake property owners. The “town” has nothing to do with the lake when it comes to the cost of caring for it. But they do seem to have the right (under law as in IDEM) to dump road waste into it from the storm water sewer lines.
Projects seem to be viewed while wearing blinders. Focus on point at hand and give no thought to what problems could arise due to a hasty decision, seems to be the way it is done. We’ll worry about future problems later as they arise rather than try to prevent them at the beginning. Simple installation of additional catch basins would have been nice, but evidentally were not “required”, since improvement was “replacing” damaged sections of sewers and no new areas being installed, according to a town board meeting.
This problem was addressed in a previous article, receiving numerous calls to the writer by other townspeople. It seemed rather “odd” that two days after that letter appeared in the papers, town employees were seen cleaning areas around two storm water catch basins along Pleasant Street. Not saying they cleaned out the inside of them, but cleaned debris up around the grating and added new stone. Coincidence this was already scheduled to be done after a letter to the editor appeared, or was it done to save grace after the fact? I tend to lean towards the latter of the two.
Improper planning by those in local, county and state government, “ IDEM” is slowly spelling disaster for this small Kosciusko County town.
