Garbage

WASHINGTON - On July 25, at a hearing of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee (the same folks who grill corporate executives), the nation found out how little real science there is about global warming. The hearing was prompted by the discovery that federal scientists were using computer models that they knew could not replicate U.S. temperatures. They appeared in two landmark documents that have served as the basis for very expensive and intrusive energy legislation. What came out of the hearing has people asking whether the same problems affecting Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, etc., are now troubling environmental science.

A CSX train carrying trash from upstate New York derailed Friday evening in Lansdowne, Baltimore County officials said. No injuries were reported, and police said the train was not carrying hazardous materials. "No injuries, no fire, no hazmat," said Cpl. Cathy Batton, a county police spokeswoman. Ten railcars left the tracks about 8 p.m., with four landing on their sides, CSX spokesman Gary Sease said. The derailment occurred on tracks that parallel Hammonds Ferry Road near Elizabeth Avenue.

Boston -- Dennis Reed makes me want to cheer and sigh in the same breath. He's the principal in Tampa, Florida, who's been hitting the papers with his crusade to clean up the language of his students. He put every obscenity coming from the mouths of babes at Dickenson Elementary on a poster and took it around to parents for X-rated show and tell.Go Dennis! But oh, how I wish you weren't news. There was a time, not too long ago, when you could have put that energy into the curriculum.Something else deepens my sigh as I talk on the phone with this 57-year-old gentleman who sounds like a Southern Mr. Chips: guilt.

Spring cleaning has taken on a new aspect in Harford County in recent years, as volunteers take on the of picking up litter. The recent Earth Day-oriented Susquehanna River Sweep is one such event. A few weeks before that there was a cleanup along Otter Point Creek in Edgewood, which, like River Sweep, is an annual happening. This also is the time of year when, likely as not, smaller groups of volunteers will coordinate cleanup days along their adopted sections of county and state roadways.

A friend of mine, who knows more about these things than I do, corrects me when the subject of global warming enters the conversation. The correct term, she reminds me, "is climate change. " The bottom line is scientists who study the weather are pretty much in agreement that the cumulative effect of decades of air pollution will be to change weather patterns over the long haul. They've come up with evidence that it's pretty much started, as several of the hottest years since records started being kept have been in the last 10 years.

Is Howard County on its way to a "pay-as-you-throw" fee system of garbage disposal?County Executive Charles Ecker has asked the local Solid Waste Funding Assessment Board to recommend a disposal financing plan by Sept. 1, and it might well include a plan whereby residents would have to pay for the removal of their nonrecyclable trash that exceeds a stated limit. Under the present arrangement, the cost of disposal per Howard household comes to about $120 a year and is covered by income and property taxes.

A storm drain blew up after filling with water from a nearby water main break on top of mounds of garbage on Montpelier Street in Waverly Wednesday, a public works spokesman said. The garbage "explosion" happened when a water main break in the 3100 block of Ellerslie Avenue caused a waterline to a house to break, sending water into storm drains, said Kurt Kocher, a DPW spokesman. When the water ran into the storm drain on Montpelier Street, the storm drain was already filled with garbage, causing the storm drain to overflow — leaving a "hole" in the street, Kocher said.

Here's something you won't see very often: a state agency that's positively gleeful over cutting a basic service. Beginning this month, Maryland's Department of Natural Resources got rid of all the trash barrels in the day-use areas of state parks and told 7.5 million park users they have to clean up their own mess. Far from treating this as a gloom-and-doom budget cut, the DNR is heralding a grand new era of cleaner parks and environmental activism.Skeptical? So were we. No way, we thought, are people going to haul home a bag of smelly garbage after a long day at Sandy Point State Park.

In the mid- to late-1990s, Scottish singer Shirley Manson and her Wisconsin-based band Garbage were alt-rock darlings, MTV rotation regulars, platinum chart-toppers and a band that had little problem selling out headlining tours. The rush of success that came with two massively popular albums - 1995's self-titled debut (featuring "Stupid Girl") and 1998's follow-up "Version 2.0" (featuring "I Think I'm Paranoid") - raised the band's profile and the expectations of Garbage's record label, Interscope.

Successfully dealing with waste has been a hallmark of successful governments since human settlements evolved into cities. Rome may be remembered for its debauched emperors, but it's also remembered for its aqueducts and related sewage and garbage disposal public works structure. It's a defining characteristic of humanity that we have special places where we dispose of waste. Archaeologists call the ancient waste disposal mound sites middens, and they're regarded as valuable sources of information about how ancient people lived.

In the mid- to late-1990s, Scottish singer Shirley Manson and her Wisconsin-based band Garbage were alt-rock darlings, MTV rotation regulars, platinum chart-toppers and a band that had little problem selling out headlining tours. The rush of success that came with two massively popular albums - 1995's self-titled debut (featuring "Stupid Girl") and 1998's follow-up "Version 2.0" (featuring "I Think I'm Paranoid") - raised the band's profile and the expectations of Garbage's record label, Interscope.

Leslie is appalled by the lack of gender diversity in Pawnee government. She brings it up with Chris and he agrees to go along with her Equal Gender Employment Commission idea. He puts out a memo asking each department to send a representative and is genuinely dismayed when all the people sent to the meeting are men. I loved the look of wonder and contrition as he realized, "I'm part of the problem. " Particularly problematic in terms of women hires is the Sanitation Department. Leslie points this out and the department representatives spout the "Well, it's a physically demanding job, and if a woman could do it...

Can someone loan Ken Ulman a shirt he can wear to pick up another county's garbage? Don't everyone line up at once. After his bet on Sunday's Ravens game went sour, the Howard County executive has to make good on what he promised Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker. Sometime this week Ulman must put on a Robert Lee Griffin III jersey and wear it to pick up roadside trash in  Redskins terriotory while singing the team song. "All my Redskin fan friends are coming out of the woodwork today, giving me a hard time.," Ulman said in a video he posted Monday on You Tube.

Successfully dealing with waste has been a hallmark of successful governments since human settlements evolved into cities. Rome may be remembered for its debauched emperors, but it's also remembered for its aqueducts and related sewage and garbage disposal public works structure. It's a defining characteristic of humanity that we have special places where we dispose of waste. Archaeologists call the ancient waste disposal mound sites middens, and they're regarded as valuable sources of information about how ancient people lived.

A three-man team of trash men worked Tyler Avenue in Annapolis as if elegantly choreographed. The truck rolled ever forward as two men tumbled the ripe contents of can after can into the compactor, darting across the street, then stepping effortlessly onto the back of the truck for yet another block of smelly, sweaty work. "Don't let no one tell you it's not hard work," sanitation employee Joe Wallace said recently, resting his hands on his knees and swallowing gulps of hot summer air. "We're just trying to get done so we can get home.

Disturbingly, come the morning of April 21, a swarm of volunteers will have no trouble filling bag after bag with garbage collected from the banks of the Susquehanna River from the Conowingo Dam downriver to the mouth at Havre de Grace and Perryville. It's disturbing because last year a substantial amount of garbage was collected from the same river banks. And the year before that, going back quite a few years at this point. The plan is for volunteers to meet in Tydings Park in Havre de Grace, Community Park and Marina Park in Perryville, Marina Park and Octoraro Creek in Port Deposit and on Garrett Island starting at 8:30 a.m. on the 21st, a Saturday, and fan out to clean up the land along the river.

Can someone loan Ken Ulman a shirt he can wear to pick up another county's garbage? Don't everyone line up at once. After his bet on Sunday's Ravens game went sour, the Howard County executive has to make good on what he promised Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker. Sometime this week Ulman must put on a Robert Lee Griffin III jersey and wear it to pick up roadside trash in  Redskins terriotory while singing the team song. "All my Redskin fan friends are coming out of the woodwork today, giving me a hard time.," Ulman said in a video he posted Monday on You Tube.

Editor's note: A resourceful girl wages a successful battle against waste. "Jo, take out the garbage!" my mom would often shout. Pretending not to hear, I'd mutter, "It can take itself out." Our house had tons of garbage: cans and bottles, plastic bags, bones and boxes, broken toys and loads of dirty rags. I never gave the trash a thought, but make more than I should: I threw away all kinds of things that really were still good. But one night I was startled by a messy mystery -- when I was slow to take the trash, the garbage took out me!

A friend of mine, who knows more about these things than I do, corrects me when the subject of global warming enters the conversation. The correct term, she reminds me, "is climate change. " The bottom line is scientists who study the weather are pretty much in agreement that the cumulative effect of decades of air pollution will be to change weather patterns over the long haul. They've come up with evidence that it's pretty much started, as several of the hottest years since records started being kept have been in the last 10 years.

Landfills, waste incinerators, sewage treatment plants, airports and any number of other industrial strength operations that feature loud noises, strong smells and other unseemly characteristics have two key things in common: everyone agrees they're needed, and everyone agrees they should be somewhere else. For a proposed trash transfer station in the works for Harford County, somewhere else for everyone except people living near the intersection of Routes 7 and 152 in Joppa is the site once known as Coleman Plecker's World of Golf.