While happy with much of what Rogers Worthington wrote about me in “Activist in O’Hare battle not deterred by long odds” (Metro, Dec. 11), I wasn’t surprised that some of my critics accused me of hyperbole when I wrote in a letter to President Clinton, “If the airport pollution was calculated correctly, I believe O’Hare Airport is probably one of the largest, if not the largest, single man-made source polluters in the world.”
What surprised me was that just paragraphs later, an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency official pretty much confirmed what I stated–that they are not counting O’Hare pollution completely.
First, O’Hare officials are not required to report all of their pollution. Second, aircraft and ground pollution does not stop at airport boundaries, as was alluded to. Third, no one ever accused the Natural Resources Defense Council of hyperbole when they disclosed this problem in a published report last year.
The millions affected by O’Hare pollution have a right to know just how much, the variety of it and how it harms them and their family’s health. Then they can make informed decisions. The O’Hare issue is not a political issue but a human-rights issue.
