I read in Public Opinion recently that the air quality in Franklin County is bad. People with emphysema, asthma and other health problems are supposed to stay indoors.

Chambersburg Area School District has land where children go to school less than a half mile from where the Penn-Mar ethanol distillery is proposed to be built. What do you think is going to happen if that plant goes in? Our children and loved ones, caretakers, parents, elderly people in Franklin County would be exposed to tons of particles of air pollution each year.

It's not only a problem for Greene and Letterkenny Township residents, but it's a Franklin County problem.

I wish the people in Franklin County would wise up. Chambersburg Area School District will have 200 acres at Letterkenny Army Depot that they could have built on. The United States government has already spent millions of dollars of our tax money to clean up the depot land. People on the outside of the depot had wells that were contaminated. All this was taken care of by the U.S. government.

Where does the government get their money — from the U.S. taxpayers? Franklin County, and especially the Chambersburg school district's children, loved ones and the caretakers teaching our children — their health would be at risk from the pollution from the ethanol plant. Do you honestly think 35 jobs would be worth it? I, personally, don't.

(Consider) not only the hazardous products that would be stored up there, but all the water that would be used — 800,000 gallons every day. Hamilton Township's Bear Valley Water Authority has a problem right now.

Why would we want to bring this kind of stuff into our area? A few years back, they wanted to dump sludge at the depot. They investigated and found that would have affected the water table all the way to Mercersburg and beyond.

The ethanol people say their waste will not harm the water table, our elderly, our children. What's going to happen to all of those prisoners up there where the prison is being built? Who is going to evacuate? Who is going to bear the cost? Who is going to take care of the elderly? Who is going to take care of the children?

We complain about the traffic today — how will 200 more truck trips per day impact our roads? There are lots of unanswered questions, and I don't like the idea at all.

Having that ethanol distillery come here would be terrible. Franklin County lies between two mountain ranges and it is nothing but a valley. The air and water pollution is going to go to Hagerstown, Md., and beyond. Stop the ethanol plant now, folks, before it's too late. I am asking you for your consideration for our children's sake.

Dave Sciamanna serves on both the Letterkenny Industrial Development Authority and school district boards. In the mid-1990s he wrote that, in his opinion, the jobs being lost at Letterkenny due to Base Realignment Closure '95 would not hurt the local economy. Now he thinks 35 mid-level jobs will make a big difference.

The BRAC'ed employees had to drive to Mechanicsburg and New Cumberland and pay the high price for gas. They needed a job and they wanted to finish out their careers. Not Dave, he works here in Chambersburg. He doesn't have to travel those distances or live near the proposed ethanol distillery site.