I note with both sadness and disappointment the decision to grant the zoning variances for the construction of an ethanol plant on former land of the Letterkenny Army Depot.

As unacceptable as the decision of the zoning commission is, I believe the true culprit in this whole question is the expedient choice of LIDA. This is a classic example of doing "anything" rather than doing the "right" thing. Permit me a moment to explain this statement.

In 1993, I was a senior member of the DESCOM staff when both Sacramento Army Depot (a sister electronics depot of Tobyhanna) and Tooele Army Depot (a truck depot with a mission very similar to Letterkenny) made the BRAC list. The actions of their RE-USE committees and their results are vastly different from LIDA's performance.

In the case of Sacramento Army Depot, their RE-USE committee was able to court the Hewlett Packard Corp. and not only enticed them to fall-in on the depots electronic facilities but also employ the vast majority of the workforce. A true "win-win" situation for the community.

In the case of Tooele, the RE-USE committee attempted to market a state-of-the-art $350 million truck rebuild facility. After unsuccessful attempts with FREIGHTLINER, OSHKOSH and other truck manufacturers, they finally landed a small aircraft-manufacturing firm that uses both the facilities and some of the mechanical maintenance workforce from Tooele depot. Not as successful as Sacramento but still an effort to use both the facilities and the skilled workforce.

This is the main point that LIDA has forgotten or never grasped in the first place.

A RE-USE committee has two tasks: The land/facilities and the skilled workforce!

What is LIDA's track record? Dismal can only describe its efforts and the ethanol initiative is the latest desperate attempt. Selling land to Gabler to park tractor-trailers does not help the 3,000 mechanical maintenance individuals who created the Paladin, and repaired/rebuilt a plethora of tracked and wheeled vehicles. How many of the mechanical maintenance positions are going to be filled with the ethanol proposal? I think the answer to that question is obvious.

Left to their own devices, I believe LIDA would seriously entertain contacting the Army and offering Letterkenny for a nerve agent incinerator plant. That way, dangerous war materials could be transported into our community for destruction. Or better yet, if LIDA could obtain the use of some of the ammunition storage bunkers, wouldn't it be great to use these bunkers for the long-term storage of spent nuclear material from the nation's reactors?

LIDA (both past and present) appears to me to be a group of folks who are in way over their heads in the mission to market Letterkenny and its capabilities. Not only have they shortchanged the mechanical maintenance workforce but now they are about to bamboozle the community with the introduction of a hazardous and most dangerous industry.

As the former commander of the U.S. Army's singular high explosives manufacturing facility (read chemical plant) in Kingsport, Tenn., I know firsthand of the potential disastrous situation created by the transportation by both road and rail of these most hazardous materials, not to mention the damage to the air quality of our lovely community.

I may be in the minority, but I much prefer the organic smell resulting from the efforts of my neighbor farmers when fertilizing to that of the chemical industry. My farmer neighbors do not possess the capability of killing me and my neighbors here in Presidential Heights due to the rupture of their manure trucks.

I recall Mr. Tarquino's characterization of the odor of the ethanol plant in Wisconsin during his Penn-Mar-sponsored trip: "Smells like baking bread." Well, Mr. Tarquino, I invite you to visit Kingsport, Tenn., and take a "whiff." We have an old saying in the Army: "Don't urinate down my back and tell me it is raining!"

Joseph A. Fields

Chambersburg

Colonel, Ordnance Corps

United States Army (Retired)

Originally published June 11, 2005