Cosmo mill should not be reopened

On Thursday, Aug. 21 The Daily World ran a headline story about Cosmos Chairman Richard Bassett and the potential reopening of Cosmo Speciality Fibers operations. He was also challenging the hefty fines leveled by the Washington State Department of Ecology against the current leaking storage tanks and the steadily deteriorating equipment.

He did not believe these concerns were grounded and seems more concerned with his financial outcomes, potential job creations, and potential increased taxes for the city of Cosmopolis. There seems to be little to no concern for the overall well being of the river system, the well being of the aquatic life it supports or the health of the human inhabitants who live nearby, both up river down, nor the cumulative effects of the toxins leaking into the watershed before his time under the ownership of Weyerhaeuser.

In the summer of 1980, 45 years ago — let this sink in people — I participated in a Chehalis River sturgeon tagging study with the then Washington Department of Fisheries. The purpose of the study in tagging both green and white sturgeon, was to study migratory patterns along the coast and neighboring river systems. It was noted that those tagged resident sturgeon who were not migratory in nature, staying in the Chehalis River, had very ugly looking rectal tumors. The closer we were to the Cosi boat ramp/Weyerhaeuser discharge pipes, the more numerous the rectal tumors were and larger in size.

My question to Mr. Bassett and others who wish to reopen this plant with its failing infrastructure, is how much worse has this become over the last 45 years and how is it affecting, mostly unseen, other aquatic life in the area as well as Cosmopolis and Grays Harbor residents. In the interest of job creation and more money/financial gain for local economies, are we willing to sacrifice our health?

Mr. Bassett does not have to live here I’ll wager and suffer the consequences to potentially reopening this plant but I ask him and others who are like-minded souls, are you willing to pack around some rectal tumors for jobs and financial gain? How many other cancers are lurking out there that have yet to be found?

I for one do not want anything to happen here until all the Washington Department of Ecology’s identified issues are cleared up.

Alan Rammer

Aberdeen