The residents of Millsboro also share in the concerns of the Vlasic pickle plant closing and the lost jobs. However, the residents of Millsboro do not share your joy with Allen Harim wanting to slaughter 2 million birds a week and discharge into the tributaries of the Indian River.  Unlike both Sen. Hocker and Rep. Atkins, we do not believe it will benefit Millsboro residents and definitely not the air and water.

Furthermore, if you’ve ever driven the roads heading to Bethany Beach on a Friday afternoon, common sense would tell most that traffic is backed up now without an industrial plant with 700 employees. While you both have “studied plans,” our community was not given plans. As a matter of fact, Freedom of Information Act requests have been held in “legal review” since June and July by state agencies such as Department of Transportation, Delaware Economic Development Office and Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. We do remember the promises of transparency that went unfulfilled.

And although Vlasic Pickles is leaving to consolidate and its parent company Pinnacle Foods is purchasing Wishbone Salad Dressing for $580 million, we, the taxpayers of Millsboro and the state of Delaware have yet inherited another Brownfield site to cleanup with taxpayer dollars. No one told us living across the street on well water that Vlasic left contamination of carcinogens like chromium or VOCs. And this is in addition to the two Superfund sites and unsolved cancer cluster in our community now. We are done subsidizing pollution here.

While Sen. Hocker and Rep. Atkins think this will be a win-win for the economy and the environment, I make the argument that investing taxpayer dollars into funding an industrial slaughtering plant on the Indian River is shortsighted and further subsidizing pollution. In the list of impaired waterways of Delaware, 85 percent are not swimmable and 94 percent do not fully support fishing. Sen Hocker and Rep Atkins - this is not success! We wish to invest in Delaware’s economy and in the environment that has created growth in this county for the past two decades. We want greenfields rather than Brownfields. Stop waving the flag for South Korean Allen Harim and start representing the taxpayers who pay your salary.

Cindy Wilton

Millsboro

Protecting Our Indian River