From: Emily Cook
Green Party of New Jersey
Mercer County

Every day it is becoming more and more difficult to breathe in Mercer County yet the Board of Chosen Freeholders continues to gamble with our lungs. As far back as 1996, the EPA determined New Jerseyans were breathing levels of air toxins that exceed the health goals of the Clean Air Act by 1600 times. But the Freeholders in Mercer seem to be indifferent to this issue, having shown neither backbone fighting the incinerator project of several years ago nor stridence when it came to objecting to the expansion of Mercer County Airport. The all-Democrat Board should have been outraged by the proposed project given how overdeveloped our county has become.

You'd have to be from another planet to believe that the addition of more airplane flights into Mercer County airport would be anything but hazardous to your health. Even the New York Times just identified research out of Germany which indicates that chronic plane noise is detrimental to learning in children.

As if the airport weren't bad enough, as stewards of the Mercer County Parks System, Freeholders have their hands in something called, "Mercer County Mosquito Advisory Board" which oversees an expensive mosquito control program costing half a million of your tax dollars last year. In this program the pesticide containing, Pyrethroid, is sprayed throughout parks and other locations around the county. Amounts of this chemical used are unpublished. You should know that Pyrethroid is a known carcinogen that can cause breast cancer according to research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Roger Williams General Hospital at Brown University and, most recently, Cambridge University. How can we walk for a cure for breast cancer in a county that promotes the cause?

Part of this mosquito project included the Mercer County Improvement Authority (overseen by the Freeholders)--- assisting Hamilton Township last year with a $65,000 grant from the NJDEP for removal of discarded tires and site clean up. Reportedly, in excess of 38,500 tires at a total cost of $56,528.10 were removed from the site where mosquitoes might breed. Why are the Freeholders standing by while taxpayers are footing the bill cleanups of private industry?

Mercer Freeholders policies are bad for wildlife, too, permitting municipalities like Princeton to blow the brains out of netted deer with bolt guns --- where else? YOUR county parks. Folks, sometimes less is better less development, less chemicals, less pollution, less taxes, less harm to our health and your children's health.

Vote Green this November. We don't owe favors to big party givers who seek development. We answer directly to the voter so you can breathe easier.

Emily Cook, candidate, for Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders

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