Education, old meds, kittens and a bad idea

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: July 2, 2008

Richmond bureaucrats and bad parents are to blame

To the editor:

A recent article in the Danville Register & Bee suggested schools were not preparing students for the next grade level — or the world at large.

Do you know what? That might be true! In times gone by, teachers were expected to teach students the academics necessary to be successful. Now, teachers must teach the social skills, manners and life skills children need to find success in life.

With the challenge of making sure certain students are able to pass the state-mandated SOL tests, teachers have limited time to teach additional life skills. When I was a child and a school student, my parents taught me:

• manners;

• respect;

• responsibility;

• self-confidence; and

• self-respect.

The classroom teacher is now responsible for teaching these personal characteristics in addition to the necessary academics.

One must wonder if it is the children that have been left behind, or have the professional, caring, educators been disregarded and left to raise children — in addition to teaching them.

It is not that the school systems or the classroom teachers have left the children without the necessary skills to be successful, it is the state bureaucracy and irresponsible parents that are failing our children.

DIANE CLIFTON

To the editor:

The premise of, “Don’t give old medicines the flush,” (June 29, page A3) is flawed or at worst bogus. Medications and compounds found in our municipal water systems are not due to flushing unused prescription medications down the toilet.

Fact: Medications and compounds not utilized by the organism — be they human, animal or plant — become a biologic waste excreted in urine, feces or plant byproduct. It may be appropriate to view this as recycled, but not to be reused. A green thought: Perhaps, according to Danville’s director of water and wastewater treatment, we should all pee and poop in kitty litter and carry it to the dump.

F. C. MAUTE, M.D.

To the editor:

On June 29, a PetSmart employee found four 3-week-old kittens in a trash dump on Route 41.

Why do people do things like this? If you have an animal you found or you do not want anymore, take it to the animal shelter, not a trash dump or on the side of the road and hope someone will find the animal. I thank God that Ashley found these poor little helpless kittens when she did before it was too late. For some animals, help comes too late.

At least when an animal is brought to the shelter, it has food and water and shelter and a chance for a new home. I volunteer for the Danville Area Humane Society and help take care of the cats and kittens at PetSmart, for these animals are from the Humane Society and a lot of them have found new homes. To the person that put those kittens in the trash dump, I want you to know they will be well taken care of.

DAVID POWELL

To the editor:

The article, “Don’t give old medicines the flush,” (June 29, page A3), left me wondering.

If folks who feel ill expend the time, energy and expense to go to a physician, are prescribed medicine and stand in line at a pharmacy to buy the medicine, won’t they finish their course of medication as prescribed? Certainly, some prescriptions may be found unsuitable for the patient deemed unusable. Regardless of the reason, unused and outdated medicines require disposal.

Is disposing of medications in a landfill, rather than down the toilet, a better solution?

Permitted landfills have liners. If these liners function properly, a toxic liquid called leachate is trapped therein. Leachate is subsequently collected, stored and then transported and treated at municipal facilities such as Danville’s wastewater treatment plant. The waste product resulting from treatment is sludge (biosolids). Currently several thousand acres of land in Pittsylvania County are permitted to receive sludge from wastewater treatment. Is residual medication present in the sludge? Does this and other contaminants present in sludge seep into groundwater?

Is disposing of medications the major source of the unwanted pharmaceuticals in our water?

Drugs that we consumed do not disappear when they enter our bodies. We metabolize some of the chemicals in the drugs and excrete that which our bodies don’t use.  Think of prescription and non-prescription drugs you ingest on a daily basis. Even if it’s a conservative amount, multiply that by millions of Americans and then factor in that many may be ingesting and excreting greater quantities of drugs than you.

Factory farms use drugs for their animals as well. Their excrement is often stored in a pond and then spread as a sludge on farmland. Do those pharmaceuticals seep into rural ground water? Just wondering ...

KAREN B. MAUTE

To the editor:

I think we all know what a great job Jerry Gwaltney has done for Danville. My only regret is the Danville City Council authorizing payment for unused vacation above the amount allowed. My question to our council is if another person leaves a job with the city and has accrued vacation over the limit, will he be given the same treatment? I believe the answer is already known.

Danville City Council has set a dangerous precedent with this. Preferential treatment is unfair and it has set itself up for that accusation.

MIKE JARMAN

Danville