Thank you for supporting us

The Champlain Valley Union High School Nordic team extends a heartfelt thank you to our generous business community and to our parents and friends. Thank you for all the wonderful donations of amazing items to our recent silent auction. We were able to raise over $3,500, which will be used to purchase ski wax (which is expensive!) for our upcoming season.

Among the many auction items were ski jackets, jewelry, gift certificates to local businesses and a great bike.

This year our team has 58 members, including 26 new members. We are looking forward to a successful season. Last year our girls ranked third in the state and the boys fourth. In the past five years we have ranked in the top three for girls and top five for boys in Vermont. We couldn’t do it without your support, as wax is critical to our race program.

One final request would help us get our season off to a great start and that is snow. We’ll be starting our racing season as soon as there is enough white stuff to ski on. So, think snow!

The 2009-2010 CVU Nordic team

Do away with bottled water

I urged the governor to stop supplying bottled water in state office buildings. I did so while speaking at a press conference produced by Corporate Accountability International (see Nancy Remsen’s Dec. 10 article in The Burlington Free Press).

For many reasons, using bottled water is not environmentally friendly while costing the state of Vermont taxpayers $228,874 last year (and $1.4 million in five years).

This is the type of systemic budget change the Legislature is looking for to save Vermonters long-term money.

The governor’s office called this (saving $1.4 million) “a distraction.”

I could not disagree more!

Rep. Jim McCullough, D-Williston

Be careful with chloramine

In the last month, I have lost two most preferred renters due to the chloramine in our water. One because his mother had serious health problems in her South Burlington home until she began drinking only bottled water and showering in Burlington (where chloramine is not in the water). The other prospective tenant backed away when I informed her that the chloramine in the water of nine towns surrounding Burlington is documented to have caused skin, digestive, respiratory and eye problems for some people.

I did not over-vilify chloramine at all, but felt it was my duty to tell people. Needless to say, I am irate since I depend in part on the rental income.

Since April 2006, the Champlain Water District, or CWD, has put chloramine in the water of the following communities it serves: South Burlington, Shelburne, Williston, Winooski, Essex, Essex Junction and parts of Milton, Jericho and Colchester. The CWD is the only water district in Vermont to use chloramine, which is a combination of chlorine and ammonia.

Now that winter is upon us, this letter is also a reminder about humidifiers. It is wise for people in the Champlain Water District to fill humidifiers with bottled “spring water” instead of tap water. Breathing vaporized, chloraminated tap water often causes mucous membrane irritation and respiratory problems. Unfortunately, there are no filters that adequately remove chloramine from the water.

People Concerned About Chloramine, or PCAC, is a grassroots citizen organization working to get chloramine out of the water here. If you have questions, would like our comprehensive brochure on chloramine, experience symptoms that may be related or want to learn how to limit your intake of chloramine, you may call PCAC’s confidential chloramine line at 802-651-8753. Or go to www.chloramine.org for further information.

Rebecca Reno, PCAC member, South Burlington