February 18, 1999

Beginning of the Road

By Dane Sorensen

The other night I had a dream that Satan won a hand of poker from God who happened to be a little short of cash at the time. God offered dominion of Ely in lieu of cash and the Devil had accepted the bid. After the Prince of Darkness won, he decided to turn everything upside down and destroy our arctic paradise. Satan was clever enough to not send an army of devils, but instead mocked our feeble efforts at intelligence. First, he showed that, once again, the worst offenders of breaking the law is government itself. Satan willed a government utility to paint our town’s water tower with lead paint and then had the utility declare the citizens of that town would have to pay $300,000 to clean it up. The frosting on the cake was that very same government utility was going to spray smelly sewage sludge all over the city airport.

After that happened in my dream, I woke up in a cold sweat and thanked my lucky starts that it was only a dream. It is reassuring that no public servant in Ely would ever do anything so evil to his neighbors as what I dreamt about.

Then I read the Ely Echo and discovered my dream was no dream. The EPUC did paint our lovely water tower with lead paint, at a time that if I would have painted my house with this stuff I would have ended up in jail. The EPUC has been spraying smelly sludge on public lands close to Ely and now wants to do more spraying at the airport.

This same EPUC is planning a very expensive sewage facility that will raise our water bills by over 20%. Somehow, I am starting to wonder if the independence of the EPUC is such a good idea. Somewhere along the line, there have been two screw ups that are being foisted on the citizens of Ely. What is sad, is there has been no outcry about the water tower. We are simply going to end up spending $75 for every man, woman and child in Ely to clean up the lead contamination. I asked two of our fine council people what they were going to do about this water tower business. Their response was indifference. They weren’t on the council when it happened and they aren’t directly involved in the EPUC. My suggestion of a lawsuit against the contractors who polluted our tower was ignored. Has Satan gotten to our council as well as the EPUC?

Happily, the sludge issue is being attacked by some very thoughtful people. Jack Willis is spearheading an attack and is bringing his keen analytical mind to bear on this problem. He has researched the issue and will hopefully embarrass the EPUC.

It is my hope that the goodness that exists within ourselves can redeem Ely from Satan’s plan of making everything a big mess. It is bad enough we have to deal with this Y2K mess and now we need to clean up the EPUC as well. I hope the public will demand the EPUC more accountable. If not, we will have our butt’s kicked when this new sewage plant comes in over budget and ill conceived.

We must be on our guard. Indeed, look at how poor Disney had to recall all those porn infested children’s videos. Plus last week we were all corrupted by that Satan inspired snow sculpture. Is it any wonder why I am having these dreams of moral decay and sewage sludge? O, my Sons and Daughters of Paradise, awake and cast out the EPUC. Let us, like our President, repent and start a new.