Readers Write: Airport voiceovers, ethanol, lead in ammunition, icy sidewalks

AIRPORT VOICEOVERS

A poke in the eye, as it were

When the pandemic shutdown hit two years ago, one of the hardest-hit groups was those who work in the arts and entertainment industry. We saw virtually all of our work and income disappear overnight. Working from home as a performer was not an option. We are self-employed independent contractors, so unemployment compensation was very hard to get. There was no vacation pay or sick pay to fall back on. We pay for our own health insurance, which was difficult with no income.

It's only now that theater, film, live music and the like are slowly coming back. My fellow artists and I are hungry for work after a two difficult years of hardship. So it was with a very jaundiced eye that I read the March 14 front-page article "New voices soothe airport travelers." Officials at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport held a contest for airport employees to record public service announcements.

I have so many questions that were not answered in this article. Were these pilots, baggage handlers and ticket agents paid for their voiceover work? Did they get a buyout payment allowing unlimited usage of their voices? Or was it just for the fun honor of winning this folksy contest? Airport officials said they wanted something that sounds like "your sister or the girl next door." They wanted voices that "feel like the person is real." I can assure you that this town is full of professional voiceover artists who are perfectly capable of giving that friendly, welcoming, everyman voice the airport says they wanted. And I can wholeheartedly assure you that voiceover actors are indeed "real people" with real bills to pay and real families to feed.

To me this is not the feel-good story presented in this article but the story of the airport officials finding a clever way to avoid paying thousands of dollars in fees to professional voiceover actors by instead getting people who already have jobs with benefits to record their announcements for little to no cost.

Cynthia Smith, Oakdale

Outlook sunny; try again

Contrary to the assertions of the March 13 article "Ethanol's emissions clouding its benefits," ethanol's environmental benefits are as clear as the blue sky on a cloudless, sunny day. While the article correctly mentions that ethanol's carbon footprint continues to shrink, the reporters unfortunately omit many other key facts and fail to include important context.

As briefly noted in the article, all of Minnesota's ethanol biorefineries combined produce less than 5% of the state's emissions. Meanwhile, the article omits the fact that Minnesota's electric power plants generate more than 60% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions, and oil and natural gas refineries and distribution systems contribute another 15%. In fact, a single electric power plant in nearby Sherburne County, which runs on coal and fuel oil, is responsible for six times more GHG emissions than the state's entire ethanol industry. Thus, when all emissions are properly considered, an electric vehicle in the Twin Cities is likely responsible for more annual GHG emissions than a flex-fuel vehicle running on Minnesota-grown ethanol.

The more important question that the article failed to ask, or answer, is: If our nation wasn't using renewable ethanol, what would be used in its place? The answer, of course, is that we'd be using more fossil fuels. It is well-established that using ethanol in place of gasoline not only reduces GHG emissions by 40-50%, but also lowers harmful tailpipe pollutants linked to cancer, respiratory illnesses, heart disease, and other human health concerns. But rather than citing research confirming ethanol's air quality and climate benefits from the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Harvard University, MIT, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Ford Motor Co. and many other entities, the reporters chose instead to single out a controversial new study by the University of Wisconsin. That report — funded in part by the National Wildlife Federation — used a tenuous string of worst-case assumptions and cherry-picked data and has already been widely discredited.

In addition to its environmental benefits, the ethanol produced in Minnesota is reducing prices at the pump (just visit any station selling E15 or E85 today to see for yourself), contributing $1.5 billion to the state's economy, and supporting nearly 15,000 good-paying full-time jobs. Rather than abetting the oil industry and other ethanol opponents in their efforts to mislead consumers, the Star Tribune should stick to the facts and tell the real story about renewable fuels. We have a great story to tell and we're willing to share it with anyone willing to listen.

The writer is president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association.

LEAD IN AMMUNITION

A company's breezy response

I am dismayed by the response by Jason Vanderbrink to Dennis Anderson's query on his company's position using toxic lead in ammunition ("At 100, Federal is going great guns in Anoka," March 13). Vanderbrink's response typifies that of many American businesses and industries whose products and manufacturing processes pollute our air, water and soil, endangering human and wildlife, until they are forced to give up these practices, and even when they are fully aware of their impact.

Lead has long been known to be a neurotoxin and has been removed from gasoline and paint. Vanderbrink knows well that bald eagles, rescued from the brink of extinction when DDT was finally removed from the environment, are threatened with severe illness and death from eating animals shot with lead. Vanderbrink tries to couch his decision not to act on removing lead shot from his offerings by saying that "our job is not to speculate about what the government might do but to serve our customers" and says that if folks buy less ammunition, there will be fewer conservation dollars from taxes paid. So poisoning eagles is some kind of decent tradeoff?

Karen Jeffords-Brown, St. Paul

ICY SIDEWALKS

A thin layer of snow helps

I try to be a good citizen by snowblowing and/or shoveling my sidewalk as fast as I can ("Icy walks force cities to step in," March 13). But at 70, it's not always easy. As a nondriver who walks the sidewalks, I find that those homeowners who shovel down to the concrete pavement make the sidewalk look terrific, but as a walker, I find that walking on a bit of compressed snow is safer. Using my snowblower, I never can get down to the bare pavement. Fine sheets of ice form on the bare pavement, making walking treacherous. It is important to shovel or snowblow the public sidewalks, but it's also important to realize how slippery a bare sidewalk can often be.

Barry Margolis, Minneapolis

You put out an article about homeowners having to shovel within 24 hours of snowfall or get fined. Well how about you put an article about how the city can't get the streets plowed curb to curb within 24 hours and no tickets are given for cars in the way. And the ice in the streets extends to the sidewalks that they expect us to get cleared within 24 hours so the sidewalks are safe but if you step into the street you take your life in your own hands because the city can't take care of the streets but will fine us if we don't do our part. Do an article on that. Because my tax dollars are probably still raised and the city does less work. It's ridiculous. And yes there is no punctuation in this because I'm mad. Someone else can put it in if they want.