Dear Editor:

A recent news article quoted Suffolk County Legislator Wayne Horsley as saying that any incinerator at Bergen Point (West Babylon) does not seem like a good idea. The article goes on to quote Mr. Horsley as saying "we want to go very slowly and (make sure) that the public is made fully aware of what is being proposed and has a chance to make its feelings known". Mr. Horsley also wants assurances that a private incinerator would be operated efficiently, be maintained, and be kept clean and safe.

Let's flash back to 2004/2005 when Mr. Horsley was a Councilman on the Babylon Town Board and also a paid consultant to the Town of Babylon Industrial Development Agency. During this period LIPA contracted with Pine Lawn Power Co. to build a power plant (with a 150 foot smoke stack) in the Wyandanch community. Mind you, Wyandanch is already the home to the Town dump and incinerator, a human and animal crematorium, a power plant, a fat rendering plant plus numerous trucking and bus terminals. Not once during the approval process for the Wyandanch plant did I see Mr. Horsley at a Planning Board or Zoning Board hearing. Not once did he appear at a Public Service Commission or Department of Environmental Control Board hearing. Not once did he appear at a public information hearing or a civic association meeting. The only time I heard Mr. Horsley say anything about the Wyandanch plant was when he voted "Yes" to dumping one more air polluting plant on the Wyandanch community.

I have a multitude of questions for Mr. Horsley, including the following:

Why is it all right to build incinerators and power plants north of Sunrise Highway, but not south of Sunrise Highway?

Why is this incinerator going to pollute the air south of Sunrise Highway when we were told that the power plant up north is "actually going to clean the air around the power plant"?

Why does Mr. Horsley want to go "very slowly" on a plant south of Sunrise when his administration went from the preliminary environmental impact statement, through the zoning and planning hearings and to approval of the plant in less than 30 days when it was north of Sunrise?

Is Mr. Horsley going to assemble 100 to 150 union representatives to attend public hearings on the incinerator and have them shout down residents who oppose the plant as his administration did for the project north of Sunrise.

Isn't the incinerator south of Sunrise going to be an economic windfall as his administration claimed it would be for the plant north of Sunrise? Don't people south of Sunrise need jobs too?

Is Mr. Horsley going to negotiate Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) for the proposed incinerator as was done for the Wyandanch project, and is the Town of Babylon going to take 50 percent of the PILOT payment as a use fee as they did for the project north of Sunrise?

Isn't Mr. Horsley's violent reaction to the construction of an incinerator in a mostly white, upper income neighborhood, south of Sunrise Highway, just a tad bit different than was his reaction to a power plant in a minority, lower income neighborhood North of Sunrise Highway?

William H. Hill , West Babylon, NY 11704

(South of Sunrise Highway)