To the editor:

I feel compelled to share my thoughts regarding the New Ventures/Crow Lane landfill issues.

I am guilty of previously and naively thinking this was a neighborhood issue.

The recent coverage, however, has me looking more closely at the reality of this situation.

After much thought, I've come down to one essential question — If these noxious, illness-causing fumes were spread throughout the entire city, what would the residents of this city be morally compelled to do?

Here are my conclusions:

1. In reality, this is a community issue happening at an integral and busy part of our city, not at some remote outpost.

The noxious fumes are not contained to Crow Lane. I've smelled it in the Shaw's parking lot, at Bright Horizons where my son attends preschool, and some mornings at my home on 29 Oakland St.

That's quite a broad swath through some of the more vital areas of this community where many members of our community gather to live various aspects of their daily lives.

2. As a community we are morally responsible for our city's past negative actions.

The easy way would be to allow fear of reprisals for the city's past toxic dumping to determine our decision, trust New Ventures, a proven bully, to suddenly keep their word and allow many more truckfuls of what arguably will be more mismanaged waste into our city.

Where is the reduction of the community's current suffering in that decision? How does that take responsibility and make amends for our past dumping?

3. We should say no to New Ventures Faustian deal which seems to give them more of what they want — trucking in overflow from their other site — and give us more of what we don't want, additional toxic trash that has been historically mismanaged.

We need to come together as a community on this issue to protect this city and to stand up for and alongside our fellow residents who already have been fighting this battle for five years.

The state is clearly managing the deal to serve their best interests. New Ventures is clearly maximizing their profits and is slippery enough to get away.

This is not a burden to be borne by the City Council alone. Please reach out through residential meeting groups and information sessions.

Let us know what we can do to support the council in standing up to New Ventures.

NICOLE SALEMI

Newburyport