Senator resolves to get SG on track
In the past few months, Student Government has produced a number of great successes that promote the interest of students. Recently, however, I have been forced to question what the true mission of the SG is; to engage in constant parliamentary wrangling and, in many cases, a failure of stated goals, or to promote the interest and welfare of American University students. Sadly the latter has not been the case. Senate sessions have been spent discussing various motions and how to debate a bill, rather than debating the issues. This is absolutely unacceptable.
This week I have observed comments on the SG’s work in both the public and on the Eagle’s article comments section. It is abundantly apparent to me that students do not approve of the job that their SG is doing. Students have the absolute right to be upset over the problems with the Founders Day ball. This is an AU tradition that should have occurred on its scheduled date. While it is true that Washington, D.C., was essentially shut down during the “Snowpocalypse,” this event was to take place many days after classes and business resumed. Putting the snow aside, not having a venue contracted well in advance of the planned date is reckless and negligent. I do not buy the excuse of snow, and ask that those in charge of planning this event take responsibility and do everything in their power to ensure that the event is held soon and not put off indefinitely.
I’ve had enough of the Student Government taking itself too seriously and not doing its job. Elections for executive positions are quickly approaching and information can be found at ausg.org. For those unhappy with our SG’s work please come out to our information session. Fresh faces and students’ voting is the only way to bring positive change. This is your student government, it’s time to get involved and help put us back on the right track.
Seth Rosenstein Senator for the Class of 2012, School of Public Affairs
Perchlorate cause for concern
In defiance of sound statistical analysis, the Army Corps of Engineers has concluded that perchlorate in AU’s groundwater is decreasing in magnitude based upon extremely limited data with too many variables at play. Even a fifth-grader would know better than to cite it as sound science.
Perchlorate, a chemical that affects the thyroid as well as child development, was noted most recently at an excess of 50 ppb at a monitoring well by the Kreeger building (the EPA water health advisory is 15 ppb).
The Army’s most recent perchlorate sampling with lower numbers come from tests conducted in November under far different conditions then all previous sampling which had been done in the spring and summer. In their conclusions, the Army neglects to consider soil density and rainwater differences in seasons, and uses, for comparison to the November data, summer sampling more than two years old. They disregard that in the past, perchlorate levels from well water samples have been erratic in nature, ranging from 23 ppb to 124 ppb at the same well. Most troublesome, they fail to account for why some wells actually recently registered an increase in perchlorate levels.
Just as in 1986, when the Army said there was no conclusive evidence of buried munitions, and in 1994 when, after discovering munitions, they declared that no further investigation was needed, and in 2003 when the Army Corps project manager said the entire cleanup would be finished by that summer, the Corps continues to be beleaguered with conclusions as bad as WMATA’s safety determinations.
In convincing itself that that the perchlorate plume under AU’s campus is conclusively shrinking, the Army has done the ‘Potomac two-step’ and it is the AU community that will pay. The perchlorate plume, munitions under the Public Safety Building and other chemical debris sites will continue to elude the Army and plague generations of AU students to come if the Army continues to make hasty and conveniently-drawn conclusions. We can only hope that the Army and the Department of Defense will be held to a higher standard than those who constructed the canopy outside MGC.
Jeffrey Hanley Class of 2009
