Note to Times' copy desk: Bad "facts" should be edited out

     Several items on the editorial page of the Carroll County Times about the proposed waste to energy plant and the upgrades to Carroll County Regional Airport contain errors in fact that should never get past a professional copy desk.
     I know the editorial page is a place for opinion, and that any flake can express any off the wall opinion so long as it isn't malicious, libelous or lewd.
     Well, malice seems to be the new virtue in the media, especially the electronic versions, because mere outrageous indignation is too benign for our over the top, Jerry Springer culture.
     But a good editorial page will not knowingly allow continued propagation of assertions that have been proven false, let alone malicious.
     Certain claims in favor of both the trash to electricity project and the airport certainly arguable, but let us make something clear right now: Never was any fuel dumped by any plane landing or taking off at Westminster's airport. Never will happen. The allegations that the discolored rooftops and the blisters on the feet of children playing in wet grass was caused by dumped fuel was disproved several years ago, so can we please stop letting the falsehoods creep into articles, opinion or not, as fact?
     Another misrepresentation of fact is the continued assertion that the city of Harrisburg's bankruptcy was caused by their investment in a waste to energy plant "just like the one Carroll and Frederick Counties are proposing."
          Wrong context! Harrisburg tried to upgrade old technology, which is nothing like the Maryland operations and the one planned in Frederick. They mishandled the premise, then mishandled the ways they financed it, including caving in to fiscal critics and limiting their options.
     Ironically, the plant is now operating at a profit.
     Waste Not Carroll kept getting it wrong, too, but I have came to the conclusion that they didn't care about facts; their job was to oppose "incinerators"; perhaps there was a fear that having an open mind to new technology -- and new facts -- would erode the number and zeal of those with environmental concerns.
     In a recent column on the Times' editorial page, Westminster City Councilman Dennis Frazier got it wrong on both the treatment plant and the airport, and the copy desk allowed him to show his ignorance.
     But then this is the councilman who proposed getting rid of parking meters without asking if anyone had ever studied such an idea in the past. Been there, done that, he might have been told by anyone who has paid attention to city issues at all over the past decade or so.
     So, opinions are free, and worth what they cost; facts are rare, and context is everything, particularly if credibility is valued at all.