“DOT mower leaked at least five gallons into lake,” was a major headline plus two color photos showing the absorbent tubes lining 1,000 to 3,000 feet of shoreline and beyond at Owasco Lake in Friday's Citizen.

One would think that we had another Exxon Valdez oil disaster instead of five gallons of oil that spilled out when a “hydraulic hose got snagged on debris and was ripped off a DOT mower” that was cutting grass on West Lake Road in Fleming.

Granted, this oil spill should have been cleaned up ASAP but give us a break DEC.

To call in a special “environmental cleaning company” from Syracuse to - “clean up a 300 square-foot area” for five gallons of oil is a little bit of “overkill,” don't you think, guys and gals?

And what did this cost us? $10,000? $20,000? Who knows?

But then, the N.Y. DEC can get their arms around this “major five gallon oil disaster” in a N.Y. minute.

But to get Groton to stop discharging high amounts of phosphorus into Owasco Lake, it took them over a year to decide - what everyone already knew - that four pounds was too much because it was increasing the pollution and that it should be reduced to a least two pounds per year.

However, that won't take affect until 2012!

Why another four years and more feet-dragging by this DEC?

I guess if it's more than five gallons, it goes on the back burner.

Let's see how long it will take them to do something about the local farmer's leakage of their cattle's manure holding ponds into Owasco and the other Finger Lakes. Probably not in my lifetime, I bet.

It's your money.

Bill Balyszak

Auburn