This is how we add irony to injury: When private polluters (Tonawanda Coke) are punished, we applaud our common quest for justice; while “privileged” polluters (commercial traffic on the Peace Bridge)—who have poisoned residents for generations—are embraced as progressive economic generators. Generators of what—extraordinary medical expenses relative to respiratory and related illnesses? Don’t we all deserve the same protection from a grave public health threat? Apparently not.

And make no mistake: None of the “improvements” proposed for the Peace Bridge are designed nor expected to improve air quality, no matter how strenuously our political cheerleaders proclaim otherwise.

Until we consider what’s best for the region as a whole and study alternatives to commercial traffic on the Peace Bridge, the sick and dying on Buffalo’s West Side will further suffer. Their fate will be our collective burden until we summon the courage to change it.

> Peterjoe Certo, Buffalo

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