Letter: Infrastructure needs updating

In their essay "Suffolk can simply grow no more" , R. Lawrence Swanson and Christopher J. Gobler actually propose that the county stop growing, due to limitations in our waste processing capacity.

Really? Is that a good reason to stop growing -- or a cry for new vision? While entirely replacing our existing infrastructures is staggering to consider, we will soon need to take the first step. Regarding our century-old approach to human waste, the Gates Foundation recently called for development of new types of toilets for areas of the world that lack running water. Given our current financial climate, it is these primitive countries that seem to offer the most fertile ground for innovative infrastructure solutions.

Forever patched over and repaired, our infrastructures will eventually need to be renewed, whether or not our population grows. Swanson and Gobler may see population growth as a sign of a "collapsing society," but the costs of renewal would be less painfully distributed across a larger tax base.

Philip Sivilli, Bay Shore