In the late 1980s, I visited Shepherdstown for the first time and fell in love with Jefferson County.

Our family became regular visitors and subscribed to the Chronicle just to keep up on what was happening.

We searched for a house and found a great one, just about the time I was ready to retire.

We moved in March of 2003, and have loved living here. I bought a house near mine for my mother, and then my daughter and her husband moved here in 2006. They have two daughters attending Jefferson County Schools.

We vote, pay taxes, go to church, do volunteer work, try to be good neighbors and support our local economy.

We absolutely cannot believe that our local and state governments betrayed our trust by soliciting toxic industry, mainly Rockwool, to build a large polluting factory in our midst.

Our citizenry showed its wishes in the latest election, where those candidates opposed to Rockwool won.

Jefferson is the one county in West Virginia that is really prospering, and it is about to be ruined by Rockwool.

Who wants: air pollution while the factory runs 24 hours a day/seven days a week, enormous use of water by the manufacturing process, a host for the proposed gas pipeline, one hundred heavy trucks barreling in and out of the plant each day, and a downturn of the housing market as people flee the deteriorating environment? Do you?

If the people of Jefferson County and surrounding areas don’t matter, then what does?

Where, oh where, are our priorities?

If we all worked together, we could solve this problem by stopping Rockwool.

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Wake up friends, it’s not too late to make your voices heard. Let your neighbors, local, state and federal representatives know that the citizens of Jefferson County need their help. This is not the time to remain silent.

Gail Kohlhorst, of Harpers Ferry