Letters To The Editor
GOVERNMENT AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Enough of costly fish experiments
Re: a recent article by Rich Landers and D.F. Oliveria’s Oct. 9 editorial (“Corps has chance to repay kokanee”).
Again, you have carefully avoided the fact that the Idaho Fish and Game Commission created a biological disaster for the prized kokanee in Pend Oreille and Priest lakes with the introduction of mysis shrimp. Pend Oreille Lake interests are lucky they still have a fishery; they completely destroyed the Priest Lake fishery for kokanee.
Consider that Kootenay, Flathead, Priest and Pend Oreille lakes all had a stable kokanee population until the shrimp were introduced. Now they are all experiencing a marked decline, if not complete loss, of the fish.
Fluctuations of these lakes result from power drawdowns, yet in the past, the kokanee remained. Coeur d’Alene Lake has a kokanee fishery and it has fluctuated since the early 1900s, when Washington Water Power Co. constructed the dam at the outlet. Kokanee are still viable there. This leads the thinking person to conclude that Idaho Fish and Game’s experiment caused most of the kokanee loss.
This same agency now wants another experiment, at an annual cost of $3 million to $10 million to power users. The whole proposal is another boondoggle to be paid for with our hard-earned dollars. What are the Hobart Jenkins special interests contributing in local dollars to “repay the kokanee?” Kenneth T. Coffman Newport, Wash.
Corps acting with due regard
This is in response to D.F. Oliveria’s Oct. 9 editorial, “Corps has a chance to repay kokanee.”
The Pend Oreille lake level experiment proposed to benefit kokanee salmon is receiving extensive attention by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The corps is working with the Northwest Power Planning Council and Bonneville Power Administration to resolve issues of funding and mitigation of potential cultural resource impacts.
The condition of the kokanee salmon in Lake Pend Oreille, funding of foregone power revenues and mitigation of potential impacts to cultural resources are all extremely sensitive issues. There is no simple resolution to any of them.
The corps is proceeding with the knowledge that any decision it makes could be challenged and must be reasonable. The corps’ action must be based on full consideration of the issues and of the interests of all parties.
The plan endorsed by the Northwest Power Planning Council is to hold Lake Pend Oreille at elevation 2,054 feet this winter - 3 feet higher than normal. The drawdown plan for this year will cause the lake to be at elevation 2,054 on Nov. 1. Therefore, the decision to hold the lake at elevation 2,054 feet or to continue the drawdown must be made before that date.
We are aware of the great public interest in our actions and will advise of our decision as soon as it is finalized. Col. Donald T. Wynn, Corps of Engineers District Engineer, Seattle
Extreme conservation won’t work
When John Muir (“Lands going to pay political debts,” Letters, Oct. 8) said 70 percent of the people want environmental laws, he was about 30 percent off the mark. I believe close to 100 percent want environmental laws, but the laws must be realistic.
Many laws we have in place are used to go far beyond the original intent, to the point where we’re not able to provide the resource we must have to survive environmentally and economically. The present salvage situation is a case in point.
As we debate the issues, burned, dead and dying resource material is left on the ground, a monument to waste and indecision. The extreme view that we shouldn’t salvage any of this resource is just not workable over the long term. We lose not only the product and the jobs that are so sorely needed, we also contribute to the decline of our forest health.
The fires we experienced in 1994 are a lesson for those who are willing to learn. Many of the fires were in areas that had been burned before and hadn’t been salvaged and reforested. Dennis Martin Twisp, Wash.
LAW AND JUSTICE
Marijuana decision reassuring
The weakest front in the war on drugs is the campaign against sufferers of a variety of ailments - cancer, glaucoma, migraines, multiple sclerosis and AIDS, just to name a few - who use marijuana to alleviate their symptoms or the side effects of their treatments.
Friday’s decision by Pierce County Superior Court Judge Rosanne Buckner shows there is at least some hope to restore wisdom and sanity to our laws. Stop arresting sick people. Tom Hawkins Coulee Dam
Curfew will only make things worse
I strongly disagree with the curfew law. I don’t think it will help anyone. Street kids are street kids because most of them are runaways or homeless, which, by the way, are not one and the same.
If all we do is push these people off the street at night, they will just hide until morning or go get into trouble in some other area of town. These kids need somewhere to go where they can get help and some self-esteem from people who really care.
A curfew is not going to turn street kids into fine, upstanding citizens. They need structure. The more rules set upon them, the more rebellious they will get. And that only means more crime.
If the people of Spokane really care about keeping crime down, they would realize it starts with caring for the kids on the street. Help them steer away from gangs and crime. Let them know they are worthy of a good and happy lifestyle.
Everyone always votes down clubs and other places that want to open to people under 21. It’s no wonder the kids are so susceptible to crime.
I hope Spokane will wake up and realize that the street kid population is increasing, not decreasing. Some day, they may outnumber us. Laura Fuglseth Spokane
Point of law missed
The Oct. 15 Spokesman-Review article on property rights Initiative 164 misses the whole point of the new law.
Your article focuses on the millions of dollars that municipalities will have to pay to comply with I-164. If, in fact, the cost of compliance is in the millions, then your article neglects to mention that this cost is already being paid by private property owners. The law only shifts those costs to the municipalities that impose the costs in the first place. But shifting the cost of compliance is not the point of the law.
The law is designed to reduce the escalating costs of compliance. The hope is that if municipalities have to pay the costs of complying with their own regulations, then maybe they won’t impose those regulations.
In the 1990s everyone is being forced to be more efficient, more cost conscious, more productive. Why should government be exempt from these forces?
Our legislators passed I-164 because they thought it was the best way to inhibit the growth of regulations, and maybe even induce the government to eliminate existing regulations that are not cost-effective. They see I-164 as one way to promote government efficiency.
I applaud our elected officials for taking this aggressive action. Doug Durham Spokane
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Some cuts come as low blows
I loved the Oct. 13 Milt Priggee cartoon concerning George Nethercutt.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Nether.
Nether who?
Just a Nether-cut on the societal needs of human beings. Mark J. Miller Spokane
Let’s make public service just that
If I could introduce a constitutional amendment, it would read:
Any U.S. citizen qualified to run for government office at any level shall have completed the class called Humanist 101. The course description shall be as follows.
One hundred days working with the homeless, by providing or helping provide a service for their benefit.
One hundred days serving in a public welfare office, interviewing those who are in need of food, medical or financial assistance.
One hundred days service in a rural food bank that feeds the hungry and is totally supported by the community.
One hundred days serving the elderly meals on wheels.
One hundred days accompanying police officers who deal with gangs, drugs, murders, rapes and everyday crimes.
One hundred days in the classroom, divided into 33-day segments, grades K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. Classrooms would have fully mainstreamed students ranging from the gifted and talented to the mentally retarded, and include emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children. Class size would be no fewer than 30, with no teacher aides for classes of fewer than 35 students.
If this were a constitutional amendment, maybe, just maybe, there would be one less fighter plane, one less warship and one less space flight.
Maybe this two-year program would solve the problem that those in public office really don’t know who we the people are. Carol Bryan Loon Lake
THE MEDIA
Columnist James writes nonsense
Jennifer James writes in her Oct. 8 column with what she calls passion. That same degree of writing from conservatives she calls “cranky.” She quotes letters mostly supporting her views. Those opposed are censored or taken out of context.
She implies people against affirmative action are racist. She gives us a test on racism. The problem is, most of us who have lived in larger, multiculture cities, not (all white) Seahurst, have been subjected to a lot of the same discrimination by African-American and other nonwhite races. Actually, most of us have had that happen to us by our own race. So what!
That’s why we have a democracy and all those ideas that go with it. Free enterprise and a public school system; you can rise to the top if you try, and a growing black conservative middle class proves it. Affirmative action is not democracy, it’s class socialism.
It’s also hard to believe that this socialist, who some days thinks she’s a moderate and then, unbelievably, a conservative, “performs” as a business trainer. Small business owners are not “fixed and rigid,” as she states. Those who are and do not change fail. Only in government and our educational facilities do you find that stagnation and inflexibility.
Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever read such cranky, failed social nonsense as she confuses the public with weekly in her column. Jack Johnson Spokane
Stereotype part of anti-gun campaign
The Oct. 9 Associated Press story, “Burning for revenge,” states that Texas hunters set fires annually to protest various restrictions.
Yet another annual ritual is hunter-bashing by the media. Naturally, the implied message is that private citizens should not be allowed to own firearms.
While not a hunter myself, I do know several sportsmen. Five of my deer hunter friends are all schoolteachers. One served as an Army officer in Vietnam. Another hunter acquaintance is a Ph.D. and life member of the National Rifle Association.
While cutting firewood recently, I chatted with a deer hunter who is a youth counselor working with gangs.
Indeed, most gun owners and hunters I know are welleducated, professional people, such as the attorney and the chiropractor I used to shoot with in California.
Sadly, rather than tell the truth, the media continue to stereotype all hunters and all gun owners as illiterate, beer-swilling bubbas who trespass, set fires and shoot at anything that moves. Curtis E. Stone Colville, Wash.
OTHER TOPICS
End horrors that go with dog racing
On behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ 500,000 members worldwide, I urge officials to close Coeur d’Alene Greyhound Park.
J. Todd Foster’s expose of the dog suffering at this track hits hard (“Slow greyhounds electrocuted on ‘hot plate,’ trainers say,” Sept. 17). Worse, there are even more cruelties.
Tens of thousands of greyhounds whelped each year nationally can’t run fast enough so they are shot, euthanized, clubbed to death, electrocuted or sold to laboratories. Ones that become racers spend 99 percent of their lives in 3-by-3-by-4-foot crates. Most falter or are mortally injured before the mandated retirement age of five years, then are killed or sold to laboratories. Only a tiny percentage are adopted.
All trainers believe greyhounds trained on living, not mechanical, animals run faster. So they have them pursue, mutilate and kill rabbits, kittens, cats, chickens, puppies and other small creatures. They break rabbits’ legs so the rabbits’ cries will excite the dogs. Bloody, tattered bait animals are used over and over, as long as they have a scrap of life left.
Owners whose states prohibit the use of living lures ship their dogs for training to Florida, Texas or Kansas, where laws against living lures are so watered down they’re ineffective and only serve as propaganda for the greyhound industry when it wants to open another track.
Animal protection organizations all want to eradicate the slimy greyhound industry. Please, close the Coeur d’Alene track. Carla Bennett PETA, Washington, D.C.
Comic reference small potatoes
On Oct. 12, you printed a letter from Vince and Mary Bradley of Spokane. The Bradleys were very offended by use of the phrase, “Oh, my God” in the Baby Blues comic strip. They quoted that the commandment says, “Thou shalt not use the name of the Lord in vain.”
When will people realize Christianity isn’t the only religion in the world? I’m sorry to hear they were offended, but there are problems far worse than a comic strip character using the Lord’s name in vain.
Instead of wasting ink and paper to complain about the artist’s choice in words, why not use that energy and those Christian morals to do something good for the community? Perhaps they can volunteer at a soup kitchen or deliver meals to shut-ins.
The community won’t fall apart because someone used the Lord’s name in vain. However, all of society will benefit from a simple act of kindness. Darcy Brixey Spokane