Letters To The Editor

Tue., May 6, 1997

THE ENVIRONMENT

End commercial overemphasis

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management just released their “preferred alternative” for managing our public lands in the Columbia River Basin. As usual, they’re full of government doublespeak, ignoring their own science that documents severe environmental damage from excessive logging, grazing, road building and fire suppression.

They call industrial logging “restoration” and “forest health,” while they continue to ruin our public lands, degrade municipal water supplies and critical habitat, and leave taxpayers to pay for the mess.

The really sad thing is that federal agencies have opted to continue with destruction as usual without considering ways to assist rural communities in diversifying their economies away from dependence on logging and grazing on public lands. This, despite their finding that, “No facts document a link between sustained timber flow and community stability.”

Our natural heritage, scant remaining ancient forests, roadless wildlands, native grasslands and salmon streams must be protected from logging and grazing so that future generations can enjoy the clean water, wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation these amenities of the Northwest provide.

Isn’t it about time the big corporate pawns in government begin managing our forests for more than commercial extraction at the expense of our clean water, healthy ecosystem and long-term economic well-being?

Please write to Mike Dombeck, chief of the Forest Service, at 201 14th and Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C. 20250, and register your outrage.

Remember, these are your public lands. Guadalupe C. Flores Spokane

People should be worried, angry

Where is the outrage as 16,000 to 24,000 gallons of sewage are dumped each day into two open ponds on an 80-acre site located partly over the aquifer? This sewage is coming toward the Spokane Valley.

Where is the outrage when, year after year for 20 years, county commissioners reissue a conditional use permit for this site and we are told there is no place to put it but they are working on a plant?

Where is the outrage when local government agencies that are the gatekeepers of our aquifer cannot agree on who’s responsibility it is to monitor and enforce these conditions?

Where is the outrage that a county as beautiful as Kootenai County has allowed such a deplorable, outmoded disposal site to exist and yet subdivision after subdivision gets approved?

What will it take to make people aware of the devastating effect that millions of gallons of sewage will have on our precious aquifer?

Last summer, people in Post Falls were alerted to a problem of high nitrate levels in their water. Not once was the Round Mountain site ever mentioned or suspected as the source. Suzanne Browning Rathdrum, Idaho

Bickering, delay no help to fish

The April 20 article, “Salmon plan would give feds control,” detailed some aspects of a new salmon protection agreement under negotiation in Oregon. In this agreement, the federal government would have considerable power over logging, farming and other activities known to harm salmon and their streams.

This agreement has been needed for some time. Too often in politics, issues get muddled because of egos and because too many interests think they have a say.

The issue isn’t who gets control over regulating logging, farming and funding, it’s ensuring that salmon populations rebound.

Salmon agreements in other states may not directly affect Washington now, but in time they will. No matter who does the regulating, I want to see salmon running as thickly in the streams and rivers as they did decades ago.

Decide, and do it soon or time may run out for many of our fish. Melissa L. Anderson Cheney

Beware of extremists’ agenda

Columnist Frank Bartel seems to lend credence to the ridiculous postulations of ultraenvironmentalist Thomas Power. The one question the environmentalists never want to answer is: What happens when all resource-based industries are forced out of business by rabid environmentalism?

No more houses made of wood, no more steel products, plastics, copper wiring, televisions, radios, warmth, etc. Back to the mud hut. Ken D. Bryant Spokane

BUSINESS AND LABOR

Uniform change unfair to workers

I would like to know what is wrong with our Senate and House. They passed a bill that would require working people to purchase their own uniforms required on their jobs. I’m a bartender and, finally, because of Washington state’s law that lets us make a livable wage, I can make ends meet. This law is so unfair to the working people. It is designed only for the employers, so they can make more profit.

Let’s look out for the people who make the businesses work, the employees. As working people in my profession and ones like it, we cannot afford this. It is so unfair. Sandra R. Smith Spokane

Priggee wrong about tax, business

One thing about staff cartoonist Milt Priggee: He never lets facts get in the way of his political beliefs. His anti-business prejudice comes through loud and clear in his April 29 cartoon.

During the Lowry administration, the B&O tax was increased 60 percent for many small businesses. This tax is paid out of gross income and not out of profit. A business that is losing money still must pay the full tax.

When we moved our business to Spokane, the B&O tax was 1 percent of gross income. It was doubled to 2 percent for a while, then dropped to 1.5 percent. The tax was still 50 percent higher than what it was formerly, but complaints still were heard about handouts to business. Now, this additional 60 percent tax increase is being brought back to what it was four years ago, which is still 1.5 times what it was when we moved here. And again, we have business-bashing.

This cartoon implies we don’t have to pay property taxes like the homeowner. This is false. Not only do we have to pay the B&O tax, even in years in which we lose money, we pay property taxes on our buildings and their contents. That means everything, including paper clips.

I don’t mind political bias in cartoons and articles, if they are truthful and fair. Priggee has demonstrated time and again that he is neither. Robert L. Dunning Spokane

Let’s clarify state workers’ raises

As a state employee, I would like to clarify information in an article written by Linda V. Mapes, Apr. 27.

The article indicated employees received a 4 percent raise in 1995. This is not accurate. State employees received a 4 percent pay raise for the biennium. Two percent in 1995 and 2 percent in 1996.

Sen. James West (R-Spokane) was quoted as saying that 7 percent in two years is a fair wage increase. Again, this is not correct. State employees will receive a 3 percent raise on July 1 and nothing in 1998.

For the bienniums of 1995-1996 and 1997-1998, state employees’ pay raises average 1.75 percent per year for the four years. West may feel this is a fair wage increase, but with the inflation rate at approximately 3 percent per year, I disagree. Randy S. Lucas Spokane

U.S. AND THE WORLD

Ratifying treaty a big mistake

The Senate just ratified the Chemical Weapons Treaty.

The first international treaty banning the use of chemical weapons was drawn up in 1907. It obviously didn’t stop the use of poison gas during World War I.

Since World War I, we have been reasonably safe from chemical attack, not because of the treaty signed in 1925, which again banned chemical warfare, but because we had a credible ability and perceived will to retaliate in kind.

North Korea, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Russia and China, to name a few enemies and potential enemies, have the ability and demonstrated will to use chemicals. Iraq gave its front line commanders authority to use chemical weapons during the Persian Gulf War. Syria is mounting Russian nerve gas warheads on missiles able to reach Israel.

No treaty has ever stopped an aggressor. A few mutual aid treaties have slowed them down through fear of overwhelming retaliation. Most arms control treaties have made aggression easier by hindering those who abide by them.

The treaty requires us to destroy our retaliatory capability and reveal everything there is to know about our defensive technology.

There is no doubt our enemies will immediately search out weaknesses thus revealed so they can focus their attacks. There is no doubt soldiers will die as a result of this treaty because they will be vulnerable to attack and we will be unable to present a believable threat of retaliation in kind.

Ratification was an act of stupidity, cupidity or treason. It puts your grandchildren and mine in danger. Curtis L. Messex Cheney

So much cheering for wrong side

After the Peruvian Army, utililizing treachery and fine planning, stormed the Japanese embassy, our government and media “experts” quickly proclaimed the crisis over.

Peru’s arrogant President Alberto Fujimori, who poses next to bloodstained and caged adversaries, is the prototype dictator that the U.S. government has long supported in the region. They are regimes euphemistically labeled democracies, with bogus elections and horrendous human rights records. These governments serve a powerful minority with a U.S.-assisted military to crush any substantive dissent and social change.

The status quo-defending media, predictably, covered this event as a drama, focusing on their chosen victims - the elite class of ambassadors and international business people/bankers who had their caviar party interrupted. A terse statement in the news coverage immediately after the attack appropriately reflected our priority: “Now it is safe for U.S. companies to operate in Peru.”

In reality, the tragedy is not over. Never discussed is the root of the problem, in which so-called terrorist groups like Tupac Amaru are merely a symptom. Namely, that 80 percent of the Peruvian people are held hostage in a system of dehumanizing poverty and oppression, ironically created in part by the elite prisoners in the embassy.

Hungry Peruvians don’t warrant Red Cross rations or even a crumb of media attention. Some turn to violence in desperation with no other viable options.

Clearly, the “crisis” has not been resolved. Chris J. Haralam Spokane

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