Letters To The Editor

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Asarco mine will degrade our water

Re: the proposed Asarco mine at Rock Creek, outside of Sandpoint.

As a retired waste water professional, I have enough experience to know that humans have a huge impact on all of the water they use. The more industrialized the use is, the less likely that it will be put back into the water cycle as clean as it was when taken out. Most businesses will pre-treat and remove only the pollution they are forced by law to remove.

Aquifers, from which we get our drinking water, are recharged by lakes and rivers as well as water soaking through the ground. Eventually, it all turns into somebody’s drinking water.

I moved to the Northwest because there are still some forests and clean water to appreciate. When I speak to other people who’ve come from polluted and crime-infested cities, they say, “It’s so beautiful here!”

Please, citizens of this most precious place, try to save it! The public comment time has been extended until April 10 for input on the environmental impact statement. Wildlife and humans living in the area will suffer in the short run and we’ll all suffer in the long run if that mine goes in.

I was aware of the heavy metals problems with Lake Coeur d’Alene when I decided to move here. But I reasoned that the Environmental Protection Agency is aware of the problem and we can all work to clean it up.

Little did I know that the mayor and chamber of commerce would have their heads in the sand regarding Lake Coeur d’Alene, and be promoting for another lake to be polluted. Penelope O’Hara Coeur d’Alene

Let visitors pay their way at ramp

Re: “CdA may start charging at Third Street boat launch,” (March 5). It’s about time. Since I moved here six years ago, I’ve often wondered, with all the use that ramp gets why it’s free. It does cost money to maintain and it’s not right for local taxpayers to foot the bill. Michael E. Prokop Coeur d’Alene

Reckless officers last thing we need

Re’ “Man wants finger of justice pointed at police officer,” (March 5). Sounds to me that this so-called officer has no business even being a police officer, if he did in fact act that way when driving - or at any other time, for that matter.

All we need is for someone who is supposed to be protecting us from this sort of thing actually causing problems! Whatever happened to being held responsible for your actions? I am sure if the shoe was on the other foot, that poor guy would still be in jail. Justice? Earl R. Johnson Post Falls

WASHINGTON STATE

Mismanagement costs us dearly

Articles in the Feb. 19 and 21 Spokesman-Review reported that the powerful and large departments of Social and Health Services and Corrections have collectively paid out more than $15 million to settle lawsuits involving one group home for young boys and a parole officer’s lack of supervision over her clients who committed three murders.

One article was titled, “Legislators going overboard on crime, police say.” Retired sheriff Larry Erickson testified against a portion of the 300 new crime-related measures introduced thus far in this 60-day session.

Have some of our civil servants and legislators lost their collective common senses? Is the bureaucracy so cumbersome that safeguards and quality control measures became invalid? Where are the oversight committees and commissions, yearly reviews and personnel evaluations?

These terrible tragedies leaving lifetime scars among many and costing three people their lives didn’t happen overnight or in a vacuum. Key personnel knew and remained silent. Benign neglect is unacceptable. How, in our age of instant worldwide communication and laptop computers, can there be a lack of information pertaining to clients on supervision?

Maybe the answers are too simple. A lack of critical field work and unscheduled home visits because officers are engaged in keyboard entry; a lack of courage and honesty on the part of supervisors to speak up; and an overriding desire on the part of legislators to be re-elected.

DSHS, the Department of Corrections and our Legislature seem to have some serious internal problems costly to all of us. Robert D. Banta Mead

Support official language bills

We urge strong support for HB2883 and SB6339 in the Washington state Legislature to establish English as the official language of government in the state.

The United States has been blessed over the years with its common language. It has enabled people in this country to read and understand the language and one another in daily endeavors, personal and work relationships. There are countries that do not share this common bond. Canada is one such country that is burdened by an area, the province of Quebec, where French is the official language while the rest of the country speaks English. The ethnic and language division in Canada has come close to splitting even that country in recent years.

With the large influx of immigrants to the United States, we run the risk of large areas populated by ethnic groups being isolated from the population as a whole by their inability to communicate and understand the common language, and frustrated in their efforts to join in the larger community.

While the efforts of some have been to provide or mandate official communications and public education in the native languages of these people, that approach can have only limited benefit to the ethnic person, and does not benefit that person in the long term with being able to participate in the common language of our nation, which is English. Gary and Sid Howden Kettle Falls, Wash.

BUSINESS AND LABOR

SHMC can well afford full staffing

Sacred Heart Medical Center’s 990 tax forms show that the hospital made a profit of $18.4 million in 1994, $21.1 million in 1995 and $16 million in 1996. Why doesn’t this nonprofit hospital hire staff to provide the highest standard of care, instead of forcing the registered nurses to be on mandatory call on their days off?

The purpose of forming unions was to prevent employees from working 12 hours a day, six days a week. John A. Allen Spokane

Cost containers only know, want cheap

Education and knowledge derived from nursing research can and does make a more qualified competent nurse. We must not discount expert wisdom and practice produced from the bedside nurse. The fundamental problem is that we continue to de-value and de-skill nursing. The system purges skilled and educated nurses so they can employ a cheaper pseudonurse model.

Our skilled services are under constant attack so as to become a low-cost provider. Cost containment powers want you and our customers to believe that no matter who is at the bedside caring for your needs, they are qualified to function as an educated, skilled nurse. The highly skilled and educated nurse has become an economic irritant to the cost containers. We are being eradicated by the cancerous cost containers.

The pseudonurses model becomes business as usual because they are cheaper. A skilled and educated nurse has a tag that seems pricey. One must decide if positive health care outcomes are strongly related to employing additional services of a pricey, researched-based, educated nurse versus employment of the pseudonurse at the lowest cost available.

I worry about the consequences of the latter choice when a crisis occurs or a hospital stay becomes more complex.

The next time a pediatric intensive care doctor wants an assessment and impression of my trauma patient’s condition, I can hope and work for a situation that employs my highly skilled and educated services.

My support is for the SHMC nurses. Michael G.L. Sells, R.N., B.S.N., M.S.N. student Spokane

Nurses, your petard awaits

Registered nurses at Sacred Heart Medical Center are concerned that patient care will suffer if health care providers with less education are substituted for them. The RNs have a valid point and are to be commended for their strong stance on this issue.

Their union, the Washington State Nurses Association has implied during these contract negotiations that the formal education which all RNs must complete makes them safer providers than those without such an education. I agree with the WSNA that professional privileges should be determined not by hospital administrator fiat or legislative edict but by actual completion of the educational process. If others wish to have the same privileges as RNs, let them go through the sacrifices associated with attending nursing school.

Having now learned that the WSNA believes that on the basis of patient safety, professional privileges should be commensurate with formal education, I look forward to their position the next time a nursing group asks for privileges reserved for physicians. Will the WSNA finally acknowledge that four years of medical school and four to eight additional years of residency training might be a valid reason why physicians resist the efforts of certain nursing groups to expand their hospital privileges to a level equivalent to physician’s? Eric S. Johnson, M.D. Spokane

Telemarketer, you’re not welcome

Re: “Telemarketers aren’t all scam artists” (Letters, March 10).

Donna Butterfield contends that I should be pleased to allow an unknown salesperson to intrude on my home life simply because “it may be one of us just trying to do our job and earn a living, the same as you.”

Butterfield, I do not come uninvited into your home to conduct my business and I resent the fact that you think that I should welcome your earning your living in my home. Ken Jackson Sandpoint

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Teach both sides of origin issue

Darwinism or evolution is being taught as a fact, not a theory. It is just as much a “religion” as Christianity. Therefore, creationism should be taught also.

Students should be given both sides of issues if they are to be able to decide what they believe. If they have been taught evolutionism, as it is presented in every documentary on the Discover Channel, PBS, etc., they have missed hearing another idea, one that takes less imagination and creativity, granted, but another side of the issue. I believe our children need to have all the facts. Shirley V. Hethorn Oldtown, Idaho

Evolutionists can’t be people of faith

To the Christians and Jews in this debate, I ask: If you don’t believe in creation, why bother going to church or temple? If you think that men have all knowledge and answers, put your faith in science. Alternatively, if you are going to pray, go to church and call yourself a Christian or Jew, then be one by not being intimidated by secular things. Don L. Brush Spokane

Court ruled out teaching creationism

There have been many rulings on the legality of teaching religiously based theories in the public schools.

My opinion on these issues is not relevant but the Supreme Court’s is. In Edwards vs. Aguillard (1987), that court ruled as unconstitutional a Louisiana law to teach “the scientific evidences for creation and inferences from these scientific evidences.”

The court then ruled that these theories could not be included in a public school curriculum, regardless of how they might be presented. The court also has ruled on numerous occasions that evolution is not a religiously based theory.

The Post Falls School Board has made the correct decision to gather more information, especially on the legal issues, before making a decision. By their own definition, “The board’s responsibilities include the formation and adoption of policies consistent with state and federal law.”

If the board adopts any policy that in is conflict with the federal rulings and the U.S. Constitution, it will result in a lawsuit that will have the full backing of the American Civil Liberties Union and result in years of litigation. This is not the proper use of the tax dollars of the residents of Post Falls. But the alternative, accepting unconstitutional behavior within our community, is equally repulsive. Roger Emigh, Ph.D Post Falls

Creationism is not science

Re: “Post Falls parents push creationism,” (Feb. 22). Creationism is not science. Roe Ann Roberts, Ph.D. Spokane

Bad move, downgrading geography

It was disappointing to read on March 10 that Coeur d’Alene’s school board has removed world geography from the list of required subjects for graduation.

American students, already famous for geographic illiteracy, can only get worse with this type of action. Ironically, while Coeur d’Alene was removing geography from its curriculum for graduation, the nation’s College Board announced that it is adding geography to the list of Advanced Placement courses.

The AP program consists of 32 college-level courses and exams in 19 disciplines for highly motivated high school students. AP courses are offered in more than 11,700 high schools in every state in the country, and they are recognized by nearly 2,900 universities throughout the world that grant credit for AP courses.

Geography joins mathematics, chemistry, physics, foreign language, English, political science, psychology, and history as an AP offering.

As we move continually toward global-scale issues in economy, environment, population, climate, business decisions in nearly every aspect of our society, it is important that our students gain some knowledge about the rest of the world. Not just where places are but what they are like.

Most European students must take at least four years of geography in the public school curriculum. In Russia and China, they take five years of geography. Removing the minimal requirement of a world geography course is out of step with the rest of the country and the world. Harley Johansen Moscow, Idaho

Tax activists selfish people with a cause

Re: “Tax activists unlikely to support bond issue,” (March 5).

I wonder how many of those “tax activists” have children in the affected schools. These silly people need to pull their heads out and consider everybody’s future,not just their pocketbook.

Post Falls is a rapidly growing community. Get with it and do the right thing. Given the opportunity, I’ll probably move out of the community, taking my three students with me.

Aside from improving conditions for my children, that would be my contribution for helping the overburdened school district.

I honestly can’t believe this has gone on as long as it has. Gerald W. Wellsandt Post Falls