Letters To The Editor

THE ENVIRONMENT

Non-dam salmon remedies abound

Whitman County residents were given the greatest asset west of the Mississippi River when the four lower Snake River Dams were built in the 1960s and ‘70s. They brought Whitman County an inland seaport 350 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

To take these dams out would make about as much sense as taking out Post Falls Dam and draining Lake Coeur d’Alene or removing Ballard Locks in Seattle and draining Lake Washington.

A true environmentalist, including those in Whitman County, should take a global perspective on environmental problems concerning saving our salmon. They should also ask for solutions that include ocean conditions and food, terns on Corps-built Rice Island, 395 nets between Bonneville and McNary dams, and the fish-eating seals.

No other endangered species is caught, killed or sold for human consumption. Federal state and tribal fishery agencies did not merely fail to stop the harvest, they promoted it.

Without a vote by Congress, the fishery managers created an expensive endangered species recovery program funded by surcharges on electric ratepayers - that’s you and me.

Environmentalists, funded by commercial fisheries, file lawsuits against harvesting trees but not salmon. Why not stop all fishing - including private, commercial and the tribes, all the way to the Pacific Ocean? They did this for the bald eagle and the eagle came back.

The Endangered Species Act flatly forbids all trade and commerce in endangered species. However the National Marine Fisheries Service routinely issues permits for the commercial harvest of endangered salmon. Why?

We need competent, science-based salmon management. Knowledgeable and concerned citizens should demand nothing less. Les Wigen Whitman County commissioner, Colfax

Greed is not behind beetle control

I’ve grown tired of the argument some are making that private timber companies invented the Douglas fir bark beetle epidemic to enhance profits.

Everyone living in North Idaho in the winter of 1996 remembers the ice storm that broke treetops by the millions. These broken trees provided natural homes for bugs called Douglas fir bark beetles - an epidemic of them. They are now in their second generation, moving out from trees they have killed to attack new ones.

About 250,000 acres of national forest land are affected by these little bugs. And while it’s true that the bugs are always in the forest, it’s also true that all the dead and dying trees will burn when a fire starts. The kind of wildfire that will burn in these forests will be unusually hot and destructive due to the large amount of dead fuel in the woods.

It’s really not an issue of greed, as some would like us to believe. Rather, it’s an issue of caring for the forest, fish and wildlife through modern forest management. This is the only way to make sure our forests stay alive and healthy for everyone who uses them. Reid Ahlf Hayden, Idaho

Lumber - who needs it?

Re: “groups lining up to protest Colville Forest timber sale,” (July 10).

In this day and age of aluminum framing, sheetrock walls, roofs covered with vinylg, concrete slab floors that get covered with carpeting, and aluminum window frames with Plexiglass windows, who needs to cut these trees to make lumber? I don’t! Most loggers don’t know how to, simply cannot or will not restore their logging area to the same condition they found it in. Donald R. Thomason Moses Lake

We need more wilderness lands

If you’re like many other Pacific Northwesterners, the most important reasons for living in or relocating near a county with wilderness are the environmental amenities - the breathtaking scenery, abundant outdoor recreation and the pace of life. Studies show the highest value people have toward public land is for roadless wild forests and outdoor recreation.

With our population growing and more people moving to the Northwest, the demand for wilderness-type recreation will soon overwhelm existing protected areas. In Washington alone, a population increase of 2.7 million people is projected by the year 2020 - the equivalent of one new Spokane every three years. With all this population growth and to protect important fish and wildlife habitat, we need more wilderness areas.

Wilderness plays a positive role in economic development. Thirty-two times as many jobs have been created by recreation and other nonconsumptive uses of public lands than logging, mining and ranching combined.

Wilderness designation does not prohibit hiking, camping, horseback riding, hunting, fishing or livestock grazing.

If you value our Northwest way of life, clean drinking water, outdoor recreation, abundant wildlife and healthy forests, demand more wilderness. Future generations will thank you. They will benefit from the foresight we had to ensure a healthy environment for ourselves, our children and the Earth. Shelly Flores-Pacha Kennewick

Let’s see if I can join the skeptics

What a brilliant thought it was to analyze the mud walls at the Cataldo Mission. Of course, one can see the immediate reaction to a common sense approach is to degrade it.

I can remember as a young boy on a Cub Scout field trip to the mission marveling at the hand prints left in the walls and hearing the story of how river mud was used in the construction. Of course, they didn’t say which river and being young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, I had no idea the people who built that structure would want to get their mud from someplace else. After all, they were carrying everything on their backs and what’s a few more miles to find a better quality of construction materials? Did they go to the St. Joe or the Clark Fork? It certainly wasn’t the Spokane River because that’s the same drainage, isn’t it?

Don’t even young people know that from the seas the mountains were thrust up and some parts of the earth are mineralized, meaning that from the natural process of erosion (rain, snow, wind), the soil, rock and minerals would eventually flow down to the streams and rivers? Isn’t lead where you find it? Or is it brought there by mining for it? Is that what these people who are looking for a payday are implying?

I need to work on this some more. I seem to be missing something. Maybe it’s the end run? Patrick M. Stroud Coeur d’Alene

OTHER TOPICS

Social Security program `a rat hole’

The government has mismanaged the American Indian trust fund. Records have been lost and criminally destroyed. It is impossible to distribute funds to the rightful owners.

In spite of this, there are still people willing to trust government bureaucrats with their retirement savings through the Social Security system.

The Social Security program, like the American Indian trust fund, is a government rat hole. To see how much better you would be financially without the Social Security program, check out http://www.socialsecurity.org/calc/calculator.html. David H. Wordinger Medical Lake

Farmers’ risks keep on growing

Regarding farm policy: It’s one thing to ask the American farmer to walk the tightrope of world trade with little or no safety net. It’s another when the tightrope turns out to be string. Rich Olson Garfield

Women’s soccer team wonderful

I breathed a breath of fresh air as I watched the women’s U.S. Soccer Team become world champions. I watched the entire game on the edge of my seat and I’m not even a soccer fan. I watched a team perform in a way we all should have been proud of. I know I was. Another feather in the cap of amateur sports. It will stand tall next to the blue and white feather that represents the Gonzaga basketball team.

I have one thing to say to those young women. They need to go home to their families, friends and continue to believe in what they have accomplished and what they will accomplish. I hope they don’t let a single sports agent enter their life. They are what the American people really want, not greed and self-centered idolization. They are an answer to a cry in the wilderness. They are what sports really represent.

Go, team red, white and blue. You will never lack for our support. James A. Nelson Spokane

Faith `defenders’ have some nerve

Re: “Defending the faith.”

What can the leadership at Calvary Chapel Spokane be thinking in sponsoring a series of lectures to “expose the deception” of the Mormon Church in the name of “defending Christianity?” (Kelly McBride’s article July 3.)

If this same church were to hire a professional speaker whose entire ministry was to debunk, say, Judaism or Islam in defense of Christian beliefs, wouldn’t these so-called sermons be more accurately referred to as hate rallies financed and endorsed by a hate group? Yet, for those in charge at Calvary Chapel, targeting a particular religious denomination and denigrating the convictions of others who also claim belief in Jesus Christ is justified as defending the faith in order to save souls?

What kind of religious leadership is this, and who do they think they are kidding? Julie Neuffer Spokane