Letters To The Editor

CCS softball team lacked coverage

I have had the privilege of observing an outstanding fastpitch softball team representing Community Colleges of Spokane. For such an excellent program with a highly successful season, coverage given by The Spokesman-Review was not commensurate with that success.

CCS won its division and placed a number of players on the all-conference team. Sophomore pitcher Kylee Curry from Ferris High was named most valuable pitcher.

Coverage was especially scanty considering the team was comprised of a number of former local high school players. Area schools represented were Central Valley, Jessica Sackman; Mead, Missy Bonano and Sarah Bowman; Rogers, Crystal Perry; University, Nickie Myers; Ferris, Jenny Lytle; East Valley, Rebecca Triplett; Lewis and Clark, Sarrah Babin; and Cheney, Tanya Birchler.

With that many local female athletes, I believe the team warranted a photographer and sportswriter at one of its conference games.

The most print space came when the team, quoting your story, “lost in their own back yard” in the NWAACC tournament. Maybe there was a way to have divided print and photo space with that given, fairly dominantly, to one local high school softball team. Ken Van Buskirk Spokane

Liquid rotenone opposed

Fenton Roskelley’s article May 24 (“Net pen fish …”) is neither true nor fair. The treatment of Silver Lake, both North and South, was not delayed by the Department of Fish and Wildlife or the property owners’ concerns over the use of rotenone.

Due to the fact several homes on Silver Lake use lake water for domestic purposes, the Department of Agriculture will not allow the use of liquid rotenone within one-half mile of any water intake. We have never contended that rotenone is a dangerous product. The chemicals mixed with it to make liquid rotenone are listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of hazardous chemicals and are all known carcinogens.

These are the chemicals we are strongly opposed to. We suspect the studies the last 40 years show that the “use of rotenone for fish control does not present a risk of unreasonable adverse affects to humans and the environment.” The statement is true. However, liquid rotenone is another story. We don’t believe rotenone has been mixed, as a dispersant, with these other chemicals for 40 years. We believe that Roskelley is working for the WDFW and the fly fishing club to try to sway public opinion against those of us who are opposed to having our water polluted by these chemicals.

One question for Roskelley: If rotenone is not harmful, why can’t the Department of Fish and Wildlife use it on the West Side of the state? Would it be that it might just be harmful to our endangered salmon? Ted Theodore President, Silver Lake Property Association