Letters for Tuesday, Jan. 27

Baumgartner deserves credit

Thank you to Michael Baumgartner for all his hard work representing the East Side of Washington state, focusing on the important things that further the interest of the community. Things like: protecting farms and dams, small business deductions, rural health programs, tax savings for families. On the federal level, it includes securing our borders, blocking the largest tax increase in history, the $1,000 child savings account for newborns, no tax on tips or auto interest payments, tax savings for seniors. Continue working on getting Congress cleaned up and the importance of our national debt that needs to be addressed.

Let’s keep up the good work!

Jim Clarizio

Spokane

Good Baumgartner does?

Maybe the reason there are so many negative opinions about the job Baumgartner is doing, is because there are so many! It’s hard to believe that a person elected to represent the people would kowtow to such an amoral individual like President Trump, who seems hellbent on tearing apart the democratic principles that have defined our nation.

Mark Johnson

Mead

Attack at Petunia & Loomis

A gang of 10 to 15 teenagers pepper-sprayed a store employee? Something else to add to my growing list of reasons never to go downtown anymore.

Nadine Joubert

Spokane

Lower Snake River data tell s a different story

The letter titled “Year of the Fire Horse” claims “catastrophic fish losses” and asserts that salmon mitigation on the Lower Snake River has “failed.” Those claims rest on a misuse of timelines and are not supported by hard data.

The author relies on 1966 to frame conditions on the Lower Snake River. But in 1966, three of the four Lower Snake River dams were not yet operating. Ice Harbor was the only dam in service. Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite came online years later, making 1966 an invalid reference point for the full system.

Using the University of Washington’s Columbia River DART adult passage data, and comparing each dam to its earliest valid year of operation, the record tells a very different story:

Ice Harbor

1966: 75,882 Chinook / 65,798 steelhead.

2025: 91,577 Chinook / 86,984 steelhead.

Lower Monumental

1969: 86,700 Chinook / 71,434 steelhead.

2025: 87,647 Chinook / 75,582 steelhead.

Little Goose

1970: 73,471 Chinook / 59,640 steelhead.

2025: 83,564 Chinook / 70,931 steelhead.

Lower Granite

1975: 28,460 Chinook / 17,786 steelhead.

2025: 81,659 Chinook / 82,545 steelhead.

At Lower Granite alone, Chinook returns are nearly three times higher than in the earliest data year, and steelhead returns are more than four times higher.

These figures do not support claims of “catastrophic fish losses,” nor do they demonstrate that mitigation has “failed.” Honest debate over the lower Snake River dams should be grounded in accurate timelines and real numbers, not a misleading baseline.

Chelsea Martin

Spokane Valley