Hearing bogs down process
Letter to the Committee on Science, Space and Technology,
(Editor’s note: The following letter is in response to the Sept. 9 congressional hearing with the EPA over the Gold King Mine spill.)
I am appalled at the behavior demonstrated in the committee hearing on “Holding EPA Accountable for Polluting Western Water (Event 103930).”
The majority of those on the committee would not acknowledge the cause, ignored the long-term effects and offered no solution to the problem nor any assistance to those effected. All that was accomplished is finger-pointing, which is not your job in the first place. It serves no purpose.
This committee is named “Science, Space and Technology,” yet none of you behaved as scientists and followed the scientific method to identifying the cause and effect. The behavior displayed was childish and in no way helpful. You have been negligent in your duties.
The opportunity was missed to use the expert knowledge at your disposal to educate yourselves and the public on the matter at hand. This was a time when listening should have been your primary task and intelligent questions should have resulted. Neither of those occurred.
To those of you who cited other instances of detrimental events in the past, you wasted precious time.
Quit swimming in your puddle of self-importance. It bogs down the process and creates only disdain and disrespect. Try doing something positive if you are unable to contribute intelligently. Negativity gets us nowhere.
– Lissa Ray, La Plata County
Help a kid, eat a pancake
To the editor,
If you are old enough, do you remember what you were doing in 1955? That was the year that the Kiwanis Club of Durango held its first Pancake Day Fundraiser. The club has been flipping pancakes annually ever
since, and that’s a lot of pancakes (plus ham, scrambled eggs and all the trimmings).
All the proceeds from Pancake Day are used to support many organizations and activities for the benefit of children and their families in our community. There are too many organizations to name but some of them are: the Boys & Girls Club, youth baseball, La Plata Family Centers Coalition, La Plata Eye & Ear, Tri-County Head Start, and Adaptive Sports.
The Kiwanis Club keeps busy serving the community year-round. Our regular projects include: Child I.D. (fingerprinting young children using an I.D. kit that families can hold for possible future needs); Reading is Fundamental (reading to and providing books for Head Start children); Imagination Library (a literacy project in partnership with the Dollywood Foundation); Child Safety Day (all second-graders in La Plata County are invited to learn about safety), co-sponsored by Alpine Bank; and ringing the bell for the Salvation Army.
Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.
Please join us for the 60th annual Pancake Day on Thurs., Sept. 17, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. at the La Plata County Fairgrounds Exhibit Hall (2500 Main Ave). Tickets are $10 at the door or available from any club member. Children under 12 eat free.
Together we make a difference in our community. We look forward to seeing you there.
– Charlotte Pirnat, president, Kiwanis Club of Durango
McDonald’s egg pledge small step
To the editor,
McDonalds’ pledge last week to start using cage-free eggs is only a small step in preventing staggering suffering endured by millions of birds.
Hatcheries that annually supply 200 million female hens for U.S. egg production, including cage-free, also kill the same number of male chicks at birth by grinding them up alive in industrial macerators or suffocating them slowly in plastic garbage bags. The female laying hens endure a lifetime of misery, crammed with five to six others in small wire-mesh cages that cut into their feet and tear out their feathers.
Eggs are common carriers of food-borne bacteria, including salmonella, campylobacter, listeria and staphylococcus. USDA estimates that salmonella alone accounts for 1.3 million U.S. illnesses and 500 deaths annually.
Eggs contain saturated fat and cholesterol, key factors in incidence of heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes. They are a common cause of allergies in children.
Waste from millions of egg-laying hens ends up in waterways, rendering vast areas unsuited for recreation or water supply.
The good news for compassionate, health-conscious, eco-friendly consumers is that our local supermarket offers a number of delicious egg substitutes and egg-free food products. Entering “egg-free” in a search engine returns tons of recipes.
– Dante Gomez, Durango
Stop unwise use of public lands
To the editor,
Irresponsible activity calls for radical changes. As such, I am proposing that all mining claims within critical watershed areas be halted and withdrawn, particularly those in the Animas and Rio Grande River drainage areas. Let it become an outdated industrial practice along with coal-fired power plants.
I understand the draw to mine gold, prices being as they are, but my question is: Of what value is clean water, by comparison? Priceless! I’m sure the miners of old may have failed to see the environmental damage they were causing but now we know better. Do we still allow a few get-rich schemers to make or even lose a fortune at the expense of those downstream? Another alternative would be to combine the Uncompahgre and Weminuche wilderness areas to include an area from Silverton over to Lake City. Let us reconsider the term “wise land use” and stop making unwise choices for the use of our public lands.
– Michael Englert, Aztec, N.M.
Quit the blame game
To the editor,
It’s difficult to wax poetic about the Gold King Mine spill as so many others have. I’ve lived on the river for 23 years and over that period of time, I’ve seen rocks on the bank turn Bronco orange from time to time. Eight or 10 years ago, there was an 8,500 CFS flow that re-channeled the river, taking six 100-year-old ponderosa pines and an acre of our land downstream.
Quite frankly, I’m more concerned about the rude river runners that trespass and then flip me off after they’ve used my land for a toilet than the heavy metals in the water.
I suspect that the whiney eco-freaks that point to the mine owners as greedy capitalists as the cause of this disaster don’t have a clue about the 1872 mining laws. Over the past 50 years, there have been countless opportunities to change this law with a Democrat president and both houses of Congress in the D column. In case it escaped their attention, there are mining operations in blue states too.
Finally, I want to point out that my opposition to the EPA Clean Water Act is the fact that the EPA has lied through their teeth about monitoring ditch water for ag use. With the exception of the WSJ, no news media have reported the fact that the EPA can monitor ditch water in FEMA designated flood zones. That takes in most of the north Animas valley.
It’s time to move on and quit blaming the other guy.
– Dennis Pierce, Durango