Spring cleaning in Glacier

To the editor,

It's that time of year. Spring is here, and it's time to once again plan for summer adventure in Glacier National Park. This year, however, something is different. A couple of weeks ago, I read about the Western Airborne Contaminants Assessment Project (WACAP). This study sought to determine if industrial and agricultural chemicals were present in various western parks. The results were disturbing.

Most of us think of our national parks as untouchable, islands of true wilderness that man cannot touch. This study revealed that even pristine landscapes like Glacier are impacted by our activities. Perhaps the most disturbing results were contaminant levels found in fish. Mercury, mainly the result of coal burning power plants, was found at levels unfit for birds. Historic use pesticides, like DDT and dieldrin, were found at levels unfit for human consumption. Banned for decades, these chemicals take a long time to break down, serving as a precautionary tale for current chemicals we use and don't know the long-term effects of.

It's time we take another look at the activities causing this contamination. We need to urge our representatives to regulate the power plants, pesticides, and threatening our greatest economic and environmental asset.

Darin Hackenberg

Whitefish

Every death is personal

To the editor,

On March 19, 2008, the United States experienced its fifth year in the Iraqi Conflict. As of that date, the U.S. has experienced the loss of 3,391 servicemen and women. As a retired military officer, every death and every casualty is a personal loss. Unfortunately, other than writing comments and carrying on dialogue with friends and acquaintances, there is nothing you or I can do about this war. The state of Montana has experienced the loss of 10 of its finest young men. Each was laid to rest with dignity and full military honors, plus all the respect that their community could give.

Yet in this same timeframe, a war has been going on in the state of Montana in which 10,767 innocents have lost their lives. None of these children were buried with honor and dignity.Their names never appeared on the TV or were featured in the newspaper. They came from every county in the state. Most of our citizens never even knew they existed. This is a tremendous casualty loss in that Montana has the 44th largest population in the U.S. Imagine what it is like in the larger states.

This is a war that each resident of Montana can participate in. This is a war that each citizen can make a contribution to see that casualties are depreciated and ultimately stopped. Constitutional Initiative 100 (CI-100) affords each registered voter an opportunity to go to Web site Life2008.org and download a copy of the petition and the affidavit. If your petition has only your name on it, you have done your duty.

Hopefully, you will have family and friends that would also like to participate. The name of each registered voter is one step closer to meeting the requirement of 44,615 total signatures. You, as an individual, can make a difference. This is our war; these are our citizens being lost.

I became personally involved in pro-life about five years ago when I realized that more innocents lose their lives every year, than all the men and women killed in action in the 234 years of our great nation's history. And then, when I begin to realize that the United States has passed the genocide in Cambodia, South Vietnam, and Laos; the loss of 20 million Europeans by Hitler; the death of 35 million Chinese under Mao and rapidly approaching the 65 million Soviets eliminated by Stalin, I felt that, "enough was enough." After Stalin, the only barbarian more ruthless is Genghis Khan. Khan and his prodigy ravaged Europe and Asia for three centuries.

I pray that you too will share my belief that, "enough is enough." The life that we have is our gift from the Almighty, what we do with that life is our gift to Him. Become a member of this campaign and do the right thing; sign the petition, get your affidavit notarized and forward it to the address at the bottom of the petition. When finished, you are truly a participant in the Almighty's army! You have helped to make a difference! You have helped to save a life. This is your gift to the Almighty.

Jim Van Sickle COL (ret)

Stevensville

Thanks for support of Shamrocks campaign

To the editor,

As chairperson of Muscular Dystophy Association's Shamrocks Against Dystrophy, I want to take a moment to thank businesses and patrons in the Columbia Falls area for their generous participation in our 2008 campaign. I'm delighted to say that this year's fundraising efforts were a great success.

Those little green and gold Shamrocks mobiles sold by local businesses help support MDA's vital programs of research, health care services and public education right here in Columbia Falls and across the country.

On behalf of all the individuals and families coping with muscle-wasting diseases, I send a big warm "thank you" to Columbia Falls residents — you've certainly put a smile in these Irish eyes!

Maureen McGovernMore people, less waterWe Montanans are used to thinking of water almost as we think of air — infinitely plentiful and pure. While we'll never have to restrict the use of air in Montana, we are beginning to restrict the availability of water in the developing areas of our state.

Use of water in Montana is governed by the issuance of a water right. It defines the use, location, flow and volume of the water that the water right holder is entitled to. They are private property, and the doctrine of "first in time, first in right" gives an older right legal priority over newer rights. That means, when water is scarce, newer rights holders may have to curtail or stop their water consumption so the senior right can be filled.

The only exemption to the need for a water right permit is for a domestic well with a use of water less than 35 gallons a minute. These are called "exempt wells."

A few years back it became obvious that in certain river basins we had issued rights for more water than there was water available, so in order to protect the senior rights holders from losing their water, parts of river basins in Montana became closed to the issuance of new water rights in the late 1980s and the 1990s.

That was no real hardship in most basins until what seemed like the entire population of the United States began to want a home in Montana. That's when the beauty of our landscape combined with our limited amount of water to create something close to crisis; the areas people wanted to move to were in closed basins like the Bitterroot and Gallatin valley. When people moved to Montana one by one, they bought a lot, built a home and drilled an exempt well. As the number of new residents increased year after year, new subdivisions were built to house them, and those subdivisions contained smaller and smaller lots than before.

In a high-density subdivision the best way to supply water is to put in a community water supply system, which requires getting a water right. But in closed basins new rights are not being issued without stringent guidelines, and elsewhere the time and cost to obtain a water right for a community water supply system has discouraged their use. This has made exempt wells the default choice of supplying water to homes in subdivisions.

That's created two problems — one of water quality and one of water quantity. First, just as a home needs water, it needs a place to dispose of the used water; it needs both a well and a septic system. On a large lot, this isn't a problem because there is room to separate them. On a small lot it is, because when the septic system is too close to the well, the well gets contaminated. And if neighboring wells are too close to a septic system, those wells get contaminated.

Second, because subdivisions of hundreds of homes are becoming commonplace, the combined use of water from 100 exempt wells results in a significant amount of water taken from the water supply. This, of course, is exactly what is not supposed to happen in closed basins.

The dilemma is that our current laws make the use of good water management practices difficult to implement, and the use of less desirable practices easy. Something has to give, and it won't be the amount of water.

These are two major problems facing water use in Montana. The solutions are obvious, but not easy or simple to implement. Developers, who know an economic opportunity when they see one, want to continue to take advantage of the growth in population while the time is right, and often view Montana's water laws as easier and more cost effective to circumvent than to comply with. If the water laws are not changed this will mean an ever-increasing use of exempt wells. Because of that increase, senior water rights holders worry that the cumulative impact of exempt wells in subdivisions will diminish the water supply, and homeowners simply want clean water.

Often in the midst of change we try to prevent the inevitable from happening instead of looking at ways of adjusting to it. Resisting change requires more effort, time and money than dealing with it, and eventually makes adapting to change more difficult when it is finally becomes unavoidable. If there is a short term benefit to a particular sector, there will be a long term loss to others. We know that we can solve these difficult issues, but not without some sacrifice and a lot of cooperation from all involved. Today is a good time to start; tomorrow's not.

Jim Elliott is a state senator from Trout Creek in his 16th year of legislative service, and is chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee. Rotten roots, failed mortgages to blameSome folks got the gold mine, and some folks got the shaft.

The gold mine was for the real estate and mortgage brokers who steered would-be homeowners into easy-credit sub-prime mortgages. Can't lose, they said, because real estate value is gonna rise forever!

Then the fine print kicked in, and the interest rate hit the ceiling, and real estate tanked. And the buyer got the shaft.

Shaftee couldn't pay? No problem for the broker. He had his commission and his BMW, and the bank wrapped the mortgages in tasty bundles and fed them to Biggies on Wall Street. Nice snack.

But two million shaftees had to drop the house keys in the mailbox and move the family into Mom's basement. There are seven million more shaftees collecting cardboard boxes for the big move, too.

Now when the move-to-Mom's-place started, people like Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve boss Bernanke wagged a scolding finger at those unfortunate basement-dwellers: Naughty naughty. No government help for you. Let this be a lesson to ye in the Sacred Laws of Market Discipline, and may the pawnshops have mercy on yer miserable souls. And don't bother me at work.

But then the bogus bargain mortgages, the rotten root of the problem, started to stink up the board rooms of the rich and famous. They had pretended that these all-but-worthless papers were real money and used them as collateral to borrow more money. Big mistake. Feet of clay. Rotten roots.

The investment bank, Big Bad Bear Stearns, which had been gobbling up these rotten roots, suddenly developed terminal indigestion, and in a quick flip-flop Mr. Bernanke and the other People Who Matter said, Market Discipline? Um… heh heh…just kidding. After all, these are real people losing money — you know, the guys with a $400k income. Hell, I play squash with these guys! We can't let them take a hit. Forget the rules, bail them out.

And now JP Morgan Chase is swallowing Bear Stearns, indigestion and all. If Morgan makes money on the deal, good. But if the indigestion crops up again, Bernanke will front them $30 billion of taxpayers' money to buy Maalox. As they say, privatize profits, socialize losses.

Something wrong with this picture? Yup.

Everyone, including Mr. Bernanke, agrees that the real problem is those rotten roots, the failed mortgages. OK, then, fix the dang failed mortgages. Feed the roots, and you feed the tree. Bernanke is polishing the apples at the top, but they'll wither again if the roots keep dying. Rather than drop 30 billion into the laps of the Wall Street moguls, how about easing the interest rates or re-setting the rules for the folks in Mom's basement?

Editors at the Wall Street Journal are feeling sorry for the bankers who will be looking for work after Morgan eats the Bear. How about some sympathy for the poor shaftees at the bottom, the ones the Bear et up?

Bill Rossiter is a resident of Kalispell.