Letters to the editor: Truth, dams, drought, tax cuts
Silencing smart people
Dr. Ryan Cole, “truther,” denier, COVID-19 misinformer, in his recent public statements said something I do agree with, “We’ve silenced smart people so that dumb people won’t be offended.” Let’s see, silence Dr. Fauci so that Donald Trump won’t be offended. Silence Liz Cheney and the examination of the Jan. 6 insurrection so the Republicans won’t be offended. Stop the exercise of free speech, free thought, free inquiry and free action, so Janice McGeachin and those who flock to her delusions won’t be offended or made uncomfortable. There are probably more examples that can be thought of.
Brian Goller, Boise
Drought
Re: U.S. Drought Monitor data for Idaho: Our state and 22 other states and territories are now experiencing “Exceptional Drought (D4), according to the National Integrated Drought Information Center, publisher of the National Drought Monitor site at drought.gov.
Two weeks ago I turned off my sprinkler system, and hand-water individual native plants I put in the ground in place of turf. My lawn will turn brown and go dormant.
Mountain Home, where I live, sucks its drinking water from the groundwater aquifer. Groundwater is like surface water; it is not in infinite supply. This region of the Great Basin Desert receives an average annual precipitation of 10 inches. That explains the word “desert.” Having a lawn around one’s home in Williston, Vt., which gets 40 inches of rain and snow annually, makes a lot more sense, even if the typical lawn is a biological desert of invasive species.
Letters on this issue to local, county and state leaders have gone unanswered.
I did a bit of outdoor work an hour ago, and watched as my neighbor’s sprinkler system burst to life at 10 a.m.
Here’s the thing: Maintaining a lawn in exceptional drought conditions is both ethically wrong and dangerous.
Alan C. Gregory, Mountain Home
Preserve water
Your recent article about the water drought in Idaho causes me to write this letter. You folks continue to print articles from high school students who endorse Simpson’s proposal to take down the dams to preserve the natural habitat of the fish. Folks, isn’t it about time that common sense prevails and the farmers and people win instead of the fish?! I’m a huge fan of fishing, I also used to have a farm on the west side of California’s Central Valley. The “rich farmers” that the environmentalists in California oppose were allotted zero water this year (again). One reason is the continued drought. The other larger reason is because environmentalists have thrown countless lawsuits against the delivery of water to the farmers using the Endangered Species Act as their venue. Millions of gallons of water are being sent to the ocean daily to “save the smelt.” So nobody wins: The smelt is a minnow not even indigenous to the Central Valley yet farmers and people don’t get the water. So is Idaho going to follow suit?! We need to preserve our precious water.
Jack Oberti, McCall
Tax cuts
To Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch:
I see that you recently noted that our current fiscal crisis is unsustainable and as a result, you are co-sponsoring the Zero-Based Budget Act, and I applaud your commitment to fiscal responsibility.
However, I am reminded that you justified your vote for the Trump tax cuts by telling us that these cuts would reduce the deficit. Instead, they resulted in record-breaking deficit increases, even prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Since these tax cuts are a primary and continuing cause of our soaring deficits, if you are indeed focused on fiscal responsibility, shouldn’t you start by introducing legislation to reverse the most egregious excesses of these tax cuts?
Rick Simon, Boise
