Truth absent in Newhouse claims
As a constituent of WA-04 represented by Dan Newhouse, I received his online newsletter March 1, in which he promotes the blatant lie that “The Endangered Species Act has failed in its mission to recover and delist species and instead has been used as a tool by the federal government to control landowner rights …”
First, it’s important to know that the ESA was passed in 1973 as a bi-partisan legislative law following the urging of Republican President Nixon, who declared the then-current species conservation efforts to be inadequate and called on the 93rd Congress to pass comprehensive endangered species legislation — which it did. The purposes of the ESA are two-fold: To prevent extinction and to recover species to the point where the law’s protections are not needed. It is administered by the respected U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Second, there are many species that have avoided extinction and rebounded with the help of ESA. Examples are our national bird, the bald eagle; whooping crane and peregrine falcon.
A scientific nonprofit organization, Center for Biological Diversity, conducts studies of the effectiveness of the ESA for species listed and found that 85% of bird populations in the continental U.S. increased or stabilized while protected under the ESA. Another study of recovery rates of 110 listed species found that “the ESA has a remarkably successful recovery rate: 90% of species are recovering at the rate specified by their federal recovery plan.”
Rep. Newhouse seems intent on spreading falsehoods and fear to citizens in District 4. He also has indicated opposition to ESA listed salmon species recovery plans recently in agreement by federal, Washington and Oregon states governments and four Native American Tribes with Treaty rights for fishing on the Columbia, including the Yakama. The time to help save the salmon is now with the new comprehensive plan, not the false story of "saving the dams" as Rep. Newhouse claims.
Steven Woolpert, White Salmon
Volunteers needed
The Gorge Rebuild-It Center (GRC) on Tucker Road is seeking volunteers to help restock after installing a new concrete floor. We are a nonprofit that seeks to make it easy, fun and affordable to reuse materials for a more sustainable future. The GRC has been part of the Gorge community since 2003. Please check our website or call to volunteer. Items that can be donated are listed on the website rebuildit.org.
Doug Wiedwald, Hood River
Not Biden's fault
Yes, there are millions in Gaza who are starving, without medicine and women and girls being raped. Sounds like what happened to six million Jews who were killed in World War II. Hamas is to blame for all of this and President Biden is not to blame.
Ann Beug, Husum
Elect commissioner with ethics, vision
Dan Richardson has a better grasp of effective local politics than anyone I’ve ever met. I’ve known Dan now for just over 20 years, since he was a newspaper editor, and have closely followed his career. As an editor, writer, conservation manager, budget committee member and most recently as a city councilor, he’s always been able to focus immediately on what’s important and what’s secondary, what’s correct and what’s questionable. Dan does the careful work in making decisions, and the hard work in bringing projects to fruition. He’ll engage with anyone, listen well, and state his case clearly. I am certain Dan Richardson will help keep Wasco County healthy, solvent, livable, and moving smoothly into the future.
Sam Lowry, Redmond
Pumped hydro not obsolete
In the March 13 edition of Columbia Gorge News is a letter entitled "Pumped hydro is obsolete."
In the second paragraph of this letter is an unsupported claim that "it is significantly more expensive to build and operate than various battery options." This is surprising and questionable.
Pumped hydro has a large drawback of requiring a significant amount of land which is hopefully close to the facilities requiring energy storage. But it also has some very significant advantages: Proven long-lived, efficient, reliable technology (nearly the same as power-generating dams); no hard-to-find resources; and comparatively low environmental impact per unit of energy stored (due to the long life and low processing of minerals involved as compared to lithium batteries).
One reason why investing in stored hydro is apparently beating out new nuclear power plants is pumped hydro is considered "green" and customers are willing to pay more for "green" energy.
According to one source, "Power Engineering" (power-eng.com/news/revisiting-the-debate-who-will-build-new-u-s-pumped-storage), there are four pumped hydro systems currently "in play" in the U.S., of which the Goldendale project is the largest one.
What trade-offs are we willing to make to make "green" energy work? I'm not trying to suggest that the value to the world of getting a "greener" energy storage system is greater than the value of the proposed site to Native American culture: That is going to be the result of debate. But we need the whole story to decide and the "Pumped hydro is obsolete" letter did not do the subject justice.
Wayne Thayer, White Salmon
Vote Richardson
Please join me in supporting Dan Richardson for Wasco County Commissioner. Dan cares about issues that affect everyone, including housing supply, hunger, houselessness, and climate stresses including increasing wildfires.
The threat of wildfire affects all of us in Wasco County. As someone who has been evacuated five times, I especially appreciate Dan’s work in wildfire risk reduction. He has worked with private landowners and small communities to strengthen wildfire defense, improve native habitats, and restore healthy streams.
As a county commissioner, he will work to make Wasco County safer and more livable for all of us.
Shelia Dooley, Mosier
Tax billionaires
According to Oxfam International (Jan. 16, 2023), since 2020 the wealth of the world’s billionaires have risen by $1.7 million dollars for every $1 of wealth gained by the lowest 90%. A 5% global tax on billionaire fortunes would raise $1.7 trillion and lift two billion people out of poverty.
In 2023, both extreme wealth and extreme poverty increased simultaneously, driving mass migration. In the U.S., steady tax cuts for the wealthy and big industry began with Kennedy and have continued for 40 years while waiting for the long-promised trickle down. Elon Musk pays a true tax rate of 3%. One choice this fall is whether to vote for candidates who feel that it is time for the super-rich to pay their fair share with a 5% wealth tax on U.S. billionaires (current total wealth is more than $5 trillion dollars). This would raise more than $250 billion dollars per year to provide additional government services. Or do you vote for candidates who feel that $8/hour is an adequate minimum wage and who support cutting social security, healthcare, and eliminating investments in a sustainable future. Do you support a man who called Putin "genius" and "savvy" for his invasion of Ukraine and uses hate speech indistinguishable from the late 1930s era Hitler? Do you support forcing raped women to carry a baby to term?
Justice delayed is justice denied. Consider the evidence and decide since the courts will not act in time.
Michael Beug, White Salmon
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