Letters and Comments for June 9, 2009

Pristine disappeared long ago

To the Editor:

Recently, several people including one in Cove used the word “pristine” while commenting on the storage of rail cars in the Wallowa Valley.

I looked up the definition of pristine. It means “primitive or original. Remaining in a pure and uncorrupted state.’’

The Wallowa Valley lost the “pristine” designation the first time a settler dropped his plow into what was then a mostly dry sagebrush valley floor. Prairie Creek didn’t run year-round then until the settlers further violated the word “pristine” by building a dam and using teams and Fresnos to build irrigation ditches so they could turn this dry unproductive piece of landscape into the lush, green productive valley it is today.

They actually took something unproductive and turned it into a way to make a profit and a living and hence the rub. Environmentalists don’t like people making money on nature. Note the demise of the Northwest timber industry using birds, bugs and animals to obliterate that money-maker and ongoing attempts to destroy the rancher and farmer using, with the blessing of ODFW, wolves, coyotes, cougars, bears and in the Zumwalt Area, elk to drive the rancher off the land.

The Forest Service’s criminal neglect of the land, at the direction of the environmentalists, will come back to haunt them when the right lightning strike and the right wind patterns cause a blow-up in our forests.

Read Norman N. MacLean’s “Fire on the Mountain,” the true story of the South Canyon fire in Glenwood Springs, Colo., on July 1, 1994.

Management decisions here were strangely similar to the canal fire where the Forest Service’s refusal to let a logging helicopter drop one bucket of water resulted in scars visible for decades.

In Glenwood Springs, it cost 14 lives.

Paul Morehead

Joseph

Activities help students

I am a local attorney who has lived in this community for nine years. My practice primarily involves criminal defense. As a regular part of my practice, I represent minors in delinquency cases. Far too often, the teens I represent are in trouble because of other, more fundamental problems: alcohol and drug abuse, developmental delays, mental illness, dysfunctional families or parents who never troubled to teach them right from wrong.

Because the students involved in sports and extracurricular activities represent a very different group of teenagers than those I usually represent, I always delight in attending a play put on by intelligent, engaged, talented, self-confident students or activities involving skilled, motivated, hard-working students — including those with issues — an opportunity to discover their interests and talents, to develop confidence and self-discipline, to learn teamwork, forge friendships and to contribute to our community.

I believe that it would be a major mistake to cut these student activities because of the school district’s current budget issues, leaving students without organized activities to focus their attention and energies. I do not want your children to become my clients.

Anne Morrison

La Grande