Letters and comments for April 26, 2011

League to honor Johnson

To the Editor:

The League of Oregon Cities board of directors will be meeting in Island City Friday. The board will be in the area to recognize former La Grande Mayor Colleen Johnson’s service to the league as a board member, treasurer and vice president.

We would like to take the opportunity to recognize Johnson’s service to all the cities of Oregon, in addition to her 16 years of service to the city of La Grande (12 as mayor and four as a city councilor) and her 35 years at Eastern Oregon University, where she received the Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award.

In addition to serving on the League of Oregon Cities board of directors, she served on the Oregon Mayors Association board of directors and was its president in 2005. She chaired the league’s telecom, cable and broadband committee, and was instrumental in the development of a comprehensive report in 2008 on telecommunications in Oregon.

Oregon’s 242 cities have also benefitted from Colleen’s strong and articulate leadership for which we thank her.

Cottage Grove Mayor Gary Williams president, League of Oregon Cities

Cost is high and climbing

To the Editor:

The evidence continues to mount up against the advisability of industrial wind farms. Recently an article in The Observer, “BPA Proposes Suspending Excess Wind Power,” reported that the Bonneville Power Administration wants to shut down Northwest wind farms this spring when hydroelectric dams are generating plenty of electricity.

The wind power producers are fighting the proposal that would cost them millions in lost revenue and have said that if there are shut downs, it should be compensated for lost revenue. Such payments would raise operating costs and could push up rates for BPA’s major costumers. Given this information, it makes no sense at all to continue with the development of Antelope Ridge Wind Farm.

The U.S. Department of Energy projects that wind will generate less than 1 percent of the electric production needs by 2030.

Last month the Bond household cut its electricity consumption by 5 percent by effortlessly switching to cold water for all laundry, running only full loads of laundry and dishes and being diligent about turning out all lights when leaving a room. This month we plan to take more energy-cutting action.

Instead of trying to reduce the electrical generation carbon footprint primarily by generating more electricity with renewable, alternative energy sources, it makes much more sense to conserve.

The high cost of wind projects to this nation’s consumers, wildlife, environment and economy is unacceptable. As the truth of industrial wind energy is exposed, opponents can no longer be categorized as NIMBYs (not in my backyard). An adaptation of a famous Dr. Seuss exhortation comes to mind: “I do not like them (industrial wind farms) here! I do not like them there!  I do not like them anywhere!”

Linda Bond

Union

No money in common sense

To the Editor:

I would like to commend the Fish and Wildlife service on the collaring of the wolf that died.

Whenever you disrupt a group of animals with a death or draw blood on that group, they will move out of that area for a long period of time.

By killing the wolf, they have saved several calves that would have been killed by said pack. If people would use these common-sense approaches to these problems, the problem would take care of itself. But there is not any money in using common sense. So the taxpayer just keeps shelling out all those dollars.

Greg Fischer

Elgin