Letters

Flooded streets

I heard about and read in the paper about Colfax having to clean mud off certain streets in town. I am surprised that all seem to accept this as a quirk of nature and no one can do anything about it. The purpose of this letter is to make the claim that there is something that can be done about it and that it doesn’t have to happen.

Farmers learned more than 30 years ago how to summer fallow a field and not have huge gullies in it the next spring.

Conventional summer fallow can even have runoff from a hard summer rain.

We saw that happen a few days ago.

I am amazed that the city of Colfax cleans mud from their streets as a common occurrence and does not ask “why”.

Property owners clean their driveways and lawns of mud and accept this travesty without asking “why”.

The cause of all this is conventionally tilled summer fallow.

No better system could be devised to prepare the land to erode than to cultivate it all summer as it lays fallow.

The technique that fixes this problem is what they call “no till” or “chem.

fallow”.

This is simply just stopping cultivation.

Yes it has been hard for farmers or anyone else to accept the idea that a crop can be grown without working the soil.

It can be and is being done.

Many have been reluctant to try it because their fathers and grandfathers did it the old way.

I remember as a kid feeling sick at the sight of those ditches down the sides of the hills. Later I remember crossing ditches with a combine that were actually so deep they were hard to cross. Truck drivers had to carry a shovel to fill ditches so they could cross them with a loaded truck. That has changed. Many have been reluctant to make the change but more and more are doing it. That is an environmental plus. Some feel though that to change their ways will cost them money. Sometimes that might be true, but many are finding that by doing it they can still raise a good crop and not lose soil.

To be fair it should be said that sometimes we don’t get any hard summer rains and if one gets the seed in the ground early enough and it gets up and grows enough to make a heavy sod before winter, it is possible to have conventional summer fallow that does not wash. From the beginning farmers have played their cards with no absolute guarantee of what the outcome will be.

However, it seems obvious that the people of Colfax would benefit if the field that is muddying their property was in the no-till program. I’ll bet they would like to see it happen.

Jack Ensley,

Colfax

Supports Cowan

Voters of Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District kindly listen up! Our current US Representative in Congress, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, has pledged her candidacy to Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) never to raise any taxes. ATR is a Norquist boondoggle and is a 501(c)4 tax-exempt charitable organization that doles out cash to support his pledges. This is not bad for a blatantly political non-profit that raises over $12 million per year and pays Norquist a hefty salary.

We voters can end one aspect of a seven-year travesty by electing Mr. Rich Cowan to Congress. Rich is a Spokane business person whose company employs 40 full-time employees. He understands the needs of workers, business owners and the citizens of Eastern Washington.

The U.S. House of Representatives has evolved into a dysfunctional organization and needs to be repaired; we must seat Rich Cowan as our U.S. Representative.

Donald Orlich,

Pullman

Clock is ticking

Congress doesn’t seem to agree on how to handle the unrealistic and unpopular “no child left behind law” that came into reality in 2001. President Obama sees the 2014 date approaching and he must be assuming he will still be in office. He added eight more states and Washington D.C. to the eleven who no longer have to abide by the main tenets of the unpopular legislation. It is especially unpopular with the N.E.A. and the W.E.A. It was just recently announced that Washington was added to the list of states that can now set up their own testing as an alternative for no child left behind.

The law requires schools to test students for math and reading annually in third through eighth grades and once in high school. States must have annual targets to pass the state exams with 100 percent passing in 2014. This is an unrealistic goal! Schools that fall below the mark face sanction.

Proponents credit the law with boosting scores. Critics say that too many schools would not meet the standards. States receiving waivers must still test but they can design their own policies and they won’t be subject to school closings or staff firings. However, they must link teacher evaluations to student achievement. The clock is ticking.

Gerald W. Ray,

Spokane

Beep Beep

Here comes that old trickster Coyote trying to disguise himself as a Sheep again: happens a lot during election years, eh? Most recent incarnation? The Chamber luncheon last Tuesday in Colfax, where Chris Cargill of the Washington Policy Center (WPC) presented Seven Steps on the Road to Economic Recovery, touting WPC as an independent, nonpartisan think tank dedicated to researching important policy issues and educating our legislators and voters. Neither the speaker’s remarks, responses to questions or handouts seemed at all nonpartisan to me, but struck me as consistently anti-regulatory on every issue.

After the meeting, I did a little “research” on WPC. Interestingly, as of 2011, WPC was a member of the national American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) exposed last year as a “corporate bill mill” where lawyers paid by corporations and special interest groups write “model” bills which they present to state legislators in ALEC sponsored work sessions. Legislators then take these prewritten bills back for action in their state.

People for the American Way considers ALEC to be “the voice of corporate special interests in state legislatures.”

Who’s ALEC? Fathered by Paul Weyrich et. al., same guy who co-founded the Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell, and also the ultraconservative Council on National Policy. (See http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/alec).

So, what’s that got to do with WPC? Well, WPC’s “research” directors and policy “analysts” are closely allied with ALEC. For example, Todd Myers, Environmental director of WPC, represented WPC on the ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Washington Policy Center).

Now differences of opinion on what’s the best policy are fine with me, but hiding who you are and what your real agenda is, well that’s NOT so fine. If we can’t believe what you say you are, how can we trust your data, or your analysis, or your proposed solutions to the problems that face us?

There’s evidence that wiley ol’ WPC while howling about the need for science and data driven policy is not averse to playing kind of fast and loose with facts on occasion (see “Washington Policy Center doubles down on mistakes” at http://www.daily.sightline.org).

And worst of all, WPC brags that both Republican and Democratic legislators in our state depend heavily on them for their “research” and policy “analysis”. Better call your legislators and find out if they’re among them…’cause if they are…better beep beep!

Karen Swoope,

Colfax