LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Siltcoos is toxic tip of problem

The toxic algae growth in Siltcoos Lake reaffirms the obvious.

Algae populations explode from eating water-soluble phosphorus nutrient run-off from development, logging and related activities. We can reduce those risks.

First, approval of Ballot Measure 49 will fix the worst sprawl allowed under Measure 37 and prevent large-scale development of coastal watershed forest lands. Lumber company or potential developer claims under Measure 37 put many of our coastal lakes or water sources at risk.

Second, citizens must demand that local government take the lead updating rules and encourage the state to start processes required under the Clean Water Act to reduce watershed nutrient loading.

This takes leadership at local levels and willingness to confront the problems of development. On the Coast, Dunes City officials were leading examples in efforts that would reduce nutrient loading. Now they are facing a recall for their efforts.

The same special interests behind the recall will now back efforts to confuse and prevent watershed residents from protecting Siltcoos. The fight is finally getting to the point where more people are able to experience what's at stake. And this applies to all the lakes in the area. Siltcoos is just the toxic tip of the problem.

In the meantime, you can't drink the water.

Rand Dawson

Siltcoos

Support revision of farm bill

Living in Eugene, with stores and markets filled with produce, we can enjoy the food with little thought of who tilled the soil, planted the seeds and tended those crops through the hot summer as they prayed desperately for rain.

I farmed for several years. If the peas dried up before harvest time, the canning company reimbursed us for the seeds. Big deal.

Think about those farmers today, struggling to get by, and then thank them. And I would like to suggest the way. This fall the Senate will debate a new Farm Bill, which for five years will set policies that could either help small farmers at home and abroad or keep them struggling.

Contact your members of Congress today and ask them to create a Farm Bill that reduces misguided subsidies that help the largest producers of a few crops, which guts the market and drives down prices and thus undermines the livelihood of small farmers. Then ask them to redirect the money to more small farmer commodity payments and to the programs that need it most: conservation, nutrition, rural development and the research and development of renewable sources of energy.

Then eat your dinner tonight in the awareness that you are connected to those farmers, not just through the food you enjoyed tonight, but by the part you played in giving them the possibility of putting enough food on their own tables and the possibility of moving out of poverty.

Phyllis Hockley

Eugene

Congress fiddles and Iraq burns

The last words of a man dying in the desert might be "must find water," so President Bush and his gang would say "must have oil."

They invaded and destroyed an innocent, sovereign Iraq for its oil and to establish a permanent U.S. military complex in that region. The sheer black-heartedness of not caring how many young lives are sacrificed year after year, as long as no family from the White House and few from Congress are serving, breaks my heart.

Bush's pretense for war was giving the Iraqis democracy, but the reality was to control their oil and install a permanent presence in their country - enormously hypocritical and self-serving. The American people have told Bush, in no uncertain terms, to bring our troops home, because we cannot win the tribal wars that started hundreds of years ago.

The president came up with the scenario of sending 30,000 additional troops to Iraq, then bringing them back, and abracadabra - he's bringing the troops home! For weeks, memos flew back and forth between Gen. David Petraeus and the White House regarding his progress report, then, hypocritically declaring "we didn't vet it," Bush humbly agreed to the general's recommendations.

I don't believe one word Bush says. It's astonishing how President Bush can look into the cameras day after day lie and deceive the American people - and Congress fiddles while America collapses and Iraq burns.

Norma Townsend

Roseburg

We must cut government waste

According to one of the nation's top economists, approximately 48 percent of all government revenue is wasted. A major reason for this waste is "deep pockets." The bottom line: Government spending is out of control.

Recently, Congress passed a multi-billion dollar transportation bill that contained more than 6,000 pork barrel projects. Among these, my favorite is $6 million to clean up New York City graffiti. Actually, it makes me want to vomit.

If government waste were reduced by 50 percent, all health insurance issues could be accommodated, tax increases eliminated and ultimately, reductions put in place. Also, the national debt would soon be history.

The formula for federal budget reform is simple. All that is required is spending discipline and rigid accountability. In this regard, issues that serve the country as a whole should be given top priority. Pork barrel projects should be eliminated. Department heads would not be authorized to exceed budget limitations.

This plan is workable and will serve the best interest of our once-great country. I hope readers will give their congressmen a wake-up call in favor of budget (government waste) reform.

Jim Tenhaeff

Eugene

Bush is piling up the bodies

One would think it is the end of the world with all the God letters that have been printed lately. I quit believing in God when the Bush crime family gained the White House riding in on the Jesus ticket.

The "pro-life" party sure has left a lot of dead people. There are more than a half million innocent Iraqis slaughtered. Millions more are refugees fleeing this American occupation. The number of dead and wounded U.S. soldiers keeps climbing.

The need for an affordable health care system is far more real than anyone's God. I say, if there is a God somebody needs to wake him up. I guess he has needed a long nap because it is obvious he has been sleeping on the job.

JACK SMITH

Eugene

Florence doesn't need gas tax

One of Florence Mayor Phil Brubaker's unpublicized autocratic missteps, and one reason for his recall, is his pushing a 3-cent-a-gallon gas tax through our city council while refusing to permit Florence citizens to vote to be taxed.

The mayor insisted the city needed the $500,000 the tax would raise to repair city streets. So I drove on all city streets - 18.8 miles of streets. I found three small areas needing repair.

After calling Eugene's Wildish Company, a company that repairs streets and describing the sizes of the three areas needing repair, I was informed the cost would be an estimated $500.

When Brubaker insisted on taxing us, ex-Florence Mayor Wilbur Ternyk and I spent a few days gathering citizen signatures for a petition. As many as eight citizens lined up at a time and waited to sign. Citizens rejected the mayor's taxes almost two to one.

Mayor Brubaker autocratically warned us that in two years city streets, without repairs, would be impassable. Now, after two years, I have driven our 18.8 miles of good city streets again and the city has even repaired the potholes.

JERRY COPELAND

Florence

CIA knows where bin Laden is

I appreciated seeing Jim Schmidt's Sept. 13 letter. I, too, have been wondering why Osama bin Laden has been left in the hills while we created the debacle in Iraq.

You'll never convince me that we cannot go and get bin Laden. The CIA knows exactly where he is and probably helped him get there; he's been on their payroll ever since he was fighting the Russians for us.

And, after seeing the latest video with his dyed beard, I question that it is even bin Laden and not his double. What was an aquiline nose is now broader, and the shape of his face looks wider. Bin Laden may be dead and his image is being kept alive to keep our boogieman available for President Bush to point to.

I don't expect to learn the truth in my lifetime.

Sue Mason

Eugene

Insurance drives up health costs

Alan Greenspan writes in his new book that "it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

It would also appear that it's politically inconvenient to acknowledge that the problem with health care is largely the drive for profit. If that is not true, why do all the proposed health care "fixes" by presidential hopefuls, except that of Dennis Kucinich, include for-profit health insurance?

How can the cost of health care ever be brought down when an estimated 30 cents of every dollar spent on health care feeds the private insurance industry? Schemes for expanding private insurance coverage through government intervention will only enrich that industry, like President Bush's prescription drug bill that gave the pharmaceutical sector a huge windfall.

Health insurance is valid only when it covers patient costs, which it doesn't do in millions of cases because of high deductibles and pages of exclusions. And where is the "care" in insurance that doesn't cover standard periodic checkups?

First we created Social Security to help keep older Americans from grinding poverty, and then we created Medicare so that they could have health care. Now we need to adopt a similar health care delivery system to care for all Americans.

Russ DesAulnier

Eugene