LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Try to let your lawn go native

We need to think about lawns. A healthy lawn is a beautiful thing and says home to Americans, but it comes at a high cost.

Weedkillers, pesticides and fertilizers go from lawn to street to the river - and 100,000 homeowners use a lot of this stuff. Lawn mowers are noisy and consume oil and gasoline, producing carbon dioxide and a bunch of nasty chemicals.

What's to be done?

First thought: People who can let go of their attachment to having a classic lawn can have yards just as beautiful and homey and minimize their ecological impact by letting their yards go native. Going native means finding beautiful native plants that would be happy and healthy without so much help.

Think about it. Find out what native plants would be happy at your house. What would happen if you didn't rake your leaves? Mushrooms? You'd create an inviting layer of rich mulch and wouldn't need a screaming leaf blower.

How many beautiful native plants would show up out of the blue if you gave them a chance? I've had ferns, native trees, flowers and mushrooms volunteer in my yard. You just need to decide which ones get to stay.

Second thought: Change the law requiring people to mow their lawns. A field of mature grass can be a thing of beauty, and tall grass smothers many weeds like dandelions without using poisonous weedkillers.

I'm not saying we should outlaw lawn mowers, but laws requiring mowing just don't seem very smart.

JACK VAN DUSEN

Eugene

KWG plan best for downtown

Are we going to have a vibrant downtown? We need critical mass, so the full-meal project - KWG - is the only one that makes sense. Incremental changes are not going to solve our problems.

Worried about a giveaway of taxpayers' money? How about buying all the needed properties and placing them into a land trust? Lease it to the developer for $1 a year. That might also help subsidize the living space so maybe we could have condos in the $150,000 to $250,000 price range along with condos in the $85,000 to $150,000 range sold on a lease-to-own basis for low-income residents, thus giving economic diversity.

Worried about having a mono-mall in downtown? How about requiring the developer to design a "green" French Quarter theme so residents can look down onto the street when parties happen? And why did our last attempt at a downtown mall fail? Could it have been because it rains here and people would rather walk inside in the winter?

How about a covered sidewalk that would encourage folks to get out and stroll by the sidewalk vendors? Visualize gas street lights and strolling musicians and the smell of organic food.

This is why we need critical mass, but we do not have to settle for crass commercialism.

CHRIS CALISE 

Eugene

Field burning nurtures soil

I have lived in the Willamette Valley for my entire life, 18 of those years surrounded, quite literally, by grass seed fields that were burned once or twice a year.

Along with my father and brother, I was born with severe hay fever and asthma and am strongly affected by the few days a year that field burning occurs. It is annoying and causes discomfort, but I educate myself on when it is happening and take preventive measures to minimize its effects on my life.

Despite this, I support field burn- ing wholeheartedly. It is the commercial outgrowth of a naturally occurring process that was fostered by the natives of our area to promote the health of the land. It facilitates the return of vital nutrients to the soil, lessening the need for noxious chemical fertilizers that leach into our watersheds. This is the common sense point of view of a native Oregonian, not heartless and uncaring, as suggested by Garth Price (letters, May 7).

To me, complaining in this manner about a more environmentally friendly approach to the stewardship of our vital grassland resources is like moving to Oregon and then complaining about the rain.

R.L. GLOE 

Eugene

Think of ways to help the bees

I decided this spring to not hire the guy to cut my backyard around the house and get rid of all the wild dandelions and flowery wild weeds. Why? That is exactly what the bumblebees like.

What will kill off bumblebees? A man with a pesticide spray can in his hand and huge amounts of commercial farming.

Bumblebees and bees are dying out, and agricultural people are worried. No bees, no food. It's as simple as that. Even our meat supply is supported by foods made possible by bees. So, if you're thinking, "I'll just live on meat," forget it.

All around me, my increasingly suburban neighbors are tearing up the land, growing lawns, using pesticides and not supporting bees. Me? I have a hugely unkempt, wild, dandelion- and wild-weed-filled mess because I am looking forward to welcoming back those happiest of little fuzzy critters - the bumblebees.

Don't be afraid of pollen, allergy-sufferers; without it, you would have nothing to eat.

DOROTHY BUCHER

Eugene

Mermaid awaits donations

I so enjoyed the article on the huge mermaid saving her endangered pool (Register-Guard, May 5) on the Oregon Coast. I have wanted to help, and there was no phone number or address to send contributions.

I have inquired, and $50 will buy a tail scale and $100 a pearl on this beautiful creature. Donations can be sent to the Mapleton Community Pool Foundation, P.O. Box 6, Mapleton, OR 97453. For questions, call 997-9403.

All donations are tax deductible, and be sure to mention how you'd like your name on the tail scale or pearl.

JOANN CASSELBERRY

Florence

K-12 funding is the top priority

I am absolutely stunned that The Register-Guard has turned a blind eye to the funding needs of our K-12 schools.

Our entire education system is sputtering and must be fully funded at all levels. If we do not stop this backward slide, we will be dooming our youngest scholars. How will they be able to compete in a global economy and become the higher-educated work force that pays more money in taxes if they can not enter a college or university prepared to learn?

Visit any Eugene area high school and you will find a classroom built before the 1970s and designed to hold 30 students seated at desks. It will be crammed with 40 to 45 students wedged into every available space, sitting in window sills and sharing textbooks. Is this a successful learning environment? Is it conducive to preparing students for college?

The Marcola School District, where my children attend school, has deferred maintenance for so long due to budget cuts that parts can no longer be found for many of the light fixtures, heaters, pipes and a boiler that was built in 1926.

The Register-Guard is missing the boat when it comes to what our community, our economy and our state need fundamentally - that is restoring our public schools to what they once were. School funding advocates will not sit by and let K-12 schools go underfunded any longer.

VAL RYLANDS, ex-chairwoman

Lane County Stand for Children

Marcola

Modern society is wasteful

While riding my bike through town recently, I came across a couple of fellow citizens disposing of a very large cache of their employers' office binders in a trash bin.

Most were in excellent condition. I told them I'd take as many as I could carry in my pack, and commented about how it was unfortunate that they couldn't find a home for the binders. They told me that they had offered them to some local schools but were turned down because they weren't in pristine - read new - condition.

What a sad commentary that we aren't satisfied with serviceable, but only with new. As if it's beneath us to have something that has good life in it but someone else used it before us, therefore it's disposable. I mean, we're not talking used needles here - but binders, for God's sake.

Of course, this goes on thousands of times a day, in a thousand different permutations. We are, without a doubt, the most wantonly wasteful society ever to inhabit the Earth.

JEFF INNIS 

Eugene

Farmers should pay damages

Every time I clean the soot from my pool and don't send grass seed farmers a bill for my time, I'm subsidizing their business.

Every time people visit theirs doctor for their resulting respiratory difficulties and don't send grass seed farmers the bill, they are subsidizing their business.

The list goes on and on, as does the damage.

If grass seed farmers were made to pay for the damages they incurred, they wouldn't make a dime, much less be shopping for a new Escalade. Having encountered a few of them, it's obvious they make good money - enough to buy their favorite bling, and the Legislature as well. Once again, grass seed farmers will reap the benefits borne upon the shoulders of their fellow citizens.

They should post their mailing addresses in The Register-Guard so we all have a means to recoup our losses. See you in the food box line.

WAYNE MOSS

Eugene

The soldiers had rights, too

In response to Wilma Minette's May 9 letter wondering why Joan Baez wasn't allowed to sing at Walter Reed Medical Center, I would like to say that Baez has the right to say anything she wants.

And yes, the soldiers have been fighting for just those rights. However, that doesn't mean we have to listen to Baez, and obviously the soldiers didn't want to hear her, either.

They also have the right to choose.

SHARON BURGOYNE COATE

Eugene

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