Proposed water pipeline
Re: “Water plan could cool East-West feud,” May 13 editorial.
The Post’s support for Aaron Million’s proposal to bring “up to 160,000 acre-feet of water to the Front Range” from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming seems under-informed and naive.
Green River water is still Colorado River Basin water, and its removal from the Colorado River system for use in the Denver metro region will be charged against Colorado’s allocation of Colorado River water. Front Range water users, led by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, continue to nurture a pleasant fiction that there is still quite a bit of Colorado River water on the Western Slope for the Front Range to develop, a fiction based on the 20th century record of Colorado River water flows. Front Rangers need to look at some increasingly irrefutable science – the tree ring studies showing what an unusually wet century that was, and the models by climate scientists that almost unanimously show diminishing water supplies for the Colorado River Basin in the 21st century.
Since Colorado’s entitlement from the Colorado River is only a percentage of the whole river’s actual flow, not a set figure, does it make any sense to invest $4 billion or $5 billion in a “magic bullet” project for water from a source almost sure to be declining?
George Sibley, Gunnison
Horse slaughter debate
Re: “They eat horses, don’t they?” May 13 Ed Quillen column.
Ed Quillen’s column about the slaughter of horses in the United States for consumption by Asians and Europeans was shocking. Is it “cultural arrogance” to stand by our companion animals and wild stallions? We keep dogs and cats for our pleasure. It’s our ethic not to cram those dear companions into overheated trucks without food or water to be shipped to a slaughterhouse at the end of their lives. That’s unconscionable and barbaric behavior. The same standard should apply to horses. People ride horses and use them for work. It’s a betrayal to sell them to a slaughterhouse when their guardians no longer want them.
Our wild horses and burros are part of our Western heritage, and the vast majority of people want them to run free. If it’s “cultural arrogance” to protect these beautiful animals, then I am guilty and proud of it. I’m glad not to be counted among the barbarians who cruelly kill these magnificent creatures for food.
The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act must be passed to save these animals and show the world that we are a compassionate nation. If we follow Quillen’s logic (letting slaughter be a choice), we’ll have to make murder legal.
Valerie Traina, Centennial
The future of energy
Re: “Energy in the 21st century,” May 13 guest commentary.
This guest commentary inappropriately suggests that utilities planning to build new pulverized coal power plants should instead spend that money on wind farms or other untested forms of renewable energy, citing unsubstantiated “financial risks” associated with using coal. What it fails to tell readers is that baseload power from coal is needed to provide reliable, affordable electricity continuously, while additional expensive natural gas resources are needed to back up the increased amounts of intermittent wind energy.
Coal is our most abundant energy fuel, with 27 percent of the world’s coal located in the United States. Thus, coal remains our most affordable source for baseload or normal electricity demand. Coal costs significantly less per ton than it did 30 years ago, and is only one-fourth the cost of natural gas. Coal prices are very stable; price volatility associated with natural gas is 20 times higher. And, while coal used for electricity generation has tripled since the 1970s, overall emissions are down by 33 percent to 85 percent, with efforts underway to reach near zero emissions.
Reliability is a top priority for electric utilities, which have no experience integrating large amounts of intermittent resources into our complex electrical grid. Substituting even more renewable energy for proven baseload power is a recipe for power outages and even higher prices to Colorado consumers.
Stuart A. Sanderson, President, Colorado Mining Association
The cost of driving cars
Re: “Desire, deficits and our light rail,” May 13 John Andrews column.
After his lengthy and specious argument against light rail and public transportation in general, John Andrews concludes his column with, “We prefer the freedom of our own vehicles, thank you.”
Vehicle travel is only “free” if you like sitting in a cramped box for hours a day, stuck pointlessly in traffic, spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on car payments, insurance, repairs and gasoline, not to mention the taxes that pay for roads, the car registration and licensure bureaucracies and law enforcement personnel. Wow, such “freedom.” No, cars represent only convenience, never “freedom.” And the only reason they are more convenient than public transportation is that the entire infrastructure is devoted solely to making cars convenient. Trying to glom public transportation onto a car-enslaved infrastructure is doomed to the kind of complications that make the whole project seem ill-conceived. If a system is built from scratch around public transportation, pushing cars down to the bottom of the convenience scale, then people abandon cars and use public transportation, including their own two feet.
Donna Feldman, Louisville
Testing your kids for drugs
Re: “Drug-test kits a big hit with parents,” May 13 news story.
Thanks for your very informative story on the controversy over home drug testing for our children. However, I was puzzled by all the hand-wringing and nail-biting over whether it’s good or bad for parents to practice home drug testing for adolescents and teens. The issue is simple. All parents know drugs of all kinds are available to our youth, and peer pressure and the urge to experiment with new thrills are powerful motivators. So, where’s the quandary?
While I am reluctant to draw a direct analogy between managing employees and managing children in the home, in many ways the two practices are similar. It’s all about clear communication of expectations, accountability, performance, regular followup and incentives.
For instance: You set a standard of zero tolerance for drugs. You communicate that standard to children in the home. You provide a system of measurement of performance. The children meet or do not meet that standard of performance. They are rewarded, or not, appropriately.
Too authoritarian? Hardly, especially given the high stakes. On the subject of drugs, there should be no democracy practiced in a home with adolescents and teens present.
Larry Valant, Castle Rock
…
After using drug testing with my three children successfully for 11 years, I can say with assurance that the article on drug testing really missed the point. The point of giving your kids a drug test is to give your kids a tool to use against peer pressure.
If you tell your kids you will drug test them, and you periodically do test them, they feel protected and safe. They have a powerful tool to use when approached with the offer to try drugs. I know, because my sons have thanked me for being able to tell their friends, “No, I can’t smoke that. My mom tests me.”
Most kids don’t want to get involved in drugs. They are well aware of the dangers. They simply don’t have the skills on board to keep themselves strong in the midst of the pressure they receive from friends when approached with the offer.
The idea that drug testing should be turned over to the state in the form of drug testing at school is not what we need. It’s my opinion that parents need to take more responsibility for their child’s welfare, not less. Kids want and need tools to withstand the harsh winds that can blow them down. As parents, it’s our job to give them these.
Andrea Barnes, Aurora
…
For Bertha Madras, the White House deputy drug czar, to infer that parents are incapable of handling drug testing is not just wrong, it is insulting.
I worked in adolescent health care from 1969 to 1977. Drugs were a big issue then. It impressed me that the starting time for drugs was middle school, mostly seventh grade.
I have been a certified nurse midwife since 1978. I still see plenty of teens in my office with a drug issue. When do they start? They are still starting in middle school – mostly seventh grade.
So, when my kids entered seventh grade, they got new bikes and they got regular drug testing. To answer the charge, “You don’t trust me,” my husband and I responded, “Sure we do. We trust that you will have a wonderful adolescent experience that may include wrong choices. We will not be the last to find out. If you make those choices, we will be there for you.”
Catch it early. Start testing in seventh grade. Simply make it routine. Let your kids know you are going to be on top of this. Give your kids the gift of saying, “No thanks, I’ll get busted.”
Evie Piele, Centennial
…
A wise man once said, “Trust but verify.” If a parent is suspicious of their child’s behavior, they should be the parent. They should hold the kid accountable. They should set the standard and enforce it. Listening to the “experts” who say it destroys trust is what has our kids so screwed up now. Kids have no fear today. They have no respect. There is nothing wrong with the kid knowing who is the boss and what measures the boss will take to assert the authority. The parent is responsible to assert their authority as needed to prevent junior from screwing up.
Ray Hornsby, Arvada
TO THE POINT
No one wants to get involved when it comes to a 91-year-old being beaten, but they won’t hesitate calling the police or butting into your business if they see you spank or discipline your child in public. What’s wrong with this picture?
Brian Brandfas, Parker
Pundit Fred Brown (May 13 column) quotes Rep. Alice Madden, D-Boulder, as bragging that the last session was a victory for ordinary people over “powerful special interests,” when in fact the most powerful special interest of all, the government, won overwhelmingly.
Percy Conarroe, Longmont
Kathleen Parker (May 13 column) asks: Do you believe in evolution? Evolution, unlike the Tooth Fairy, is not something one chooses to believe in. Rather, it is a successful scientific theory, which means it has generated numerous predictions that have come true.
Stephen Del Grosso, Fort Collins
To suggest that one cannot fully support our troops while being utterly opposed to Bush’s war in Iraq is like saying one also cannot be in favor of marriage without applauding wife beating, or of childbirth without condoning child abuse.
Kevin Burgess, Littleton
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