A response to Bob Beauprez
Re: “Throwing money at the EPA won’t fix it,” June 17 commentary by Bob Beauprez.
Bob Beauprez’s commentary was a masterpiece of misleading facts and half-truths that misdescribes the enforcement process and responsibilities of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
During 2017, the EPA conducted nearly 12,000 inspections/evaluations and initiated hundreds of enforcement matters, none of which are reflected in Beauprez’s figures. Because there weren’t 12,000 enforcement actions doesn’t mean that there weren’t resolutions to the noticed infractions achieved without expensive judicial proceedings.
Regarding the $28 million received by the CDPHE, his misrepresentation is even more flagrant. Beauprez suggests the CDPHE used “almost $2 million just to fine” 18 Clean Water Act violators. The $28 million supplied by the EPA supports the daily efforts of over 500 people and is distributed across CDPHE’s environmental programs, including the water division.
Beauprez seems to have no idea what the CDPHE does or how its EPA funds are used. One of CDPHE’s responsibilities is to execute the Clean Water Act. This includes permitting, inspection services, technical support, monitoring and assessment of rivers/streams and lakes, swim-beach monitoring, water quality planning and more.
The CDPHE has extant over 10,000 permits (2,955 issued last year) and monitors them. Over 2,000 non-compliance notices were issued last year; all but a few will be resolved without expensive judicial actions. Beauprez implies that the CDPHE and EPA are stumbling around. The only one stumbling is Beauprez, while the CDPHE people are in the field making sure we have a safer environment.
Jeffrey E. Modesitt, Centennial
Leland E. Modesitt, Cedar City, Utah
Jeffrey Modesitt is a retired financial consultant; Leland Modesitt served with the EPA during the Reagan administration.
Sarah Sanders refused service
Re: “Sanders says she was told to leave restaurant,” June 24 news story
While I am no fan of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it was wrong for a Virginia restaurant owner to ask her to leave her establishment. Thatap no better than a bakery owner’s refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. The mentality that business owners can refuse service to “them” of any kind diminishes us as a people and makes the common ground we all share more difficult to find.
Ralph W. Cannon, Denver
Sarah Huckabee’s being refused restaurant service on account of who she is has become a major flap. I have read that most Republicans support a baker’s right to refuse to sell a wedding cake to gay and lesbian couples. Does it not seem fair then that businesses owned by gays and lesbians have the right to refuse service to Republicans?
Variety in sexual orientation has been deemed natural by the American Medical Association, Psychiatric Association, Psychological Association and National Association of Social Workers. That shows there is no rational basis for discrimination on account of sexual orientation. Discrimination against Republicans, by contrast, is at least rational.
Nathaniel Batchelder, Oklahoma City
Over the weekend, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant ostensibly because the owner didn’t share the same views as her and the administration.
So, apparently itap OK to refuse service to someone with whom they disagree about policy, but not OK to refuse service to someone for other policy differences as it pertains to, say, a wedding cake.
In the end, we need to debate, not debase, and harassment and the promotion of harassment is never OK.
David Young, Lakewood
