Letters to the editor Dec. 3

Water retention projects

Thinking ahead, there is a way to to address the tourist season Flathead Lake elevation problem.

We humans are good at building things like dams and irrigation canals. What we are not good at is managing stream flows uphill from dams and irrigation projects. 

The problem with naturally occurring land forms is unrestricted runoff. Water retention projects in India, China, Saudi Arabia, Australia and elsewhere have demonstrated the feasibility of regreening arid environments by building structures to retain runoff. Check dams, swales, and ponds accumulate water from sporadic rainfall preventing further erosion while recharging aquifers. 

The mountains of Montana furnish numerous opportunities to retain runoff by building the aforementioned structures at the higher elevations. Where road access is available, heavy equipment can be utilized. In remote regions, the work would have to be done by hand. Either way, evidence of human activity would quickly vanish thanks to the water content of high elevation snow accumulation.

Eventually. the downstream effect would be seen in lower stream flow levels in spring and higher flow levels in summer. Anybody want try this? 

— David Brown, Kalispell

Abortion ballot question

As outlined in a Daily Inter Lake news story, on a Sunday no less, progressives predictably now wish to embed the act of procured abortion permanently into the Montana Constitution by amendment, finalizing a process begun by Bob Brown, Dorothy Bradley, and their cohorts in 1972. 

What perpetuates this insane desire?  It is simple, so simple even a trial lawyer could grasp it. We have violated the natural law. We are guilty of divorcing sex from its procreative intent, culminating in the delusion that human life is not human life and leaving disease, perversion, poverty, abuse, misogyny, and mental illness in its wake.

We are all weak and fail at times and warrant compassion and correction. But there is a line we dare not cross. There is no other issue more black or white, right or wrong than killing or facilitating the killing of the innocent.

I for one am glad to see this litmus test, this determinant of our fate. Will we finally wake up and choose to strive for nobility or double down on our depravity? It is fitting this effort comes to light in the season of Advent, the penitential celebration of His “pre-viable” time. So let’s have at it. There is no place to hide anymore.

— Michael Boharski, Kalispell