Letters to the editor Sept. 8

Hazardous waste

I found part of Cheryl Driscoll’s comment on efforts by the Coalition For A Clean CFAC more than ironic. 

As the lone employee in the phantasma called Columbia Falls Aluminum Co., a fiscal fiction created by global commodities giant Glencore, Driscoll criticized the work of “a handful of activists from outside Columbia Falls” for delaying the EPA’s record of decision for cleaning up the Superfund site. 

But neither Driscoll, a resident of Connecticut, and Glencore, based in Switzerland, live anywhere near Columbia Falls. This is typical behavior by a company started by Marc Rich, a renegade metals trader nicknamed “Aluminumfinger,” and the man who taught the Russian oligarchs what they needed to know after the fall of the Soviet Union. 

On the other hand, Driscoll is correct in noting that the Coalition’s founding members weren’t much involved in the CFAC Superfund cleanup effort until eight years after public meetings began. 

As for the Coalition’s proposal for consolidating all the hazardous waste in a specially constructed onsite landfill, the problem of digging up the West Landfill without killing or injuring the workers remains. If it’s possible to dig up the West Landfill and put the stuff in a new hole in the ground on site, why not just put the hazardous waste on trains and haul it to the correct landfill in Oregon? 

The Coalition’s suggestion might save Glencore a couple hundred million dollars, but who cares — they don’t live around here.

— Richard Hanners, John Day, Oregon

Warming Center impacts

It was disheartening to read the article regarding the breakdown of conversation between the Warming Center and its neighbors. Certainly, those selected as mediators to assist the groups in conversation — Frank Garner and Mark Flatau — are men of substance and care.

The Warming Center exists under a conditional use permit. These are issued because the project does not conform to its neighborhood and to prevent negative impacts on the neighborhood.

I urge the Warming Center to reevaluate its actions. Would it not have been a more neighborly approach to have attended the meeting and simply explained to your neighbors why you wanted only certain topics to be discussed and work through it? Sending letters to the neighbors and lawyering up is a bad picture for the Warming Center.

I am confused why any topic would be off the table and how one party can control the agenda. That seems to me to defeat the purpose of mediation. How do these actions bring the parties to any resolution?

To that point, I disagree with my own Council representative Ryan Hunter. I would respectfully remind him of the responsibility he has to his constituents who also have been impacted by the Warming Center. The Warming Center should be encouraged to allow all topics brought by both parties to be addressed. In this instance, it looks like the Warming Center has taken its ball and gone home until its rules for the game are the only rules.

If the Warming Center continues to resist mediation, control topics of discussion in a one-sided maneuver and not continue meetings with its neighbors, then it has become a negative to that neighborhood and its conditional use permit must be pulled.

— Karlene Khor, Kalispell

Abortion for convenience

The Sept. 24 letter “Physicians support reproductive rights ballot initiative” caused me to realize how the arguments put forth for justification of reproductive rights can or could be used to justify euthanasia. 

As a senior citizen, this concept concerns me as I and my peers could have them applied to us. It also could be used as a justification to eliminate or euthanize children who are unruly, medically or emotionally challenged individuals, and others who might be a burden to caregivers.

While these concerns might seem to be farfetched, performing an abortion because it is inconvenient to someone is exactly what CI-128 is asking the voting public to approve and place into law. I am sure there are ways to permit an abortion when the mother’s life is in danger. Performing an abortion for convenience of the mother is not convenient for the unborn child.

I would urge the voting public to not vote to approve this bill.

— Dale B. Heldstab, Columbia Falls