Letters to the editor -- July 16

• Published July 16, 2008

• Comments (0)

Paul Thompson, Olympia

Geoduck farming is not good for the environment

Anyone who believes that installing 44,000 PVC pipes (PVC is potentially toxic) per acre of tidelands, ripping them out in a year and later liquefying three feet of beach sediments in order to remove the geoducks growing in densities far beyond those in the wild is good for the environment, needs to be educated regarding this issue.

Robin Downey, executive director of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers, believes this industrial transformation is helping our Puget Sound survive. Geoduck farming is clearly a threat to our Puget Sound near shore habitat.

We have no idea what the long-term and potentially irreversible consequences of this activity are. We work hard to minimize and control upland impacts to Puget Sound and it is time for the shellfish industry to control development and impacts to the tidelands.

Washington state Department of Natural Resources should not lease our remaining Puget Sound public beaches for the use of geoduck farming. This will be an economic gain for the shellfish industry and a great loss to the citizens of Washington state. There is a real negative impact occurring and we all need to pay attention to what’s going on!

Kris Mansfield, Olympia

Obama is for change all right

I never really believed that Sen. Barack Obama was for change, but he has made a convert out of me because of all of his recent changes.

For instance: Bring the troops home immediately, telephone surveillance system, capital gains tax, not wanting to talk with Gen. David Petraeus and other military leaders, talking with leaders of terrorist nations with NO preconditions. The list of changed positions goes on.

This is also the reason, of course, that he is afraid to get on the stage with Sen. John McCain without a prepared script. In his book, he stated that he liked town hall meetings and was looking forward to going to many more. Well? Still another change?

With the general election coming up, I see he has changed most of the positions he held in the primaries. Why? It proves what I thought — he is an empty suit.