Letters to the editor (3/21/11)

A recent state Senate bill, SB 26, sponsored by Sen. Lesil McGuire, allows for no registration fees on 100 percent electric or compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered vehicles.

What is being done at the landfill?

For years, the Anchorage Municipal Landfill has been flaring the equivalent of 4,000-5,000 gallons of gas equivalents (gge) per day ... about 1.8 million gge per year. Technology exists to clean that gas and have it be delivered as clean, reusable/renewable fuel (CNG) to both the muni and the public. The muni could utilize the gas to power its fleets, offer public filling stations and significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. It is time to provide an alternative to imported petroleum. Converting People Mover buses to CNG would utilize about 30 percent of the landfill gas.

At oil prices of roughly $90 per barrel, slashing imports that much would save the U.S. $175 billion a year. Last year, when oil averaged $78 per barrel, the U.S. sent $260 billion overseas for crude, accounting for nearly half the country's $500 billion trade deficit.

-- Mark Hopgood

Anchorage

Let's get panhandlers off our roadways

We have a serious plague of bums in this town. Not a "homeless" problem, with all the touching images of otherwise productive and contributing families who happen to be down on their luck that that word conjures, but a problem with chronic inebriates, people who've made a lifestyle of bad choices.

Nowhere is this manifested more clearly than the sign-holders on nearly every street corner from South Anchorage to Midtown.

As I recall, an ordinance was introduced a while back to ban panhandling within a certain distance from traffic. At the time, it was shot down out of concerns that it would interfere with firefighters passing the boot for their annual charity fundraiser. Well, since the powers that be have effectively quashed that fundraiser, seems the time is right to start enforcing the panhandling ordinance.

Or at least stop enabling the bums, people. If you're genuinely concerned for the homeless, there are several legitimate charities you can donate to.

-- Guy Sines

Anchorage

Havelock's articles on unions don't include the other side

John Havelock's articles on unions (March 12-13) give only one side of the story. Yes, it was important at one time in our history for the employees to organize and bargain with employers. But it has gotten out of hand.

The wage and benefit demands have contributed to the high cost of U.S. products compared with imports, making it hard for companies to stay in business, and to state and local governments (including MOA since Begich made deals with the unions) running big deficits.

In bad economic times, we all -- including the unions -- have to make some concessions for the good of the whole. In Wisconsin, I understand that the reduction in benefits is relatively small, so the furor is really about losing power. If the Democratic legislators had stayed in town and negotiated seriously instead of taking a political stand, a compromise might have been reached. It's time for the unions to look at the whole picture.

-- Lory Hahn

Anchorage

Libyan opposition needs support

Libyans wish for their revolution to be "Libyan" without the overt intervention of Western forces except for perhaps a no-fly zone. Western forces are obviously reluctant to get embroiled physically in the struggle for strategic and diplomatic reasons. Still, the playing field should be leveled by allowing the opposition to acquire the means to defend itself and fight against the rather unjustly superior and repressive Gadhafi forces. This was a policy goal once: to encourage other countries to solve their own problems and create democracies by fighting their own battles, with perhaps some noncombatant aid.

Meanwhile, Libyan people are asking, where is the democratic world when we need it? Hopefully they won't be asking the same question in the past tense soon.

-- Ken Green

Cooper Landing

Subsistence hunts are rare

Dan Joling's article "Federal officials block Alaska's plan to kill refuge wolves" (March 9) is long on exaggerated claims regarding subsistence hunting on Unimak and short on facts.

The article reports Alaska officials saying the decision ignores subsistence needs of Unimak residents. This statement is at odds with the reality that subsistence hunters rarely hunt here. Studies show residents primarily hunt on the mainland. All reported harvest on Unimak since 1999 has been by non-local Alaskans and nonresidents. Most hunting is through commercial guide services targeting trophy bulls.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's Environmental Assessment acknowledges little is known about why the herd declined. Several times in the past 80 years it has been much smaller than now, with years when no caribou were found.

Unimak Island is 93 percent federally designated wilderness, and as such, the FWS is required to maintain its untrammeled, wild character. This predator control plan would have violated the Wilderness Act's most fundamental principles by allowing intervention in the natural processes at work on Unimak.

-- Fran Mauer

Fairbanks

Coal project would spell disaster for Chuitna River's salmon stocks

In recent weeks the Alaska Board of Fish has held meetings to establish a proper and equitable distribution plan for Cook Inlet salmon. In their wisdom and allegedly non-biased opinion, they have determined that in any allocation plan, fish reallocated from one user group must be taken from another user group because all existing Cook Inlet stocks of salmon are already being utilized and spoken for.

I ask the Board of Fish and Gov. Sean Parnell why the Chuitna River salmon stocks are being reconsidered for reallocation and decimation by a non-user group, the Chuitna Coal Project. Why is a perfectly healthy river full of salmon and other species of wildlife being considered for reallocation to a group that has no residency and no plans to utilize the salmon resource, and plans to actually erase from existence the whole river system itself? Why should the creation of fantastic wealth for a chosen few be more important than the existing pristine environment of the Chuitna and adjacent marine environment?

I have heard it called a trade-off, dirty coal for salmon. In a real trade each side derives some benefit from the deal. What benefit do the user groups of the salmon get? Nothing. What does the environment stand to gain? Degradation on a massive scale never to be returned. Let's not forget the salmon stocks themselves. What benefit will the Chuitna salmon species realize? Basic extinction. That does not amount to a trade; it's a sellout.

Please don't allow this twisted, oligarchic rush for greedy profit at the cost of our collective environment. No amount of industrial propaganda changes the reality of what the coal industry has in mind for the Cook Inlet region.

-- Walter Bovich

Homer

Are you ready for the end?

Sheer panic and the horrifying sight of your home being washed away right in front of you ... is incomparable. A tsunami hit Japan and its residents on the coast. Thousands were killed and many to this day are missing. Is this a sign? Are the earthquakes and other natural disasters a sign of what is yet to come? This is the question. When the end comes, I'm sure this will only be a pebble compared to the plagues and fire and brimstone.

If this doesn't scare you, you are either of two things: one, too happy to notice or care, or two, prepared for what is coming. I personally want to be the second and be prepared with a shield, a breastplate and a sword to fight. If these events signal the end, are you ready to accept the consequences of what you've done? We'll see.

-- Lindsay Davis

Anchorage

Quake leaves questions for US

On March 11, 2011, a massive 9.0 earthquake swept over Japan, causing devastation all throughout the region. You've seen it in the news. Every news station you watch has the horrific news of the earthquake plastered on its walls. The question is, can we learn from this disaster? The answer is yes. How are we going to modify our buildings to withstand earthquakes with immense magnitudes? How will the U.S. deal with the devastation that could come from them? And last, when will an earthquake strike on United States soil?

-- Myra McGaughey

Anchorage