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Thursday, December 27, 2007

Letters to the Editor

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    Plant Will Not
    Benefit Most of Us
    IN MR. (DAVID) COHEN'S "Biomass Plant May Prevent Fire" editorial (Telegraph, Dec. 6), he presents a doomsday scenario whereby the East Mountains burn "catastrophically," and his implication is that this will be due to his company being denied tax credits to build his biomass plant.
    Fires renew forests by doing what nature has done for thousands of years. Some forests may have been overprotected by well-meaning environmentalist groups, but the Forest Service is culpable in not allowing harvesting of the dead and down timber in some of our forest areas. Yes, fires will happen, caused by nature or caused by man. To imply that building the biomass plant will somehow prevent such a fire disaster is both arrogant and ignorant.
    It can be argued, to some degree of success or failure, that the biomass plant cannot sustain long-term operations based upon the availability of forest products to burn. This greatly depends on whose "data" one uses for the argument. The same goes for the statement that open burning is more polluting than burning in an electrical generation biomass boiler. While this is certainly true, there will be a great deal more pollution than the "faintest wisp of steam" from the boilers at this proposed biomass plant.
    Mr. Cohen wants to build his biomass plant only if granted the tax credits that will make it profitable. We should all be familiar with the fact that taxes not paid for one exempted group become taxes that are usually extracted from you and me. The recent proposal to raise taxes on all Bernalillo, Sandoval and Santa Fe county residents to pay for the cost of maintaining and operating the commuter rail that was built along the Rio Grande corridor is a case in point. This is a prime example of government spending money first, then raising taxes on citizens to pay for the political and fiduciary mistakes of (our) government.
    What seems illogical, and even irrational, is the lack of foresight by power companies to begin using renewable energy sources. Yes, trees may be (very slowly) renewable, but the wind blows all the time in the East Mountains and the sun shines here three hundred days each year. There is no environmental downside to solar and/or wind power generation. It is really stupid, if not insane, for us to continue to burn fuels, any fuels, to create our electrical energy.
    Make no mistake; the proposed biomass facility will greatly benefit a few large-acreage land owners and particularly the "biomass developers," with very little benefit to the rest of us.
    KEN WIDGER
    Edgewood
    Animal Protection
    Takes Holiday Off
    I AM WRITING to you as a concerned animal lover, who lives in the East Mountains area. Over the past two weeks I have called Bernalillo (County) Animal Control and Protection about two families that live down the road from me and don't provide their dogs with food, water or shelter when they are outside. It is bad enough that the dogs are out in the heat, but now the temperatures in the mountains are in the teens at night and yesterday and today we had snow which compounds the problem.
    I called animal protection twice today and even gave them my phone number, but never found out whether they even went out to investigate today. When I called I was told it was a holiday weekend. So what I surmise from that statement is, if animals are in distress over the holiday too bad. These dogs could very well freeze to death being left out.
    My question is what good is the animal protection and control if they really aren't protecting the very animals they are hired for. Over the past 13 years I have lived in New Mexico I have felt that the animal protection and control has been a flim flam organization. What can be done to investigate and change this organization and make them more accountable to do a better, more efficient job?
    LYNN A. WALKER
    Sandia Park
    Here's the Link
    To Fire Study
    IN THE guest opinion of Bryan Bird last week (Guest View, Telegraph, Dec. 20), a Web link alluded to a paper by the U.S. Forest Service demonstrating how homes can either burn or survive wildfires.
    The link seemed to malfunction, so here is how to access this important study. Go directly to "www.nps.gov/fire/download/pub--pub--examlosalamos.pdf" to read the paper titled: "Examination of the Home Destruction in Los Alamos Associated with the Cerro Grande Fire, July 10, 2000" by Jack D. Cohen, USFS, or simply Google the title.
    In his study of the Cerro Grande fire in Los Alamos, Cohen found that "the abundance and ubiquity of pine needles, dead leaves, cured vegetation, flammable shrubs, wood piles, etc. adjacent to, touching and or covering the homes principally contributed to the residential losses. An examination of surviving homes in areas of home destruction indicated that a low intensity surface fire in pine needles could burn to a home and ignite its wood siding. In several cases, a scratch line that removed pine needles from the base of a wood wall kept the house from igniting. That portion of the Cerro Grande Fire that burned into the community generally spread as a relatively low intensity surface fire, not as a high intensity crown fire."
    Those of us who live in the forest assume the risk of living in a fire-prone environment. We may not be able to do much about crown fires but it's our personal responsibility to protect our homes as best we can from under fires. We can't expect the government to be looking out for us.
    BUD LATVEN
    Tajique
    Lying and Killing
    Seem To Be OK
    OK, HERE'S a quiz. What kinds of conduct can lead a president to be impeached?
    1) A burglary.
    2) Lying about a sexual exploit.
    3) Lying the country into an unnecessary war, killing perhaps a million people, bankrupting the treasury, and trashing the Constitution.
    What? Nope, sorry, it's #1 and #2. Looks like #3 is OK.
    BOB CLANCY
    Sandia Park