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closeOil seep is the culprit
In reference to Rex Farris’s response (Letters, July 31) to Ralph Bush: Cleaning up the beaches was the subject of a meeting held by citizens in Santa Barbara a few months ago, reported in the Santa Barbara News Press, and in fact scientists recommended as a possible solution just what Mr. Bush was writing about.
What they were talking about was natural seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel. The facts presented at the meeting were that there was no way to stop the seep but perhaps relieve it by drilling, the mined oil providing significant and sorely needed revenue to both the state and county.
The seep spills 4,200 gallons a day into the channel and 3 million cubic feet of gas is vented into the atmosphere daily; equalling in six years the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Alaska by the Exxon Valdez and the average U. S. household use of gas of 250 cubic feet per day.
The seep is traced to at least 5,000 B. C., the Chumash using the tar from the oil to seal their boats and other items. If history has any relevance and intelligence is operable, then the true cause of the soiled beaches is obvious.
Robert Barnes
Santa Maria
Drilling questions
Thank you for the fine article (Aug. 2) on proposed oil drilling in Huasna Valley, one of our county’s most pristine areas. The thought of degrading it with oil drilling is sad to me.
Many issues were brought up at the community meeting, but many issues did not get a voice, such as the possibility of civil lawsuits against the county or neighbors for loss of property value.
I hope that all who have an interest in this matter will have a chance to be heard and get some answers to their questions through additional meetings and outreach by the county of San Luis Obispo.
Lucy Lepley
Grover Beach
How to lower prices
All this argument over gas prices and offshore drilling misses the point. President Bush isn’t asking Congress to pass a bill that says, “Start drilling now.” He’s asking them to pass a bill that puts even more of our national petroleum re-sources in the hands of his pals in the oil business.
So far, they’ve done a lousy job of looking out for the consumer. They are making record profits. Why would they change? When you have a national resource, you don’t put it in the hands of a corporation, whose only goal is to maximize its own profits.
The facts are not in dispute that drilling offshore or in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve will not produce a drop of oil for four to 10 years and will have (by the government’s own estimate) almost no effect on prices. The only thing Congress could pass that would lower oil prices immediately would be a resolution that says: “The U. S. will not launch a first-strike attack on Iran and will not support any other nation doing so.” That would pop the oil speculation bubble.
Earl Frounfelter
Santa Maria
Nuclear is not clean
Nuclear energy is increasingly being called upon as a clean and renewable alternative to fossil fuels. As the threat of global warming becomes clearer, nuclear energy is lauded as a carbon-free, clean energy solution. This is an absolute myth. When looking at the entire fuel cycle, one quickly realizes that the mining, milling, processing and transportation of uranium fuel for reactors are extremely energy intensive and will emit tons of global warming pollution.
Almost all the uranium used for nuclear power in the United States is
processed in Paducah, Ky. at a plant run by the U. S. Enrichment Corp. This uranium processing plant is so energy intensive that it alone consumes the power output of two coal-fired power plants.
Additionally, the uranium enrichment process releases the extremely potent greenhouse gas CFC-114. The Nuclear Energy Info Service reports that “CFC-114 ... causes 9,800 times more global warming per pound than CO2” — that’s 10,000 times worse than carbon-dioxide. More than 90 percent of CFC-114 emitted worldwide is produced during the uranium enrichment process.
Clearly nuclear power is not nearly as clean as its proponents claim. Renewable energy, on the other hand, is not carbon intensive. And, of course, the cleanest kilowatt-hour is the one that is never used.
Molly Johnson
San Miguel
Worst material ever
I spent 10 years in college studying chemistry, and I taught college chemistry for 30 years. In the beginning of teaching, I extolled the virtues of generating electricity by nuclear power. Yes, I too was concerned. I wanted my electric shaver and all the other little things that electricity brings. I had no thought of tomorrow, next week or the next century.
Somewhere along the line it occurred to me that we were producing the most devastating material the world has ever known. It is called nuclear waste. There is no way of getting rid of it. We just have to bite the bullet and store it. This means that we are saddling our descendants with the most dangerous material there is for hundreds of thousands of years.
When people talk about how long it lasts, they usually give figures like 250,000 years. But this is the half-life. Half of it is still there, and it takes another 250,000 years to cut this in half and so on.
If it were up to me, I would dismantle all nuclear power plants worldwide, immediately. We have no right to do this to our descendants just to power a toothbrush.
Charles E. Dills
San Luis Obispo
Biased opinions
The letter titled “Nuclear energy is safe,” by J. R. Sturges (Aug. 7), is the latest in ongoing exchanges about use of nuclear fission as a source of energy, primarily to generate electrical power. Most of the letters are written from an emotional and political stance on the subject.
This retired chemistry professor urges The Tribune to provide a scholarly discourse in place of the present publication of letters presenting biased opinions based upon pre-conceived outcomes.
Just because few deaths take place, it does not follow from a “scientific method” point of view that it is safe. On the other hand, simply because one has perceived feelings of future disaster, that doesn’t mean that it is unsafe.
The letters must present unbiased, scholarly narrative of all sides, not just the two sides of a coin as has become the norm in the U. S. media.
Brahama D. Sharma
Pismo Beach
No compassion
I read the interesting article and editorial (July 23, 24) about the controversy related to rancher Dan De Vaul.
I recommend that an attorney file a class action lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors. The clients would be some of the homeless people who live near the creek. The living conditions of those people are much worse than the living conditions of the people who live at De Vaul’s ranch.
It’s obvious to many people that the Board of Supervisors has no compassion for the homeless people that live at the ranch. If they did have compassion, they would assist De Vaul in regard to bringing the ranch up to code. Instead, the end goal of the Board of Supervisors appears to be forcing Dan De Vaul to stop providing services to homeless people. How sad.
Bill B. Johnson
San Luis Obispo
Federal pot fraud
M any thanks to The Tribune for publishing Bob Cuddy’s excellent column, “War trudges on in state versus federal pot laws” (Aug. 3). There are many people beyond the confines of California’s Central Coast who watched the fiasco of the Charles Lynch trial.
The feds, who have known since 1974 that cannabis is an effective agent in the fight against cancer (as well as many, many other conditions and diseases), are not about truth. They are, as the Lynch trial so clearly demonstrates, perpetuating a fraud (our pot laws) that are both strangling the essence of justice as a principle of law and destroying the most basic and fundamental laws of our nation — our Constitution.
The hypocrisy of the feds in denying the accused any mention of pot as medicine is laid bare for all to see when the federal government itself remains the sole legal supplier of medical marijuana in the United States. The federal Compassionate Investigational New Drug program (CIND) still distributes about a half pound of medical pot each month to the few remaining patients enrolled in this program.
But such is the power of the corrupt bureaucratic behemoth that our drug war has become. The federal lie is blatant and with nearly 80 percent of our nation’s citizens in favor of patient access to medical marijuana ... truly, the emperor wears no clothes.
Allan Erickson
Eugene, Ore.
L. A. remark offends
As a former Angeleno and USC graduate, I am offended by Alan Lethers comments (Letters, Aug. 5) about Los Angeles and, more specifically USC. Recent studies indicate that USC’s campus is among the safest in the west and safer than even Cal Berkeley and Stanford.
Yes, the city of Los Angeles continues to deteriorate. Spearheaded by liberal activists glowing with great pleasure over the “sanctuary” status of the city and overrun with illegal immigrants, Los Angeles regrettably has become in some areas an undesirable place to live.
Perhaps, however, Mr. Lethers is not aware of the many sections of Los Angeles and its surrounding suburbs that are more vibrant than ever.
Sorry to inform you, Mr. Lethers, the airport in San Luis Obispo is important to the future positive growth of the county.
As a Paso Roblan, I do see some value in your attitude to diminish the importance of the airport to the region. You know that Paso Robles would love to enhance its airport and supplant SLO as the hub of social, economic and cultural activity in the region ... if it already hasn’t. That, ultimately, will be the consequential result of liberal, anti-growth activists garnering momentum in San Luis Obispo.
Dominic Ferrante
Paso Robles
Where’s the sign?
We used to have a “City Limits” sign on Foothill Boulevard as you enter San Luis Obispo from Los Osos Valley Road. What happened to it?
John Kepler
San Luis Obispo
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