Mmmmm, Malthusianism. Tastes Like the Easter Bunny

Lenna Harding's environmentalist wacko ramblings grow more bizarre with each new column.

Here are some quotes from her latest one in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

At what point is population growth no longer sustainable? Why are we so concerned with defining the family as a couple with children? Instead, should we not be applauding those who choose not to bear children?

Democrats: The party of "No Family" values.

We need to rethink our diet and look to better sources of protein than beef. I like beef and am not advocating abolishing it as a food source. I merely suggest that chicken and rabbits might be more resource-efficient sources. Sheep and goats also should be more in the mix.

Why not Soylent Green? Then we could kill two birds with one stone (so to speak.)

Who can take these people seriously?

I Think That I Shall Never See A Petition Lovely As A Tree

With regards to the planned "deforestation" in front of Avery Hall on the WSU campus, I could really care less. WSU is not the center of our universe and there is a lot more that goes on in this community than the undergraduate penchant for revolutionary drama encouraged by their mentors in the ivy-covered halls of academe.

On the one hand, those are trees that were planted by the university, not some old-growth cedar grove, and the university can do with them as they please. On the other hand, there is a certain delicious hoist and petard element to this whole situation. As long as the professors professional activists are busy biting the hand that feeds them and are not agitating and meddling in the city of Pullman's business, I'm happy.

But the online petition started to save the trees has provided for some rather amusing comments:

46. Don't Destroy Our Campus!!!!
I love the big old trees on campus. The forest-y look is what attracted me to WSU in the first place. The trees make campus beautiful and wonderful to walk around. HOW DARE YOU DESTROY A TREE!!! Trees are irriplaceable. They make our air cleaner and our environment gorgeous. This is disgusting! I cannot believe I am associated with a university that would do such a horrible, phallic act!!!
7/17/2008 9:09:47 AM

"irriplaceable?" Yikes. A mind is also a terrible thing to waste. With spelling errors like that, it seems the English Department's biggest problem is not trees being cut down. "Phallic act?" Must be a Women's Studies major.

527. When There's Nothing Left To Sustain, Why Talk About Sustainability?
A military officer boasts of destroying a village in order to save it; a bomb is labeled a "peacemaker;" and institutional racism is labeled "diversity." So we shouldn't be surprised to see the cutting down of trees labeled "beautification." But it doesn't change the truth. Save the trees and cut down the lies.
John Streamas, Comparative Ethnic Studies
7/14/2008 3:56:01 PM

Ah, yes. War, racism, cutting down trees...It's all the same to ExStreamas. What a maroon.

579. Save the Avery Grove Trees and the Murrow Yard Trees too
This is ridiculous. Cutting down a tree here and there that is diseased or otherwise problematic is one thing, but this sort of clear cutting is absurd and, I would add, anti-environmental.
Christopher Lupke, Associate Professor, Foreign Languages and Cultures
7/13/2008 9:40:16 PM

I'm suprised Lu Laoshi didn't implicate the "Forbes Gang" for the "clear cutting."

585. Cougar pride?
Where is the pride in our heritage when we propose to cut down so many trees that in addition to their important shading function and great beauty are a rich part of WSU's history? And where is the imagination of our planners that they cannot find a way to keep the trees while making useful improvements?
T.V. Reed, Professor of English, Avery Hall
7/13/2008 3:24:07 PM

And where is the UFCW and their big-shot Seattle lawyers?

Prayer of the Day

Mile Kepka/San Francisco Chronicle, AP Photos

Michael Hanly figured crews were only trimming the trees when he saw them carrying tools to the old spruce and pine outside his office at Washington State University's Avery Hall last week.

But they kept cutting, and the trees eventually were gone.

Hanly did some digging and learned that more trees are on the chopping block around Avery, Bryan and Murrow halls during the third phase of the Library Road project, slated for completion in Sept. 2009.

"If they had said from the beginning that these trees were going to come down with this project, you can bet there would have been a protest," said Hanly, an English professor.

Hanly claims the university did not adequately make its plans known to the public, and he is trying to generate support from others concerned about the trees' removal. He's gathered some English department staff to protest and hopes to involve other departments if a compromise can't be reached with WSU's Capital Planning and Development Office.

- "Tree removal surprises some faculty and staff; 80 trees being cut down as part of university's Library Road project," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, July 11, 2008

Oh Lord, if a bunch of middle-aged WSU English professors are going to protest trees being cut down on the WSU campus, please do not let it be a nude "sit-in" as we have seen down in Berkeley. Amen.



UPDATE: Perhaps former Whitman County Democratic State Committeeman Dave Gibney would care to apologize to Christians for commenting that the Rapture would get rid of all the "stuck up assholes." Perhaps Democratic House candidate Tyanna Kelley would like to apologize to 9th District farmers for attacking their "gaz-guzzling" trucks.

Grow up.

Pass The Class Hatred, Comrade

Speaking of anti-bourgeoisie manifestos, did anyone catch some of the Pullman League of Women Voter's ballyhooed "non-partisanship" on display in Lenna Harding's colmnn in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News today?

What kind of people can be happy with failure to address some of our country's most basic problems? It is this smug head-in-the-sand satisfaction with the status quo that the author of that message shares with our current leadership that has got us deeper into the morass that I have described. Things are just peachy with them. They have their flashy gas-guzzling SUVs or sports cars along with speedy boats and ATVs that tear up our pristine wilderness. They have enough money to buy corn-fed beef and the latest electronic gadget when it hits the market.

These same head-in-the-sand types often are the same folks who equate pledging allegiance, flag-waving, wearing flag lapel pins with patriotism, and who decry those who don't follow protocol or criticize our leaders as unpatriotic. Like the flowers that bloom in the spring - tra la - these have nothing to do with the case.

Aren't you glad that so-called "progressives" are not bigoted, don't question others patriotism, don't play to stereotypes, don't practice the politics of division, and don't encourage class warfare?

Let me skewer the myth of the wealthy, selfish conservative one more time. A recent study by Arthur C. Brooks, an economist at Syracuse University, found that on average, liberal families annually earn 6 percent more than conservative families. Furthermore, conservative households give 30 percent more money to charity than liberal households.

They Call Me MISTER Hussein

I am now demanding that I be called Thomas Hussein Forbes. My middle name does start with an "H," but to paraphrase one starstruck suburban worshipper of the Obamessiah quoted in the New York Times, “My name is such a vanilla, white-boy American name.”

Speaking of the New York Times article, don't these poor brainwashed slacker rejects from Superbad II realize that the poster of the Obamalord that they are holding up is a little too reminiscent of the controversial Cuban flag featuring Che Guevara hanging in Obama's Houston headquarters?



Maybe this is the one I'm thinking of:

"Change comes through education, not tax"

Brilliant Town Crier column in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News from our very own Scotty Anderson. Very classy, Scotty, mentioning Don Pelton. I'd love to see some kind of memorial to him on Bishop Blvd. He did as much as anybody to see the growth there happen.

Stay tuned for my response to Mr. Civil Discourse's ludicrous attempt at recreating East Berlin on the Palouse.

Though I am thankful the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the right to keep and bear arms, I am disappointed that it even had to go to the Supreme Court.

There have been many laws that have assaulted the right to keep and bear arms. Many of the laws are advocated by people exercising their First Amendment rights to trample on Second Amendment rights, when it is because of the Second Amendment rights we have been able to secure the First Amendment rights.

When someone thinks back to the time when America was getting organized and people were fighting and dying to make this country work, you can't help but realize some of the issues we face today pale in comparison.

One such issue is a Seattle-like mandatory 20-cent tax added to each and every plastic bag someone uses when shopping at a Pullman-area store. To think that people have enough time on their hands to petition the government to tax its citizens even more is embarrassing when compared to the founding of a nation.

On the other hand, there is a group of individuals who wear a pager day and night ready to drop what they're doing to help someone in need. Sometimes at 3 a.m. these volunteer firefighters are needed to clean up somebody else's tragedy.

Several times a year I see people standing outside of local grocery stores volunteering their time to collect food for the food bank. Others volunteer hundreds of man-hours to put together the Fourth of July celebration at Sunnyside Park.

In their own way all these people are giving up something of their own in order to make our community a better place. In all cases what they give up is time. In some cases these volunteers also give up their own money to help pay for materials or gas to get around. They give up a good night's sleep, and when asked to do it again, they do.

In their own way each of the volunteers is helping to make our community safer, more comfortable, and more fun. Our community is a better place because of these people.

Those petitioning the Pullman City Council to make grocers charge 20 cents per plastic bag used at the store probably think they're helping to make our community a better place.

A recent article in the Daily News mentioned someone seeing 22 plastic bags on College Hill, but there was no mention of an effort to clean them up.

It was suggested that residents start to carry reusable bags and use those instead of plastic bags. No one, however, has volunteered to hand out these shopping bags.

It is argued that we shouldn't view the proposal as elitist, instead we are showing respect and care for our community. But no one is standing in front of the stores to educate people.

It is suggested that we can use the new tax to donate the money to the local food bank or help pay for community improvements.

I would like to see this group of people go to the community and try to change their habits through education. Educating people is better than forcing the government to tax its citizens.

Some people see a need and they volunteer their time, their sleep, and their money to the cause. Others see a need and they want to use the strong arm of government regulation to further the cause.

Why stop at charging for plastic bags? Maybe there should be a tax on glass bottles, aluminum cans, and even "keg" cups. That tax could be used to clean up the broken glass, empty aluminum cans, and keg cups that litter some of the streets in Pullman. This may seem far-fetched, but I would wager targeting plastic bottles is the next item on the list.

Is this group of citizens using Seattle as inspiration? If so, the city of Seattle is no longer buying plastic water bottles. How long until that is proposed in Pullman?

Final thoughts: Don Pelton - the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development is done holding Pullman hostage and Wal-Mart's coming. I wish you were here to see it.

T-85 goes the countdown.

"Family requests rezone in east Moscow; Thompsons were denied request in 2006; hope to have 38 acres rezoned for motor business"

Whitman County really doesn't need an economic development advocate thanks to Mark Solomon and his fellow Wal-Mart Derangement Syndrome sufferers who see the "Bentonville Bully" behind every bush. I'm sure the No Super WalMart group feels that Wal-Mart is back in play in Moscow after last November's election. They could be right....

From Tuesday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

The Thompson Family LP will ask the Moscow Planning and Zoning Commission on Wednesday to rezone a large chunk of its property along Mountain View Road from agriculture/forestry to motor business.

Thompson Family attorney Susan Wilson said no businesses "are knocking at the door" to locate on the 38-acre piece of land between the Troy Highway and Palouse River Drive. The family plans to continue farming the land until a suitable development opportunity comes up.

The Thompson Family attempted to have a larger parcel encompassing the land rezoned in 2006. The controversial request stemmed from Wal-Mart's plans to build a super center on the 77-acre parcel and met resistance from the Moscow No Super Wal-Mart group.

The City Council at the time decided to reject the rezone. Then-City Councilmen Bob Stout, Aaron Ament and John Dickinson said the parcel was too large.

Wilson said the smaller size of this request is in response to the council's concerns.

Councilmen John Weber and Bill Lambert, who still are on the council, voted in favor of the 2006 rezone request.

No Super Wal-Mart member Mark Solomon said community members are not pleased with the new rezone request.

"I know there are people who are as concerned now as before as to whether or not that's an appropriate site for motor business," he said.

He said any motor business development on that side of town will affect traffic flows and downtown Moscow businesses, and also could block the expansion of adjacent Alturas Research and Technology Park.

The Thompson Family wrote in its new application for rezone that the motor business designation would fit with the city's comprehensive plan. The plan designates the area for "extensive commercial" uses.

The application also states that the rezone would meet the plan's goal of economic development. Wilson said the family wants to open up a motor business area to compete with the proposed 714,000-square-foot Hawkins Companies development, just across the state line in Whitman County.

She said Moscow needs an area to attract large businesses from within and entice businesses to come to Moscow "rather than just having Hawkins take the commercial development away from the state of Idaho and Moscow."

The Thompson Family's application packet includes the minutes of a meeting with the property's neighbors. Sue and Ken Chamberlin and Karen and David Douglas were "very supportive" of the rezone, according to the minutes.

The neighbors asked whether any businesses were lined up to use the property and said they would rather see commercial development than multi-family housing. The Chamberlins and Douglases did not return calls seeking further comment.

Calm Down Ted, Soylent Green Is Movie, Not People

Ted Turner was on Charlie Rose's PBS show the other night discussing not taking drastic action to correct global warming:

Not doing it will be catastrophic. We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.

Apparently Turner's been watching too many old sci-fi movies on Turner Classic Movies. Is it any wonder people can't take all the global warming hysteria seriously? Celebrity nitwits like Turner couldn't do more damage to the environmental movement if they were paid saboteurs for the oil industry.

Livin' in the AmeriKKKa

The WSU College Republicans sent the following e-mail to the faculty members of the WSU Comparative Ethnic Studies department:

CES Department,

I would like to cordially invite you and your students to an eye-opening guest speaker, Dinesh D'Souza. A former Reagan Policy Analyst, now one of America's best selling authors, Dinesh D'Souza is coming to Pullman to discuss the state of American race politics and other issues surrounding the modern era. This eye-opening speaker will be hosted on Tuesday, March 25, at 7:30pm in CUE 203. This is going to be a great learning opportunity for all of those in attendance. It may be conducive to offer extra-credit to your students to entice them away from their busy schedules to experience this prominent speaker. I hope to see you there!

Featured sponsors: The Foley Institute, Young America's Foundation, ASWSU, RHA and the WSU College Republicans

Kelvin Monroe, a CES instructor, responded as follows:

This is great learning opportunity indeed for our students to witness neo-conservative race politics (masquerading as Liberal universalism) in our modern era. D'Souza and his contemporaries--W. J. Wilson, F. Fukuyama, S. P. Huntington--are a great example--and indeed a good learning moment--of a revitalized enlightenment project (liberal at its absolutely best) in the Amerikkka. Lack of response to Katrina is only one many great examples of this country's Race politics. Reagan, I think of de-industrialization, New jack drug policies, trickle down economics, the list goes on....

I would suggest that the college republicans go learn some history. We got it over here in CES...

Our students should be more concern with the persistence of a War fought on ghostly premises. Do the research. Stop watching Fox, drink water and not Kool-aid.

Take care and see you there.
Peace
K.J.M.

Another CES instructor, Sarah Hengtes, forwarded the CRs e-mail and Monroe's response to her students with this note:

Dear Class,

Sometimes students take this class and want to hear "the other side." While this class presents a variety of opinions as well as "the other side" to much of what we learn in elementary and high school, there is also another "side" that we don't spend time on in class. This other side is the Neo-Conservative view of race and racism. While we don't discuss these views much, we have been discussing some of the effects of such views in class. (For instance, what happened in Tulia or Jena.)

This being said, there is a unique opportunity for you all to hear this "other side" and to get some extra credit in the process. In fact, you all have been invited by the College Republicans to attend a talk by Dinesh D'Souza entitled, "Racism is Not the Problem." March 25, CUE 203 7:30 pm. I highly reccommend this event and I would like to hear your thouhts about, and critical analysis of, D'Souza's talk.

Below is the e-mail invite from the president of the College Republicans as well as a response from a CES faculty member. I hope you will attend, ask questions, and formulate your own ideas.

Sarah

I don't know what's worse. Monroe's use of "Amerikka" or Hengtes' apparent acceptance of the term.

Your higher-education tax dollars at work....

Quote of the Day

Angela Congdon thinks the city of Pullman could have done better when planning Bishop Boulevard.

The 21-year-old Washington State University student said the boulevard's box stores (?) and strip malls add no quality to the Pullman community and detract from the well-planned, pedestrian-friendly downtown area.

"There's no cohesion," she said of recent construction along the boulevard. "Everything is random."

[...]

Congdon, who came to Pullman from the north Seattle area, said she likely wouldn't have initiated the protest without Rahmani's leadership. But she wanted to leave her mark on Pullman, since she soon will leave town to finish her degree at WSU-Spokane.

-"Students protest city's 'architorture'," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, March 28, 2008

Bye Angela. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Don't forget to e-mail Professor Ayad Rahmani at arahmani@wsu.edu and WSU President Elson Floyd at floyde@wsu.edu and let them how you feel about the taxpayer-funded insulting of Pullman during "Cougar Pride Days."

Quote of the Day

He simplified a really complex idea. It was frustrating because it’s not as easy or as simple as he made it out to be.

- WSU Progressive Student Union member Chelsea Tremblay, "Best-selling author talks about race", The Daily Evergreen, March 27, 2008

Apparently, however, the issues of globalization, international trade, and manufacturing in developing countries are pretty cut-and-dry for Ms. Tremblay.

We're On a Mission From God

This has certainly been the week for leftist hilarity, from Lois Blackburn's chum bucket to Janet Richards' four and twenty blackbirds.

Now it seems one of the local hippies has been communing with the Almighty. Was it a warning to turn away from a a life of sin and disbelief? No, it seems the Lord doesn't like shopping malls.

From the Vision 2020 message board:

If God is an omnipotent, all knowing and all good being, God does not have a problem. Only limited beings that lack the capability to comprehend such infinite capacities have a "problem." Having said that, the problem of evil, or suffering, in a universe created by "God," as it has been parsed in the history of theology and philosophy, is a subject that it is difficult to say anything new about.

There are far more opportunities to say something new about environmental sustainability, alternative energy, the problem of CO2/fossil fuel induced climate change, and the connections to these problems with the USA's out of control consumer culture, now to hit the Palouse with an inspiration to attain even higher levels of wanton consumption, with the Hawkins Mall. If someone has something new to say about the problem of suffering, or the problem of evil, given certain assumptions about a creator "God," theologically speaking, please, enlighten us.

Otherwise, perhaps we should focus on the critical problems of how humanity is to make peace with Nature, before we slide off the cliff of species extinction, ecosystem collapse, and resource depletion, as the human population keeps expanding, as we worship at the alter of materialistic consumption as the primary goal of the human race, as anthropogenic climate change portends to remake our planet into a world unrecognizable to the current generation.

The Hawkins Mall is a local focal point for these critical problems the human race is facing. And to deny this is to deny the reality of the impacts materialistic consumerism is having on the very fabric of life on our planet.

Hey, what do I know? I just read the latest science on environmental consequences of human activity and industry, and connect the dots to what we are doing here to the impacts globally. We are all a "wholly owned subsidiary" of the Earth as a living system.

I'll be long gone when we have reaped what we sow... In the meantime, yes, I am a beneficiary of the capitalist consumer culture, so to some extent, I am criticizing the hand that feeds me...

Ted Moffett

"The Hawkins Mall is a local focal point for these critical problems the human race is facing?" BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Invade 'Em

A post from the Vision 2020 message board:

Hello, Visionaires:

Please excuse what may seem extraordinary naïveté in asking this. Why could not the City of Moscow, in cooperation with State of Idaho, purchase the Hawkins site from the State of Washington, and therewith adjust the boundary line between the two states? Yes, the closing paperwork for such a transaction would be somewhat more extensive in that it would involve two states, and I presume federal, approval, but aside from the extra levels of paperwork, and the subconscious idea that "you just can't buy part of another state", I don't understand why, with effort and cooperation, this advanced real estate transaction could not be done to the benefit of all parties involved.

(As an aside, I understand that Latah County was created by an act of Congress, so there is some precedent for them revisiting the boundary.)

Didn't the idea of "we don't like what they are doing in that state so let's impose our will upon them" become passe' around 1861-1865? How would this be beneficial to Whitman County? Or the state of Washington for that matter? The state stands to collect approximately 3 times as much sales tax from the Hawkins development as the county, somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million a year.

Remember, hemp is for wearing, not smoking.

My buddy Jeff Harkins, as always, has a great response:

Interesting idea, but the economics favor a purchase of Moscow by Washington. Maybe you could spearhead that project. Pullman has industry, a PAC10 University, an airport, a new four lane highway and a desire to expand their opportunities for prosperity.

Heh.

Perception Becomes Reality

The Perception:

With the denial of a rezone that would have brought a Wal-Mart Supercenter to Moscow and the institution of the Large Retail Establishment Ordinance — aka the big-box ordinance — in February, some people say there is a perception Moscow isn’t welcome to new business, or is too selective on what it allows.

Some are concerned that Moscow will lose its status as “retail base of the Palouse” to Whitman County, while others say they are just trying to protect the Moscow they know and love.

- "Chilly climate for commerce?", Moscow-Pullman Daily News, December 19, 2006

The Reality:

From last Saturday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Home Depot puts brakes on Moscow store

The Home Depot won't be locating in Moscow anytime soon.

The national home-improvement and garden retail outlet had been working toward an agreement to build a store behind the Palouse Mall in Moscow, but corporate officials have decided to take a step back, said Gerard Billington, real estate officer for the University of Idaho.

"We had been working with Home Depot vigorously and we thought we had an agreement, but they declined," Billington said. "They didn't think the deal worked out for them.

"They were crunching numbers, looking at site numbers, site prep costs, land costs, development costs and potential revenue from sales in smaller markets."

The University of Idaho owns the 600-acre piece of land where Home Depot was looking to build, and any deal between the UI and Home Depot would have been a ground lease.

Billington said as far as he knows, the fact that Lowe's - a national home improvement store planning to locate in a proposed retail development in Whitman County - could be coming to the area had nothing to do with Home Depot's hesitation.

"I'm sure Lowe's would impact a future Home Depot and Home Depot would impact a future Lowe's, but I don't know that it was a decision point," he said.

UI officials have had a couple conversations with Home Depot since last fall in an attempt to work out an agreement, but no commitment has been made.

"They wanted to take another look at the agreement," Billington said.

He said he hasn't heard anything from Home Depot since the UI's last conversation with company officials in December.

"Home Depot continues to review and monitor the market and trade area for a site that will work for us and serve the community well," Home Depot spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher said. "To date, an economical solution has not been found. However, we are constantly turning over new ideas, leads and solutions."

Nancy Regina Delenda Est

Doc Holliday: In vino veritas.
Johnny Ringo: Age quod agis.
Doc Holliday: Credat Judaeus apella, non ego.
Johnny Ringo: Eventus stultorum magister.
Doc Holliday: In pace requiescat.
Tombstone Marshal Fred White: Come on boys. We don't want any trouble in here. Not in any language.
Doc Holliday: That's Latin darlin'. Evidently Mr. Ringo's an educated man. Now I really hate him.

Tombstone, 1993

April noticed something very interesting on above Queen Nancy's signature on the City of Moscow's settlement agreement with the Hawkins Companies:

Chaney wrote the Latin phrase Cedo voluntati huius consilii above her signature. This translates to "Yielding to the will of this council." Legal requirement or secret dig at the Moscow City Council?

Say What?

Joseph Erhard-Hudson, Internet technology manager at the Moscow Food Co-op, said the store could have pretty bare shelves by Monday if the bad weather continues through the weekend.

The Co-op's biggest shipment arrives Saturday.

"Our main warehouse and main supplier is on the west side of (Washington)," Erhard-Hudson said. "One shipment from them was supposed to come (Wednesday) but didn't show up until (Thursday)."

The Saturday delivery could be delayed because of the closure of Snoqualmie Pass.

"(The truck) will probably reroute through Portland, which will add six hours to their travel time," Erhard-Hudson said. "I don't know what their ETA is."

He said the warehouse in Washington ships three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and provides the "lion's share" of the grocery items and about half of the store's wellness products.

A meat shipment from Portland to Spokane on Monday took 12-13 hours, and that was before the truck rolled into Moscow to drop a shipment off at the Co-op.

- "Businesses adjust to delivery delays caused by heavy snow," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, February 2, 2008

Our owners save money every time they shop and at the same time help build the local economy. Every dollar spent at the Co-op has roughly three times as much local economic impact as a dollar spent elsewhere...

The Co-op buys from local vendors whenever possible. In fact we buy from almost 100 different local growers and producers; including items like eggs, meat, salsa, chocolate, honey, lentils and produce.

- Moscow Food Co-Op Web Site

BWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

"Arguments finished in WSU water rights appeal"

"...the appellants have been unable to meet their burden of proof." Where have we heard that before? From today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board expected to render decision within 90 days

Attorneys for a group of area water activists had one last chance to state their case during Thursday's closing arguments in a hearing regarding Washington State University water rights.

Attorney Patrick Williams said the Washington State Department of Ecology erred when granting the university the ability to consolidate - an act that will decrease the water levels in the region's Grand Ronde aquifer.

"Every expert witness ... testified to the historic decline of the Grand Ronde aquifer," he said.

The hearing before the state Pollution Control Hearings Board was a continuation of two days of proceedings last week in Pullman. The closing arguments were made via videoconference.

The Palouse Water Conservation Network, the Palouse Group Sierra Club and Pullman-area resident Scotty Cornelius - claim the consolidation will allow the university to pump more than three times as much water per year as it currently does. They argue that the university has contributed to the dropping levels in the Grand Ronde aquifer, and point to an 18-hole golf course under construction as a project that will create more drawdown of the area's primary water source.

Cornelius, who lives outside Pullman, has said his well is decreasing at a rate of 10 inches per year.

WSU currently has the rights to operate seven wells, though two large wells pump a majority of the water needed on campus at 2,500 gallons per minute. The consolidation allows the university to pump up to 5,300 acre feet, or 1.72 billion gallons, of water each year.

Williams said the state should have done more strenuous pump tests to ensure the university's consolidation would not harm domestic wells in the area. He added that equations used by a responder's expert witness to estimate WSU's potential effect on Cornelius' well were inaccurate.

The method used assumes the aquifer is not confined to an infinite area, and it is not isotropic or uniform in thickness, among other things - most of which do not pertain to the Grand Ronde. University of Idaho hydrogeologist James Osiensky testified last week that with WSU continually pumping water the aquifer will decrease 1.95 feet in 10 years. The aquifer will decrease only another half-inch in the same time frame with WSU operating wells under the consolidation.

"If Ecology will not act now ... under what circumstances will they act?" Williams asked.

It has been up to the appellants to prove the state was wrong to grant the university the consolidated water rights in 2006, and that WSU is interrupting or interfering with the availability of water in the Grand Ronde aquifer for residents throughout the Palouse. The general decline of the aquifer is not relevant to the appeal, nor is the estimated water use on the golf course.

Alan Reichman, who represented the state, said Ecology would not have granted the consolidation if the university would impair the water rights of others in the area

Reichman said "everyone knows there's a decline" in the aquifer, but that the appellants have been unable to meet their burden of proof.

"They have not met the first test, which is that the changing of the water configuration (at WSU) ... will affect Mr. Cornelius' ability to draw water," he said.

The three-member board is expected to issue a decision on the case within 90 days.

The Mirror Has Two Faces

I also agree with others who have written in before on these issues who have complained the driving all the way from Pullman to the sprawl area where Hawkins would wish to build is a waste of gas and not environmentally sound.

- PARDner Christopher Lupke, online comment, Moscow-Pullman Daily News website, January 30, 2008

Burma seems to have forgotten there is a Wal-Mart seven miles away. If she has trouble getting there, I’d be happy to do the neighborly thing and take her. She has a right to shop for shoddy sweatshop-made goods if she wishes.

- PARDner T.V. Reed Monday, letter to the editor, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, January 1, 2007

10. We already have a Wal-Mart 7 miles away, and a new Supercenter is being planned for Moscow

- "Top 10 Reasons a Wal-Mart Supercenter Would Be Bad for Pullman," PARD Poster at 2005 National Lentil Festival

While we understand some people in Pullman who think it only fair turnabout to gain sales at the expense of Moscow, for a number of reasons that is highly unlikely to happen. Moreover, at a time when the Pullman and Moscow governments are seeking to cooperate on a number of projects, including responsible development of the Route 270 corridor, this is no time for store wars to ruin good will.

- PARD Position Paper

The Hawkins "sprawl area" to which Lupke refers is directly adjacent to the existing Wal-Mart that the PARDners direct folks to, as well as the Moscow businesses which they are so deeply concerned about.

If you are getting motion sickness trying to follow all of PARD's gyrations on the various issues, don't worry. You're not alone. Fortunately, Lu Laoshi's hypocritical rantings on the Hawkins development will remain just that: the inane, incoherent, illogical ramblings of an academic with a hugely overblown sense of self-importance. PARD has no big labor sugar daddy to bankroll an appeal of the Hawkins project.

The Geographically Challenged

Let me get this straight. Hawkins, a development company from Boise, got a good deal on some Palouse farmland and wants to build a sprawl-mall there. However, because the land does not have all utilities and is distant from either Moscow or Pullman, Hawkins wants either the Whitman County taxpayers to underwrite this mall with a bond, or the Moscow taxpayers to underwrite this mall with utility access.

- Bill London, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, January 29, 2008.

The Hawkins development, of course, will be directly adjacent to Moscow, hard against the state line. Don't laugh. It's sad, really, that our no growth moonbats have been reduced to this level of intellectual bankruptcy. It's much more fun when they have a sporting chance.

Numerous conservative commentators in our own community find time to comment on their lack of faith in the environmental certainty of global warming, as well as their belief that there is a vast liberal conspiracy behind anything to do with environmental protection.

- Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, January 29, 2008.

You have to forgive Chuckie Sandiego's poor timing on today's column. He's in Denmark at the moment, not shoveling a foot of snow out of his driveway like the rest of us in Pullman.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

New Motto for Moscow

"Moscow - We Are Appealing"

Courtesy of Bill Weed, The Morning News on NewsTalk 1150, KQQQ