Letters for April 19, 2024

Madsen misses mark again

In response to Sue Lani Madsen’s recent op-eds against windmills, it is clear that she needs education concerning the ongoing and ever-worsening climate crisis. The science is clear, climate change is real, it is getting more severe and if left unchecked, it will destroy not only the U.S. economy but the world’s economy.

Two weeks ago she worried about a possible handful of birds that might die because of windmills while ignoring the hundreds of millions of birds that are lost due to wildfires and habitat loss as a result of climate change. In her column last week, she is concerned about a small amount of noise disturbing a few people. Obviously, she will look for any excuse, however poor, to stop our societal and governmental response to a crisis that will only get much worse by inaction.

I also have questions about the judgment of the editorial staff for continuing to publish columns that will only serve to encourage low-information climate deniers and thus slow our vital response to an existential threat to all of humanity. Our children deserve better.

David Randall

Spokane

‘Donna Quixote’ Madsen jousts at windmills

The next local production of “The Man from La Mancha” will feature an all-female cast starring The Spokesman-Review’s own columnist, Sue Lani Madsen, as Donna Quixote jousting at windmills in rural Eastern Washington.

I don’t know how they get windmill blades for a windmill taller than the Space Needle to a hillside in rural Eastern Washington. The typical wind turbine tower is actually 280 feet with 100-foot blades. Rural roads can’t transport a 300-foot blade. Clearly, Madsen is against wind turbines as they make noise. I can hear the jake brakes on large wood chip and logging trucks miles away from my rural property. I also hear railroad train whistles blowing. My house shakes when the local rock quarry blasts the granite from the hillside. I wonder if Madsen opposes those rural activities like she does wind turbines.

Then we have the issue of property rights and the owners leasing their land for wind turbines. What’s wrong with clearing the ridges of trees that are going to burn during the next wild or forest fire? Wind turbines don’t burn and spread wildfires.

Madsen frets over the visual pollution of wind turbines but has no problem with hundreds of high-transmission towers dotting Eastern Washington.

Lastly, Madsen is concerned about foreign investment and ownership of wind turbines but ignores the takeover of our hydropower by Russian and Chinese crypto mining.

Pete Scobby

Newport, Wash.

Thank you, Jesse and Nick

Spokane County should be proud of the management team at SCRAPS. Jesse and Nick are hard-working, energetic and kind, with skills to handle extremely tough, heartbreaking and thankless jobs. Few people are equipped to handle a job in which the community is angry when you cannot take in strays due to lack of kennel space, while also threatening you when you are forced to euthanize a sick or dangerous dog.

I volunteer walking dogs at SCRAPS three days a week and have observed these guys firsthand since they came on board. I’ve seen Jesse fixing clogged sinks, teaching an older couple to walk an older dog up a ramp so they could adopt her, unloading semi-trucks of supplies and much more that is relentlessly necessary with an aging building and hundreds of animals. Last week, we complained the fence needed securing in the big outdoor dog play yard. Jesse was out there at 5:30 the next morning lowering the chain-link fencing and staking it down all around the perimeter. Nick has a gentle way with reactive dogs and has gracefully rescued me from both aggressive dogs and angry people. He pitches in wherever necessary and cleans kennels when SCRAPS is short-staffed. Thanks to Jesse and Nick and the all staff and volunteers at SCRAPS for working so hard to make SCRAPS an agency for which to be proud.

Kerry Masters

Liberty Lake