Doing the research
Dear Editor:
Re: “False Claims” (Dec. 12) — Before you accuse me of making false claims you really should do a little research.
I purchased my Methow Valley property in the late 1990s. Shortly thereafter I received information from the MVID explaining that they were involved in a lawsuit with the state over water rights. That was followed by a packet from Ecology explaining that I could remove my property from the MVID and irrigate from a well. My research began.
About the same time a group of government and tribal entities got together and allocated the water in the Skagit basin. Their allocations left out two very important entities, individual property owners and agriculture.
For the last 20-plus years I have been a property owner, taxpayer and water user in the two most-litigated watersheds in Washington. I have been extremely politically active on the wet side, serving as a precinct committee officer, county chair, and state central committee member for the GOP. I have run for office, unsuccessfully, and been an unpaid citizen lobbyist for water rights in Olympia testifying before various committees on numerous occasions. I have presented at water rights seminars in Skagit, Whatcom, Snohomish and Island counties, and in Kittitas county on the east side.
My research focused on the Methow, where Ecology mandated new wells and the Skagit where Ecology was banning new wells. Their “science,” like their goals, are opposites. Today Ecology is attempting to bring Skagit science into the Methow, opposite of the science they used in litigation and mitigation with MVID. In the same watershed!
Most every river has a flow meter, most installed by the USGS, many prior to WWII. The data is available on their website.
Flow levels are determined by the amount of water in the watershed. In simple terms, when you pour water on a table it flattens out and seeks its own level. It does the same in the watershed. MVID pulls water out, the watershed puts it back, and irrigators pulling water from wells add additional water into the watershed to assist in the process. That is what I learned from Ecology in the Methow.
Mike Newman, Sedro Woolley/Twisp
Act now
Dear Editor:
Whatever you may feel about Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s departure in the face of multiple ethics investigations, we need him to do one more thing before he leaves office: sign the Methow Headwaters Mining Withdrawal.
Rep. Dan Newhouse and Sen. Maria Cantwell have worked in a bi-partisan way to support the withdrawal application. Please contact both of them immediately to make one last push to get this signed before the Dec. 30 deadline, at http://Newhouse.house.gov and http://cantwell.senate.gov.
Marian Exall, Bellingham/Winthrop
Great venue
Dear Editor:
What a joy to see our Methow Valley Community Center full with locals in their holiday attire. The Christmas Concert by Cascadia was a true gift to our community. It rang in the season and warmed us with lovely song and music. And what a wonderful venue. I am proud to be part of the Community Center board and to appreciate from the inside all the efforts and volunteer time that have gone into making the center a place we gather to inspire and be inspired. Always one to think that this regal lady needs our attention and care, I ask you to consider her in your end-of-the-year giving.
Carolyn Sullivan, Winthrop
Saddened and sickened
Dear Editor:
Like a lot of folks, I was saddened … maddened … sickened really, to read that Cinder, the young, “mellow, calm bear” survived the Carlton Complex Fire and months of painful rehabilitation only to be killed by a sport hunter. And this just a few short years after her release back to the wild, before she had even a chance to raise cubs of her own.
The Dec. 12 Methow Valley News article, “Cinder the bear, fire survivor and worldwide inspiration, is dead,” goes to great lengths to convince us that no laws were broken in the murder of the collared animal, but has no take on whether animals like bears — each with “… their own personality”— should be hunted down and killed, be it for sport or sausage.
People are quick to point out how far we’ve come technologically or morally, but the recreational killing of our fellow sentient beings should have long since been a thing a thing of the past.
Jim Robertson, Twisp
