Our Readers Speak

Our Readers Speak - 02/25/2004

EPA must protect public, not save Arco money

Superfund's mandate and goal is to protect permanently human health and the environment by reducing the

toxicity, mobility, and volume of toxic materials.

Superfund's goal is not, as the EPA's Project Manager Ron Bertram suggests with regard to Priority Soils, to save Arco money.

It is interesting that there are significant differences between the Montana Bureau of Mines and the EPA regarding how fast water flows through the Metro Storm Drain. (See The Montana Standard, Feb. 24). This flow rate is a critical issue in determining how best to clean up the Metro Storm Drain.

Yet, in its touching concern for Arco's pocketbook, EPA wants to do the cleanup cheaper rather than more

comprehensively.

EPA should follow the precautionary principle that holds that government should act before additional harm to human health and the environment occurs from the releases of toxins.

When there is uncertainty, as there is in the case of the Metro Storm Drain, EPA should seek to prevent future human risks by stepping in and fixing the problem before the toxic substances further harm public health and the

environment.

The 1998 Wingspread Conference on the environment said: "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary

measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically."

The old adages: "Better safe than sorry" and "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" apply here.

The best way to insure the cleanup of the Metro Storm Drain is the maximum feasible removal and treatment of contaminants, not assuming and hoping and wishing that they won't cause a problem for a long time, as EPA is doing.

As long as the toxic wastes remain in place, they are a threat to the public's health and the environment.

John W. Ray

915 West Galena St.

Butte

Editor's note: The EPA has not made a decision on the cleanup alternative for Metro Storm Drain. Several alternatives were listed in Tuesday's newspaper.

Evolution based on empirical evidence

In Friday's Montana Standard letters, Tom Walter of Sheridan wrote attacking evolutionary theory and defending the teaching of creationism as science.

In it, he made several mistakes, but the worst was when he wrote in reference to both systems: "... are beyond the reach of science to test. They both take faith."

This is wrong. Evolutionary theory is solid scientific fact. It reigns supreme in an environment totally dominated by hard-nosed skeptical scientists who demand empirical evidence for their theories. It's not that they have any sort of spiritual devotion to evolution or that they believe in evolution because someone told them they should believe it.

You can bet a dollar against a dime that if any of them came up with a better explanation for the variety of life forms on this Earth than Darwin's, and they had the empirical evidence to back it up, they'd shoot old Uncle Chuck's

theory down in a second.

The difference between evolution and creationism is rock simple: Evolution is scientific fact, creation is religious myth. Scientists adhere to evolution because it has withstood close to

150 years of critical examination and it explains the variety, structures and functions of life forms on this planet and it explains them from the level of molecules all the way up to the change of ecosystems over the eons.

However, if Mr. Walter remains unconvinced, I invite him to come to Montana Tech and join me in a public debate on the following resolution: "The variety and structure of life forms as they exist today constitute evidence for intelligent creations."

David S. Carter

215 S. Western

Butte