North letters

Last update: February 5, 2008 - 3:50 PM

Tax rebate reaction

The Senate Democrats must believe all the columnists and the editorials that are being written about the futility of a tax rebate for the economy. How else can you explain why they are so determined in the past week to deride the whole thing?

SHARON BERG

CHAMPLIN

'Beyond obscene'

Your story on the front page ["Contractor might repay some costs of staircase at I-35W site," Jan. 31] about the $157,400 bridge project appalls me. Not only should the contractor be criminally charged for the outlandish charges, but the person(s) at MnDOT should be reprimanded and someone or no doubt some people should be held accountable. This is beyond obscene. Just another example of government waste and unaccountability. When do taxpayers step in and end this type of corruption? Heads should roll.

BRAD CARR

New Brighton

Help those in need

"Get our business done" says President Bush. But what is our business?

Shouldn't at least part of it be taking care of the thousands of American citizens who are homeless (half of them children), hungry, and either unemployed or underemployed? The president wants to send $150 billion back to people who have housing, food and adequate incomes while he vetoes programs to aid those who have nothing, who are without health insurance and cannot properly feed their families.

How can the programs he suggests in No Child Left Behind help children who go to school hungry and have medical problems that go untreated? Our president doesn't know his business.

GRACE K. WIGGEN

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS

State should say no to sulfide mining

That is the question being asked by many people across the state. At this moment the Minnesota DNR and the Army Corps of Engineers are creating an environmental impact statement on a new type of mine being proposed for northern Minnesota just 20 miles from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and 50 miles from Voyageurs National Park.

This is not your typical iron ore mine. This is a mine that contains, among its copper, nickel, platinum and silver, significant deposits of sulfide. The sulfur in the resultant mine tailings could leach off into the surface and ground water, creating streams and creeks that flow with unearthly colors of yellow and red.

If you think that water that runs yellow or red may be toxic, you'd be correct, as it contains heavy metals and sulfuric acid, which kills fish, birds and other aquatic life. The watershed for these proposed sulfide mines includes the Kawishiwi River ,which flows into the Boundary Waters Wilderness, and includes the St. Louis River, which flows into Lake Superior.

Unlike many dry Western states, Minnesota is rich in water resources that are especially vulnerable and are a great part of Minnesota's outdoor heritage for anglers, canoeists, duck hunters and, of course, wildlife. Our neighbors in Wisconsin have a moratorium on mining metallic sulfide ores written into law. In effect the Wisconsin law says: "Industry can mine metallic sulfide ores in Wisconsin when it can show one mine in the United States or Canada that has operated and been closed for ten years without significant damage to its watershed."

If we allow sulfide mining in Minnesota, in 20 years the mine will be exhausted, the profits having gone to multinational corporations. Minnesotans of the future will be left with the consequences in perpetuity.

JOHN RUST

President, Walter J. Breckenridge Chapter, Izaak Walton League of America, Brooklyn Park