Cheap gas again is a pipe dream

A gent who puffs about his gunning down an innocent grizzly bear (it’s like shooting a cow) claims in the same recent Skagit Valley Herald letter that drilling Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge for oil will generate cheap gas again, thousands of new jobs and freedom from oil from “those who hate us.”

He also says environmentalists lie that pristine trees forest the refuge.

Loopy. The writer doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

The price for Saudi Arabian sweet (low sulfur) crude, now at record highs, benchmarks the world prices for other grades of oil, including Alaskan sour crude, also at record highs.

No guarantee exists that new oil developed in Alaska will feed U.S. refineries. About a third of Alaskan production now ships to Japan. Oil flows to the highest bidders, who pay premiums above benchmark to guarantee supply. Will the Chinese abhor doing so? Unlikely. Will we? Perhaps. Dream on about cheap gas.

Jobs? The international oil companies at Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay field expect to rely chiefly on Prudhoe workers to build any new industrial installations in the refuge, right next door.

Wildlife? Thanks to evolution, cows in the Porcupine Caribou Herd drop their calves in the refuge in a small area where calves survive best. That’s precisely where the oil rigs, pipelines, quarters and roads would land.

As for environmentalists, we know the refuge is not forested, but otherwise beautiful. Unlike the writer, many of us have traveled there. We also know that if drilling produced oil there tomorrow, eight or more years would pass before a drop flowed here and to Asia. Even if it reached the U.S., it would supply only a small part of demand and would do nothing to relieve this country’s constipated oil refining that jacks up gas prices.

John (Jack) de Yonge
Concrete


‘Half-blind faith’ in fluoride

A search through history shows how blind faith has led populations down some horrible, often bloody, roads. Now blind faith is bringing fluoride to our county water. Actually, in the case of fluoride, it is more “half-blind faith.”

People have one eye firmly fixed on the promise of improved dental health and there are credible studies that support that.

However, the other communal eye seems tightly closed to the equally credible studies that show we really do not want to make fluoride a regular part of our diet. Rather than seeking a method that can satisfy both areas of knowledge, the county is moving ahead with indiscriminate fluoridation.

A recent letter to the editor pointed out a large majority of the fluoride we will be purchasing with the intent of protecting teeth is going to end up spread all over the countryside. Maybe we should put Miracle Gro in the water?

I hope the rest of God’s creation will appreciate our generosity; although, from the studies I’ve seen on the effects of fluoride on animal life, I doubt it. When you think about it, dispensing fluoride indiscriminately through our water system looks a lot more like a scheme to dispose of highly toxic waste over large areas rather than a thoughtful plan of dental health.

For the “other eye,” I recommend the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). FAN is headed by Paul Connett, Ph.D., a professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University. The FAN Advisory Board is largely made up of a collection of professionals from the fields of medicine, physiology, dentistry, chemistry and environmental science.

The danger is that, like myself, you won’t even be able to go on vacation without checking whether or not your destination fluoridates. On the other hand while ignorance may be bliss, it isn’t protection.

Kenneth Dunning
Mount Vernon