ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
A Modest Proposal
RATHER THAN DRILL the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and Otero Mesa and the Valle Vidal for gas, why not strip mine the campus of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for coal?
The academy was built over the largest remaining deposit of strip minable coal in the state of Colorado. Building the academy over the coal deposit was justified on the grounds that the United States would never need the energy that would be realized by mining the coal.
Now we are told we are at war and need to make sacrifices to defeat terrorism. Drilling ANWR, Otero and the Valle Vidal, we are told, are small sacrifices in that war. Considering all the positive aspects of strip mining … mining the coal under the campus would be a very small sacrifice. …
RONALD GRENKO
Albuquerque
Oil’s Effects Devastating
THE OIL INDUSTRY claims that full-scale oil and gas development would have little or no impact on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Look 60 miles west to Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, a gargantuan oil complex that has turned a thousand square miles of tundra into a sprawling industrial zone. The result: a landscape defaced by mountains of sewage sludge, scrap metal, garbage and more than 60 contaminated waste sites. …
MURIEL J. PETERSON
Albuquerque
Protect Land From Greed
IN THE SPRING of 2001, about 92,000 gallons of crude oil were spilled in the “newer and safer” oil fields at Kuparuk, Alaska. …
Polls by both Republican and Democrat organizations indicate Americans are opposed to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by a 2-to-1 margin. Oil companies are losing interest and are looking to more profitable areas. Still, Secretary of Interior Gale Norton and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and other extremists are determined to destroy a pristine wild land for a minimal amount of oil.
Ninety-five percent of Alaska’s North Slope is open for drilling. Prudhoe Bay has been destroyed. …
CHARLES B. HOUSTON
Albuquerque
Extremists Sieze Issue
RE: “OTERO MESA Drilling Gets Green Light” article
The only green light the Otero Mesa is showing is a “go” signal for the environmental extremism that contributes mightily to the poverty of New Mexico.
As usual, our environmental doomsayers grossly misrepresent the impact of the highly limited oil and gas development proposed? so limited it may not even happen. Not satisfied with 99.9 percent of the area being left alone, they have to have it all regardless of cost or lost economic benefit to the larger community.
The enviro-exaggerators….
DANIEL H. HOUCK
Albuquerque
Yes, folks, New Mexico is poor because of the enviro-exaggerators. mjh