Today's letters to the editor

Font Size:

| Tuesday, June 19, 2001 3:36 PM CDT | () comments

QUAD-CITY TIMES

California must

fix its problem

The single most important question about the California energy crisis that never gets asked is "Why did California's public utilities stop building power plants?"

My answer is that it was cheaper for them to buy power in the market place than to build a series of natural gas-fired plants for which the price per kilowatt hour is three times greater than coal.

It was clear to me in the late 1980s that California's regulators were forcing their utilities to achieve stringent clean-air standards. This eliminated coal-fired plants from their choice of supply options. The greatest effect that the partial deregulation of electricity in 1992 was giving California a few extra years of buying cheap Canadian hydropower and power purchased from new independent power producers and marketers.

Now there are more consumers competing for the same market resources. California's regulators and citizens made the economic and political decisions that created their problems.

This may sound heartless, but it's up to them to fix it.

Jeff Crump

Park View, Iowa

Let's show we

care for animals

I applaud the decision of the Humane Society Board of Directors to permanently leave the facility at River Drive.

Not only has this facility flooded on several occasions, but anyone who has gone there knows that for the longest time it has been completely outdated and inadequate to house our homeless animals. It is important for the citizens of Scott County to know that our Humane Society is an independent agency and is not managed by the county.

The Humane Society contracts services to the county for animal control but to be able to exist, they need the financial support of businesses and private citizens.

Now that as a society we have become aware of the relationship between animal abuse and future criminal behavior, we need to become more proactive. Stopping animal abuse is imperative, but it also is our obligation to give our homeless animals a good facility where they have a better chance to get adopted and go to a good home.

Let us show that we care for all living beings by stepping forward and financially helping our Humane Society build a facility that shows that the citizens of Scott County do care for the animals.

Judy Correa Kaiser

Davenport

Why not build

parallel spans?

Why is everything we seem to try and do have to be so complicated?

We need more bridge spans for travel between the two states. Is there some reason that we cannot build spans parallel to the north and south side of the Bettendorf (Interstate 74) bridge? That way they could dedicate the new spans to traffic from Bettendorf State Street to Moline 3rd Avenue. and vice versa. All they would then need to do is acquire land on both sides for entering and exiting the spans.

The existing spans would then be restricted to traffic that would enter and exit no closer to the river than Middle Road in Bettendorf and 23rd Avenue in Moline. I'm certain there would be some objections to such a thought, but it should be investigated by engineers who specialize in bridges and traffic flow.

I believe we need to do what is direct, simple and easy to accomplish, so this project can be expedited before we are bridge gridlocked.

Robert G. Swanson

Davenport