Our pollution solutions have become the problem

Published 1:30 am Friday, October 28, 2022

Along the West Coast, we take pollution very seriously!

We banned paper bags to stop “killing the trees.” We went to economical, thin plastic bags, then we banned plastic bags because too many of them were making it into the water and chocking bird and sea life. Then we prohibited plastic bags and began enforcing a “reusable” bag rule to keep the waterways and landfills clean. Now, we have plastic bags again, only this time they are much thicker, more expensive, and liable to last well into the next millennia in landfills, waterways, or in the back of my truck!

When we first moved here, some 25 years ago, the discussion was about tearing down our hydro-electric dams to “protect the fish.” The insanity of that proposal was eventually quashed but lately it has once again reared its moronic head again!

All of this concern, energy, and money is expended by our citizens and government over pollution issues and “solutions” that merely exacerbate the problem; if there ever really was one.

What I do not understand is our ability to endure months of smoke-polluted skies, health warnings about smoke, and blue air while our forests and grasslands are consumed whole in massive yearly conflagrations because no one is willing to conserve our forest habitat.

On top of that, no one ever describes the chocking filth in the air as pollution!

Konrad Lau

Sedro-Woolley