Worries about least chub are no fish story

To the editor:

After 47 years in the Las Vegas Valley (42 as a professor at UNLV), I've come to expect Review-Journal editorials to express extreme, right-wing positions. I've even become accustomed to wildly uninformed speculation, twisted logic and assertions at odds with the facts. Your June 24 editorial about the White Knights at the Southern Nevada Water Authority being subverted by environmental extremists reaches a new level of misinformation.

For example, if the least chub fish gets listed under the Endangered Species Act, the number of listed endangered species potentially affected by the water authority's groundwater project will jump from 20 to 21. While this may come as a surprise to you, the water authority has known this for years. Twenty of those endangered species, by the way, were listed long before the Las Vegas Valley Water District even submitted applications for groundwater rights.

The water authority also knows there are at least 137 Nevada state-listed "sensitive" endemic wetland-dependent species threatened to various degrees by proposed water authority and Vidler/Lincoln County groundwater projects. They also know their proposed groundwater projects are likely to lower groundwater tables from Death Valley, Calif., to Sevier Lake, Utah, in some places by as much as 1,600 feet. These probable effects on the groundwater table are not news to rural Nevadans, environmentalists, "greens," the water authority or the scientific community.

The information goes a long way toward explaining why rural Nevadans feel uncomfortable with the "mountains of evidence" being used to "assure them their communities will not be sucked dry."

James E. Deacon

HENDERSON

No outcry?

To the editor:

I noticed in the Business section of Wednesday's newspaper another article about how the Republican minority in the Senate is filibustering again -- this time for a bill that would protect workers and allow them to unionize easier, something the corporations dread.

It reminded me of the outcry from the Review-Journal editorial page and all the letters to the editor lambasting the Democratic senators as obstructionists when they were filibustering three ultra-conservative judicial nominations. Strange that those letters don't seem to be flying in now.

TIM ROGAN

LAS VEGAS

Matter of survival

To the editor:

After having read recent letters sent by readers regarding teacher pay, I felt the need to add my two cents. Linda Dahlquist mentioned in her Saturday letter that teachers just need to deal with low salaries by prioritizing one's needs. I agree, but let me put it this way:

I have been teaching for six years and I have a master's degree in education, so I make more than a beginning teacher. I am a 35-year-old single mom who must pay for day care. My son attends an average school at an average cost. I do not drive a nice car, I do not have credit cards, or have outstanding debt, and I do not receive child support. I do not spend money going out to eat, going to movies, or shopping.

I spend my time looking for discounts on groceries and I drive across town to go to Costco to buy diapers and baby wipes at a discounted price. I also moved from a nicer part of town (where I had a roommate) to cut down on gas prices.

I can barely afford a one-bedroom apartment in a less-than-reputable neighborhood, and while the idea of getting another roommate is a nice one, I have made the parental decision not to expose my son to people who are not going to be a permanent fixture in his life, or who may have parenting styles that I do not agree with.

So, where, may I ask, would Ms. Dahlquist suggest I cut back in order to prioritize? On my daily list of necessities, what should I take out? At this rate I will never be able to buy a home of my own or buy a new car, and I will forever be stuck in the lower-middle class. I cannot afford to take classes at UNLV, which is necessary to keep my certificate current and move up the salary schedule.

I don't feel that the people who are responsible for teaching the children of this valley should have to live like this, and this is why so many teachers are leaving. Sadly, our love of teaching is outweighed by our need to make ends meet, which is not a matter of prioritizing, but of survival.

Christine Murphy

LAS VEGAS