Wave will be missed
Those who benefited from the friendly wave and smile from the older gentleman at the corner of 12th and Sycamore streets in Clarkston probably didn’t know his name: Tom Reed.
He died Dec. 2. He was usually sitting outside on his porch or lawn. Tall and skinny with an old back injury, he could frequently be found pulling weeds or whatever in our disabled former neighbors’ lawn. He also worked at Walmart.
His friendly wave will be missed.
Marsha Burns
Clarkston
Not that many fish
There is a factual error in the article published in the Dec. 5 Tribune headlined, “Inslee cheered by salmon advocates.” In the second to last paragraph, the author states, “Snake River salmon and steelhead returns once numbered in the millions but declined dramatically following construction of eight dams between Lewiston and the Pacific Ocean.”
Only 569,005 adult salmon passed Bradford Island in 1938 when Bonneville Dam first went into service, not the millions cited in the article. This count was before Grand Coulee Dam or any of the lower Snake River dams ever went into service, but after the ecosystem was devastated by the cannery industry between 1880 and 1920.
Data does not support the notion that there were millions of fish in the river until the modern era of big dam construction. History proves that the historic runs were already gone before the dams were built.
Adam Ratliff
Pullman
