Back in the day
I grew up on 22nd Street in east Lewiston and of the dozen houses on my street, six residents worked for the Potlatch lumber mill and three for the Camas Prairie Railroad.
The PFI men worked at the lumber mill, not the paper mill, because the pulp mill had not been built yet in the 1940s. The most important thing in my area was the park at 22nd and Main. It is no longer a city park.
The Catholic church was at 23rd and Main, and is now a business.
Where Hahn Rental Center is now was the manufactured gas plant with huge round tanks.
The railroad was a busy place and the free-flowing river had our swimming holes.
There was no bridge because it was at 18th Street.
There were no businesses yet on 21st Street, but something of interest was that in the 1940s, a dirt road was cut from 21st to 22nd so logging trucks would not have to go to the bottom before turning to go to the mill.
Where did the kids in east end go to grade school? Why, Garfield, of course.
It is now an apartment house.
Ah, memories.
Dick Riggs
Lewiston
Baby killers
I wish I could claim this as my own, but I can’t. I found it on a billboard on the internet: “Without freedom of speech, we would not know who the idiots are.”
That statement is so true. We do know who a lot of the idiots are because they write letters to the Lewiston Tribune bragging about how they voted for Donald Trump. We know their names. Some of us even know what they look like.
These idiots will forever be remembered as baby killers. They support Trump. Trump supports Vladimir Putin. Putin is a baby killer. Therefore, they support the killing of babies in Ukraine. They even support the rape and murder of women and children by the Russian army.
Let’s not forget the murder of thousands of innocent civilians in Putin’s war. It’s called genocide for you idiots who don’t know. Evidently, Trump supporters think all of this is just fine and dandy with them because Trump approves of everything Putin does.
More than 2,300 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped by Putin’s army and taken to Russia. What do you Trump supporters think has happened to those children? Are they being used as sex slaves? Are they being used as forced laborers in concentration camps in Russia? What do you think?
I have a great idea. Why don’t you Trump supporters call your good friend Trump and ask him what has happened to those kidnapped Ukrainian children?
Please pray for the people in Ukraine.
Joan Vanhorn
Lewiston
Dams kill fish
An April 20 letter referred to an 1894 government report documenting the decline of Columbia River salmon.
The letter did not cite a reason for the decline, but historians and biologists know that overharvest was the main cause. The letter’s claim was: “Don’t blame low numbers of salmon on the lower Snake River dams. The fish declined long before dam construction.”
This conclusion is incorrect.
The intense overfishing was stopped, and fisheries are closely controlled today.
Salmon populations recovered substantially when fishing was restricted and by the 1950s and 1960s were fairly robust with 100,000-150,000 spring/summer chinook returning annually to Idaho, and another 100,000-150,000 steelhead. These numbers are the recovery goals now, not 1800s numbers.
But by the 1970s, new mortality factors became dominant — dams, which have had huge negative impacts on salmon.
Salmon can recover quickly when lethal factors are reduced, as long as enough wild fish remain for a healthy gene pool.
Let’s summarize: Salmon runs were seriously depleted by about 1900, but the cause, overfishing, no longer occurs. The losses of Snake River salmon and steelhead are now caused by the cumulative impact of eight dams and reservoirs. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to alleviate the negative effects of these dams, but wild fish continue to decline.
Today, even with very restrictive fishing rules, the dams and reservoirs just keep killing fish. The lower Snake River dams must be breached to save wild salmon and the livelihoods, cultures and ecosystems that depend on them.
Richard Scully
Lewiston
