Water-bomber squadron is needed for fires
With a global epidemic of catastrophic fires, perhaps the subject of a massive UN-style water bomber squadron should be broached. At some point, we are simply going to run out of fire fighting personnel and resources as the conflagrations escalate.
Mark Bennett
Chemainus
Fallow deer made it from island to island
Re: “Fallow deer can’t swim between those islands,” letter, Aug. 19.
Fallow deer were introduced to James Island for sport hunting at the turn of the last century; from there, they swam to Sidney Island and populated the island.
The fallow deer population on Mayne Island, which ballooned after an escape from a deer farm two decades ago, is continuing to grow despite a licensed hunter program.
Some of the animals have now island-hopped to Saturna.
“We don’t know how many swam from Mayne to Samuel Island and, from there, they have made it to Winter Cove on Saturna,” said Todd Shannon, acting superintendent of Gulf Islands National Park Reserve. (Times 91原创, Jan. 18, 2013).
Sightings have also been reported on Galiano Island. The deer can cover more than 1.5 kilometres in their island-hopping expeditions.
“It appears fallow deer are swimming to new islands when they exhaust their existing food source,” according to Kate Emmings, Islands Trust ecosystem protection analyst. “They see nice bushes on other islands and swim over,”
Keith Taylor
Victoria
Many advantages to an electric fire truck
What is the point of an electric fire truck? That one is easy!
The truck purchased by the Victoria Fire Department has a range of 100 kilometres. That is plenty of range for a “city” truck. Most of the usage is going to be powering the on-board systems, like pumping water.
What are other benefits, besides not burning diesel? For starters, have you ever been beside a stationary diesel fire truck when it is pumping water on a fire?
It is spewing huge amounts of diesel fumes, and making a lot, I mean a lot, of noise.
Now if you are a firefighter, and are giving or taking orders near that noise, what is safer, an almost silent electric motor, or a diesel engine? This is over and above the fumes issue.
A new diesel pumper truck costs around $1.2 million to $1.5 million, so I would assume the fuel saving alone would make up the $200,000 difference in the purchase price of the electric fire truck.
A previous letter mentioned child labour used to produce lithium. In that case, stop driving your gas/diesel car, that pollution kills millions a year, including kids.
Are electric vehicles perfect? No, but they are considerably better than internal combustion engine vehicles, in many ways.
We own an EV, and by the end of the month, we will have solar panels on our home, and will power our car with the sun!
We drive about 10,000 kilometres annually, and that saves us around $2,500 a year.
Rod Stiebel
Langford
Golf courses using water and prime real estate
We were recently camping in the Kootenays and Thompson-Okanagan, something we’ve been doing for more than 30 years.
Water levels in the lakes, rivers and creeks were the lowest we’ve ever seen. Many small streams were dried up.
The same goes for the waterways up and down the Island that we visited this summer.
In all regions we saw golf courses sucking up water from desperate waterways or drawing down reservoirs fed by them as if there was no end to this precious resource. Some courses were lushly green. Difficult to achieve when the grass is cut so short! None were closed and none not watering.
Can you imagine the reaction of a family from Egypt, India, or Iraq watching obscene amounts of water dumped on massive lawns so patrons can chase a little ball around while they, on the other hand, might walk long, hot distances to fill a container or two of barely potable liquid?
And what about the army of carbon spewing equipment necessary to tame all manner of golf course flora? Even tractor-towed blowers to dry greens … sometimes after watering!
And the chemicals golf courses employ? Scores of lawsuits have been filed by groundskeepers, golfers and those living and working around the links because they’ve gotten sick or died from their exposure to them.
And then this nastiness runs off into storm sewers and nearby waterways. Ugh!
Shouldn’t these huge tracts of mostly urban land be candidates for much-needed below-market-price housing?
Dave Secco
Victoria
Certain behaviours should not be acceptable
Re: “Pediatricians alarmed by number of kids overdosing,” Aug. 17.
I appreciate the work of Dr. Matthew Carwana in drawing attention to the problem of drug overdose in the paediatric age group, however I am frustrated and confused by his closing statement, repeating the mantra that it is necessary to reduce the stigma of drug use to improve this.
Destigmatization might increase the effectiveness of treatment for drug addiction, but I doubt the majority of these child users are addicts, but rather casual experimenters.
In my opinion “recreational” drug use and its inherent risks are already far too widely accepted (and even glorified) in our current culture.
I submit that increased stigmatization of such use would more likely not only reduce these tragic outcomes, but also reduce the number of people falling into the drug abuse cycle who then require addiction treatment.
After all, my understanding is that the two most successful public health behaviour modification initiatives of the past 50 years have been the reductions in drunk driving, and tobacco use.
Both were successful precisely because we consciously decided to make these behaviours less acceptable.
Glen Percy
Victoria
African children are not mining lithium
A recent letter was critical of electric fire trucks. One point in particular got my attention: the claim of children in Africa mining lithium.
A little research reveals that the top six countries with lithium reserves are:
1. Bolivia
2. Argentina
3. Chile
4. United States
5. Australia
6. Canada
Perhaps the writer was confusing this with legitimate concerns about where cobalt comes from.
Unfortunately, more cobalt is used in internal combustion vehicles than in electric ones, largely due to the need for exotic material in the catalytic converters.
Brian Collier
Victoria
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