The recent fish kill in the Wood River brings back memories - almost a carbon copy of what happened in February 1972. At the time, I was secretary/treasurer of the Izaak Walton League and our chapter along with others jumped onto the situation with both feet.

At that time, the original Swift plant was dumping overloads onto the Grand Island sewage disposal plant which was already at near capacity just to take care of the sewage of the city. Fingers were being pointed in all directions trying to fix the blame instead of fixing the problem which had been going on for several years.

The city manager, John Carpenter, was great friends with Black & Veach, consulting engineers of Kansas City, Mo., and between them their suggestions to solve the problem were sort of laughable had it not been such a serious matter.

The city manager wanted the Game and Parks Commission to put a "fish fence" at the mouth of the Wood River to prevent fish from going up into the small river.

Black & Veach had been studying and making plans for several years for the city to build a sewage pipe line to the Platte River at a cost of over $1.3 million. Their explanation was that a sewage overload would be less noticeable in a larger river than in a small creek such as the Wood River. At a meeting in the city hall chambers, a Black & Veach representative gave a demonstration with a glass of water and a jug of water and some ink. He put a drop of ink in the glass of water and said, "See, in the small amount of water, it is quite noticeable; now when I put a drop of ink in the larger jug of water, it is hardly noticeable!" No one seemed to be impressed by the demonstration. Government environmental officials at the meeting told the city and Swift to clean up the mess instead of trying to hide it.

Within a few months, both the city and Swift made changes in their operations that solved the problem.

Today it appears there are some people that have not been doing their jobs, so here we are back to square one.

Earl Boersen

222 S. Oak

Mortgage problems are far away

This is a plea for reason, things are bad but each of us needs to look around and decide if the headlines really affect us.

After 9-11, newscasters said that we shouldn't let a bunch of terrorists make us change our ways. The economy and stock markets dropped but they came back even stronger in a few years. The news now is making us afraid again. We see continuous reports about the housing market "collapse" and now the investment market "collapse". Many investment groups and banks chose not to peddle 0 percent down mortgages and derivatives and are stable and healthy now. The news is about the greedy and unscrupulous firms who gambled and lost and are suffering.

Recent reports had two critical figures, 1 percent and 79 percent. Headlines reported a 79 percent increase in mortgage foreclosures in 2007. That large number is frightening and it is misleading! Would you be as concerned if the headline said that 99 percent of all 40,500,000 mortgages in the U.S. are safe and sound? At the end of 2007 the number of foreclosures was less than 405,000 homes which was stated as less than 1 percent of all mortgages. This must mean that 99 percent of all mortgages are sound and are not in trouble.

Most of the troubled mortgages are far from here in 4 western and 3 southern coastal states. Isn't this just another example of the differences between the coastal areas and the great heartland? Think of all the fads that pop up in la-la land and never get to us. It's like waves washing up on a beach about a thousand miles wide. There is a lot of action at the waters edge but we seldom see it. Since 2000, prices for property along the coast went up - a lot, but ours didn't. Now they are coming back down, but ours aren't. Just another coastal wave.

Would you be as concerned about reported drops in value of 24 percent in some hot-spot cities if you were told the whole truth, that values there had risen 92 percent or more in the five years after 2000? So, a house worth $100,000 in Fresno California in 2000 was worth $192,000 in 2005 and now it's worth $145,920. Meanwhile, the $100,000 house in Omaha has gone up only 18 percent, so it's worth $118,000. Should we feel sorry for the guy in Fresno? Should you and I be concerned about someone with a minimum wage job who signed a mortgage for a $400,000 house with no money down then finds - surprise - that he cannot pay for it. Many of these people in trouble were buying two or more houses hoping to flip them and make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hey, they gambled and they lost, should we bail them out?

Let's keep all of the bad news in perspective and continue to live our sane Midwest lives.

Herb Worthington

4262 Pennsylvania Ave

Teachers urged to use 'zero' grade

After reading the article in the Independent titled "No Zeroes for Grades," I wanted to send a message to all the teachers that have my daughters in their classroom this year at Barr Middle School and to those who will have them at Grand Island Senior High.

Please give my daughters a zero if they don't hand in their assignments or take a test.

I appreciate your efforts in helping my girls become responsible adults.

Susan Scarborough

1823 W. John St.