Letterbox

Dear Watchers:

One March 22nd, the Washington, D.C., based National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a comprehensive study on the dangers of fluoride. The NAS is likely the most prestigious scientific organization in the United States and the world.

The NAS found persuasive evidence that fluoride in water increases bone fractures as well as stiffness in the joints of the elderly, and that it also may be related to Alzheimer’s disease, marginally reduce IQ in children and alter the endocrine and hormonal levels that control most of the functions of the human body—with unknown effects. The chemical may even cause bone cancer, said the NAS—although the evidence is “tentative and mixed.”

NAS panel member Robert Isaacson, a distinguished professor of neurobehavioral science at the State University of New York in Binghamton, stated that the possible effects on endocrines and hormones from water fluoridation are “something that I wouldn’t want to happen to me if I had any say in the matter.” The report “should be a wake-up call,” he said in an interview.

The NAS report supports strongly what the Union of EPA scientists declared in their report opposing water fluoridation on August 5, 2005.

Congratulation goes to Bellingham voters who saw through a misleading $258,000 Seattle-based media campaign to force us to ingest this substance and voted to keep Bellingham’s water clean and healthy.

Dear Watchers:

I wanted to start out by saying that sometimes we all get too busy and don’t stop and thank others for their actions.

I wanted to thank you for running Lee Taylor’s very informative and well-researched articles on the facts about the health effects and history of fluoride.

What you did was very groundbreaking and commendable for the truth of fluoride to be printed in black and white.

I know firsthand that this issue has been skewed for so many years that now not everybody can accept that fluoride ingestion may not be as “Safe and Effective” as one has been lead to believe.

The National Research Council came out last month with their three-year study that shows that we may be ingesting too much fluoride. We already get too much from such sources as many processed beverages, foods, fruits and vegetables and many common medications. Even many bottled waters.

I commend you for allowing the information to be printed and allowing the public to see things as they are with the rosy glasses off. Anyway, thanks again for printing and enduring any pressure from the parrots of the “Safe and Effective” propaganda.

Dear Watchers:

Thank you for publishing “Past and Present Observations, Part 1,” by Matthew C. Roberts, in the April 2006 Whatcom Watch, about his relationship with Chuckanut Creek.

When I read Roberts’ words, which included “ . . . a creek or river says something different to each of us,” “over the years of walking the creek . . .,” “ . . . learn more about ourselves and our place in the natural world,” “ . . . there’s always a window of reflection looking back . . .,” I had an awakening: I have a relationship with Whatcom Creek.

I do not have Roberts’ imagination or predisposition to historical wonderings about why, when or where (being mostly a here-and-now-type person), but:

■ I have walked all the paths along Whatcom Creek from Lake Whatcom to Bellingham Bay for the past 13 years.

■ I gave up getting mad and sad about people who have no respect and leave their garbage on the trails, and I carry trash bags and pick up after them.

■ When I learned about the importance of picking up animal waste around our waterways (because of fecal coliform that kills aquatic life), I started cleaning up after my dog and other dogs (whose owners have yet to be educated).

■ I am so thrilled when I spot an occasional fish, despite the fact that I have no idea if it’s a salmon or a trout.

■ I also see herons, hawks, ducks and eagles all the time, which assures me that life in Whatcom Creek is still thriving.

■ I am continually overwhelmed by the wild beauty of Whatcom Creek, and I have my favorite places, where I don’t have to clear my mind or try to meditate. Just being near the water resonates with the part of me that comes from the earth. I’ve even carried a few stones from the creek bed to keep me company when I’m too busy to visit.

■ When I’m depressed or distressed, I give myself permission to stay at one of my favorite places until everything melts into insignificance, and I am reminded of a couple of sentences from the poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” by Wendell Berry:

When despair for the world grows in me . . .

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

Thanks, Matthew C. Roberts, for your essay, which was a catalyst for my personal epiphany: I not only have a relationship with Whatcom Creek—I love Whatcom Creek.