EDITORIAL: Respect Canada

That’s an editorial? Piss the Canadians off and our draft dodgers won’t have any place to hide in the next war. Better still, declare war on Canada, immediately surrender and saddle them with our National Debt.

As for the merger, Avista might have gotten a better offer from Pacific Gas and Electric. The kicker was California wanted to channel Lake Pend Oreille to the Salton Sea. They are running out of mist to cool the residences in Twenty Nine Palms. Governor Brown was probably against the merger as well, it included coal fired plants in Montana and Brown remembers when those Japanese tried to buy California.

Do we really want to tick off those Frenchies, to the north of us? They could revert the flow of their rivers, set up hydroelectric plants and stiff us for the power. We already stiffed them with the pipeline delay like we stiff the Mexicans with the Rio Grande.

I read the merger proposal. It has some good points and it has some questionable ones. Trading power options between companies is a critical factor in today’s networking. It isn’t mentioned in the proposal, but the foot is in the door. Looking to the future. Canada is the best source for hydroelectric power generation, while continued operation of an aging Boulder Dam as a provider is questionable.

Remember Washington Public Power Source and Governor Dixie Lee Ray? If the concrete flower pot south of Olympia was in operation, the tribes would have all the salmon they could catch. Many investors didn’t know the difference between a Debenture and a Bond and suffered major losses when the project failed. There is a distinctive difference between the User of a Service and Shareholder of the Service Provider.

ROBERT A. COSTIGAN

Commander U.S. Navy Retired

Spirit Lake