The city of brown lawns

A lady recently told me she did not understand all this fuss about fuel prices. She looked forward to retirement tending her yard. She has good health and mobility but the high price of water in Albany forced her to quit. Her pastime of tending her yard was “stolen.”

Medicine and utilities keep rising. She does not enjoy watching TV. Albany is not her house, but her home. She is unhappy. Her home is dead.

The DWA serves the Palm Springs and surrounding communities of California’s arid desert. It charges $0.90 per hundred cubic feet of water. Albany charges over $3. And if you water your yard, your sewer bill goes up too.

Corvallis does too, only the costs are $1.20 HCF and they use a winter average to figure your sewer bill. You are not double-charged for keeping a nice green yard. Green plants help negate Co2, and create oxygen.

This is not the arid Southwest. Water goes over the end of S.W. Third into the Calapooia constantly. Our water costs about five times what is charged in the desert. It is far less expensive to keep a yard green in that desert than here. Our system removes so much, we actually add caustic sodium hydroxide to dirty the water so it won’t be toxic in older homes raising pH to an incredible 8.3 target.

Who determined we needed a better more expensive system than any other city in the Northwest? Residents of Millersburg get the exact same water for less.

North Albany needs an additional supply line. It will be less expensive to add a line across the Lyon Street bridge than connecting with little Adair Village. We already forced Millersburg to work with us by purchasing the Archibald farm.

Next year Dan Bedore can be in the paper proudly turning on sprinklers to green up and clean Albany, adding exercise and value. Some people look at dead yards as ugly. We can be as proud of our gorgeous yards as fine historic homes. Water over the winter average could be sold for the desert rate of $0.90 per HCF.

Or even the Corvallis rate. Irrigation does not need more water plants, pipes, hookups, or sewage changes. Let the “Grass Seed Capital” be alive like Monteith and Waverly Parks.

Roger Hawthorne, Albany

A matter of evolution

I, and other scientists who have studied many living creatures over the years, have discovered that there is more to the evolutionary process than that which controls life on this planet.

Mutations occur constantly. Those that enhance the ability of the organism to better survive in its environment are passed on; while the others of lesser value die off.

The dominant theme in all forms of life is perpetuation of their species. To do this, in most species, the females give off a pheromone (hormone) designed to attract males. It is also suspected that this occurs with humans. Unfortunately human mores run contrary to this evolutionary thrust by creating laws regulating sexual activity within the bounds of marriage and fidelity.

Also, unfortunately, scientists have not yet developed a hormone, nor do they intend to, that counteracts this essence generated subconsciously by females. One cannot justify rape, but scientists can understand male behavior being influenced by this secretion.

Our society must legalize prostitution but place it under strict medical control. I have no doubt that this action would markedly reduce the number of rapes that our society is experiencing.

Allan Jay Silver, MD, Albany