Community Alliance Newspaper
Letters to the Editor
October 2009 Letters:
I enjoyed my September Community Alliance and appreciate the terrific and
important resource the paper is. I can't resist kibitzing on two of Mike Rhodes'
articles.
On marijuana:
I agree that the drug czar's assertion that marijuana "has no medicinal
benefits" is uninformed/misinformed, and we certainly are all losers in the "war
on drugs." But the environmental degradation and hazards posed by illegal
marijuana cultivation on remote, public lands really is a significant and
serious problem; it is not "just BS" or something someone made up. The evidence
seems pretty irrefutable. While [Nancy] Botwin's opinion in this regard deserved
to be reported, it also needs to be countered and refuted by available facts.
The environmental damage is severe, and the apparent danger posed to any
off-trail trekkers who might stumble upon criminals cultivating and guarding
their marijuana on public lands exists.
As long as marijuana is both illegal and in demand, it is only common sense that
there will be a dangerous and costly industry to produce and market the
lucrative substance illicitly. Until cultivation of marijuana becomes legal so
that it can be regulated and controlled, the economic realities seem certain to
ensure that this crop will continue to be grown with no safeguards to protect
the environment, health or safety. As long as its cultivation is illegal, a
total lack of respect for any laws or limitations will continue to be common in
the industry, fueling crimes against people, property and the environment. Under
these conditions, and as long as there are large tracts of remote, impossible to
effectively police lands in the national forests where the crop can be hidden
and thrive, there will be criminals (people willing to break laws) who use those
lands for marijuana cultivation with no regard for anything but their own
agenda.
When you kick players out of a game that they are determined to play (make
something illegal), they make their own league with their own rules and you lose
all control; when you get the players back into "league play" (the legal
economy) and negotiate on the rules, even if it means compromising a little, you
regain some control and can mitigate and sometimes eliminate problems that are
side effects of the industry. Unreasonable (not accepted as right and necessary
by the vast majority of the population) and unenforceable laws help create
criminals by making lawbreaking behavior first conceivable and eventually
acceptable, expected, normal and sometimes even admired and respected. That is
the problem, the catch-22 of our drug (and many other) laws that fill our
prisons and do more harm than good to society. Too many instances of "Thou shalt
not" take credibility and power away from the rules and limits that society
really needs to function well.
On the rendering plant in West Fresno:
We can agree that the problems surrounding the Darling International rendering
plant in West Fresno are real, intolerable and a social injustice. It's hard to
conceive of a plant of this type ever being tolerated in more affluent, whiter
parts of town. But what Mike's article did not emphasize enough is that the
rendering plant has been there for over 50 years, was built in an area zoned as
industrial and pre-dates the surrounding communities.
As often happens when governing bodies allow (and often encourage) inappropriate
land use, very predictable conflicts result, and those who created (and profited
from) the mistaken development are nowhere to be seen. The victims are easily
fooled into blaming each other. The developers and [City] Council members who
created the problem are long gone from the scene; a productive business that
should never have been sited near residences (and wasn't) is now surrounded by a
community, through no fault of the business in question. People who have every
right to expect their neighborhood not to reek of dead, decomposing animals have
that unacceptable neighbor in their midst. Both the community and the business
are victims of an injustice.
Mike's article clearly sides with one set of victims in this problem: the people
living in the stench and flies around the rendering plant. They are easy to
identify with and are certainly the more likable of the victims, but the
rendering plant is a victim too. This problem could and should have been
avoided; the area around the plant should never have been anything but
industrial. But the communities now exist, and neither they nor the rendering
plant are to blame. They both got the shaft.
People are suffering. Outrage and a demand for change are in order, but Darling
International is not the villain. Ultimately, neither the business nor the
community can or will get all of the justice deserved, but both might get some
measure of justice if a spirit of mutual understanding, compromise and the
commitment to seek whatever redress/compensation can be found from those
culpable for the mess can help lighten the injustice and spread the costs. What
measures can be taken to better contain the stink and other problems? Can the
owners of property nearest the plant receive some sort of compensation that
would facilitate their relocating and changing those properties over to light
industrial uses that can be a buffer between the plant and residential areas?
How can the costs be most fairly distributed?
Maybe there is no way to balance the rights and needs of the Darling plant and
its neighbors, but as long as those who profit by creating situations like this
can manipulate and fool us with false dichotomies (like farms versus cities,
farms and cities versus the environment, fish versus people, law enforcement
versus the people and citizens versus the rendering plant), they win and
everyone else loses.
And we keep letting ourselves be fooled, over and over and over again.
Jan Balcom
Clovis