To the editor:

Recently a lawsuit was publicly announced to oppose the record of decision on the 32nd Street route of the South Lawrence Trafficway.

Ten years ago, I began writing letters to the editor in this newspaper opposing this trafficway. I’ve heard every uneducated and uninformed comment about Native peoples, treaty rights, land title and the like over the years.

The proponents of the 32nd route use terms like a fair process and a win-win in their public comments. They act as if the EIS, SEIS and Brockington Reports were accurate in their explanations of this roadway project.

The accuracy of these documents is questioned because large amounts of tribal and environmental comments were ignored or omitted. I say this because I’ve witnessed the pressure exerted by the Bush U.S. Department of the Interior appointees to relax the guidelines on enforcement of environmental and historical laws so that industry and municipalities could run roughshod on roadway projects. A legal travesty has happened as the proponents of destruction chose to look away as legal safeguards were ignored to attain their goals.

Lawsuits are filed and court investigations occur when municipalities and other entities try to run roughshod as they are encouraged by regulation-relaxing Republicans to do. However, the real question is this: How can Baker University have such a party line concerning the SLT that one of its own professors can fight the environmental damage of coal plants but not the destruction of environmentally and culturally significant wetlands politically?

Mike Ford,
Baldwin City