Letters

Organic farming

Editor: The fun thing about the recent Illinois Issues "Conventional v. Organic Farming" article is that when you place it in a pot of and boiling water steam out of all the hysterics, name-calling and ludicrous comparisons, you end up with evidence that a gradual shift from mass-scale pesticide/chemical fertilizer/additive-based agri-industries to small one-family homestead organic farms would produce the following results:

1) Higher profits for farmers.
2)Lower prices for consumers.
3) Fresher, less chemically treated foods for everyone.
4)Reduced food production.
5) Gradual reduction in the average farm size.
6) Increased recycling of resources.
7) Reduced fossil fuel consumption.
8) Increased viability of family farms.
9) Reduced unemployment and urbanization. And maybe, just maybe,
10)A Return of what Mr. Aldrich scoffs at as "a mystic reverence for nature."

-- each of which is the specific goal of a dozen or more government programs, studies, efforts, reports, tariffs, taxes or subsidies.

What are we waiting for?

M. Arnold
Springfield

Appointments

Editor: Periodically I have noticed the names of the individuals appointed to various bodies. The number of committees or commissions never crossed my mind until I read the list.

I would like to request, if at all possible, obtaining a list of the various commissions and authorities to which appointments can be made. Who makes these appointments? What appointment is the Governor responsible for? What appointment is the Secretary of State responsible for? etc. This I think would be very interesting to average citizen, as well as those persons interested in obtaining appointments and serving on one of the commissions.

Paul P. Gill
Winnebago County Clerk

The "Goddie Book" is the source for appointments by the governor and by the legislature. It was published early this year by the Commission on the organization of the General Assembly with the cooperation of the Illinois Legislative Council. This book does not list the commissions to which the secretary of state appoints members, but the research office for the secretary provided us with following list: Antique Automobile Advisory Committe, Architectural Advisory Board, Archives Advisory Board, Auto Dealers Advisory Board, Bank Advisory Board, Capitol Rehabilitation Advisory Committee, CPA Advisory Committee on Securities Law, Commercial Driving School, Corporations Advisory Board, Drivers License Advisory Committee, Driver Safety Advisory Committee, Ex-Offender Program Advisory Committee, Franchise Disclosure Act Advisory Committee, Law Enforcement Advisory Committee, Legislation, Law and Regulations Advisory Committee, Library Members Advisory Board, Motorcycle Safety Advisory Committee, Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Advisory Committee, Privacy Advisory Committee, Public Information Advisory Committee, Securities Advisory Board, Simplification of Documents Advisory Committee, Telecommunications Advisory Committee, Traffic Safety Advisory Council, Traffic Violation Advisory Committee, Vehicle Registration and Titling Matters Advisory Committee, Vehicle Rules of the Road, Vision Care Committee. — Eds.

Nuclear wastes

Editor: We would like to point out some errors and inconsistencies in your September article, "Illinois Babysits Nuclear Wastes." It is erroneous to classify the spent nuclear fuel stored at Morris as "waste." In fact, only about three per cent of the material is the fission products and by-products described. The remainder is unused uranium in the same form as in new fuel. This remaining 97 per cent is not "highly toxic" and in fact represents a valuable resource which can be recycled to produce more energy.

It is misleading to say that "federal regulations require all spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed . . . [but] no facilities are now in operation to do that." This is precisely because current federal policy has specifically halted progress in the completion of reprocessing facilities, not because of miscalculations or poor planning by the nuclear industry.

It is unfair to charge that fines levied against Commonwealth Edison for release of radioactive waste water were for safety reasons. The fines were assessed because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission felt that detailed technical and clerical procedures were not precisely followed. The waste water was to have been discharged in any case. The Zion releases were not reported because they were too low in radioactivity to be detected by instruments. NRC's contention was that different monitoring and reporting procedures should have been used, but this does not affect the fact that the discharges were and still are routinely released at approved harmless levels.

To say that these releases "fortunately involved relatively low-level wastes" implies that they were low-level simply by happy accident of chance. This is misleading, for there is no way for high level wastes to be released, and the low-level wastes are approved for release, the problem, again, was the precise procedure by which they were released and recorded.

Organizations like Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE) constantly — and in our view purposefully — confuse these detailed regulatory bureaucratic conflicts with safety, and extrapolate phony conclusions such as "Edison's safety record is the worst among nuclear utilities." We acknowledge that we have had our share of arguments with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on these highly technical procedural details — but when it comes to real safety — Edison's record is the best — for the record for both Edison and the entire nuclear industry is zero public fatalities and injuries in over 300 commercial power reactor years of service.

Jerry Stanbrough
Nuclear Information
Commonwealth Edison

The issue of how nuclear wastes should be stored and ultimately disposed of is undeniably of immense importance. It is a long-range issue which is presently being given only short-term treatment by the federal regulatory agencies involved. A crucial public debate is raging on the subject but few agree upon any point of it, least of all what the limits of the problem are, or even how to define the problem.

On the one hand the nuclear industry says that nuclear plant by-products and wastes are not presently a danger to the public and will almost certainly never be a threat to human safety on a large scale. They also weigh that viewpoint against the undeniable value of what they see as a relatively cheap and limitless form of non-polluting energy.

On the other hand many public interest groups and some reputable scientists claim that nuclear wastes are likely to cause an incredible disaster affecting thousands or even millions of people, and they say such a threat may exist for thousands of years down the road.

The impossible task for the press in presenting such a debate is to somehow state each side of the argument in factual essence without upsetting either camp. It is impossible because by merely stating the arguments one lends credence to them, and implications may appear where none were intended and even where the journalist has intentionally striven to avoid them. —Eds.

Child abuse

Editor: I was especially interested in your article "Child Abuse" (August 1977). I commend Wm. A. Syers for writing it.

I hope it can be followed up soon by a similar, pertinent crisp article showing clearly that most illegitimate children have already been abandoned by their fathers, who have abandoned the mothers, too. Also so much weight falls on the mother alone in the article.

And I hope the state of the DCFS [Department of Children and Family Services] staff assigned to handle such cases over the period can be shown, number of staff, supervision, professional social work training, special training, changes in responsibilities, frozen staff and funds!! etc.

Ruth Karlson
(a retired social worker)
Urbana

December 19771 Illinois Issues I29