Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 4

Letters to the editor Water saving vital to Washoe area A reducer can be easily installed behind the shower head to Reno Evening Gazette A Speidel Newspaper Ronald H. inilon Publiiher Worten I. lerude xecutivt Editor John Bromley Newi Editor Normon Cardoja Editorial Page Ediior William M. Clemenj Controller Deon Smith Advertixng Director Donn I. Wheeler Production Monoger John P.

Oatej Circulation Monoger 4- Thursday, Sept. 2, 1976 Editorials cut down on water use there. With or without a building moratorium we have a sewage Droblem and every citizen can help alleviate it. Everyone Much of this building could have been built with the thought of saving water, simply by cutting down the grades of lots. The slope of the lots is too steep.

The owners of these homes are required to spend many extra hours each day watering their lawns and gardens just to keep them green. Think how much money could be saved by cutting down the slopes. Because of poor planning by the do-nothing city council and greed of builders, this water waste has been allowed to continue. RICHARD FITZGIBBONS Students help EDITOR, the Gazette: It has been noted in recent articles in Sour papers that various businesses in town are taking the utiafive for instituting water saving programs in Reno. It is our understanding that the University of Nevada students have taken the lead In this very worthwhile project, and should be given all credit due for their efforts.

Notable exception to the above is the Sundowner Hotel which has placed water bottles in their toilet tanks, and Installed shower restrictors, for a savings of some 500,000 gallons of water per year. It is our hope that all hotels and motels in the Reno-Sparks area will follow the Sundowner's example; but, please, all credit to the University of Nevada students. They deserve it. RALPH WILLITS Major questions snouia De encourageu iu uuvc un w- Owners of apartment complexes can do much to help the Eroblem by seeing that these measures are taken in every unit ley own. I'm sure others have ideas on this subject.

Let's hear from them Perhaps this newspaper could gather these ideas and publish them. We need all the help and ideas we can get. JULIE HINES No way EDITOR, the Gazette: Let me see if I have the facts straight: We're to restrict water usage in the shower, not because wasting water is immoral, but because we must provide more jobs in the construction Industry for people who make twice as much money as I do. We're to limit our toilet-flushing so that we can build more homes to accommodate more people, so that my kids can go to high school on half-day sessions. Too much slope Ideas needed EDITOR, the Gazette: We've heard much in the news lately about the Reno-Sparks sewage problem.

We've heard what should be done. We've had speculation on whose fault it is. We have problems and arguments on a building moratorium. At best, it seems we won't have a new sewage plant before 1980. This means we must find a way to reduce the amount of sewage each household sends through the sewer NOW.

Water usage in toilets can be reduced by putting a plastic container in the toilet tank to displace some water. Another method is to bend the arm leading to the float downwards to lower the water level in the tank. Neither of these methods affects the way the toilet works. EDITOR, the Gazette: Now that the Reno City Council has meekly retreated from its building moratorium, we are going to get some controls on water usage. Since the building industry has become so vocal in its concern about the building moratorium, it's about time to point the finger of blame at them.

In the last seven years I have been a resident of the Reno-Sparks area, and I have seen block after block of residential buildings going up. Noway, man. O. R. HEINZ III In Old Nevada tkttWM fa Stopping Topsy at the pass Don Oakley 100 years ago -1876 Norton Co.

had a fine meat safe for their new wagon, and together formed a very neat turnout. The painters were Laycock Lalone. Once breathed into life, federal programs, like Topsy, just I '4 ''J STATE SENATORS Cliff Young and Bill Raggio have again taken out a large newspaper ad which seeks to find public opinion on a large number of issues issues that will probably come before the Nevada legislature in 1977. Questionnaires of this type usually receive a good response from the public. That was the case with the first Young-Raggio questionnaire, and with the questionnaires that former Republican Congressman David Towell sent out during his two years in office.

The answers told us a good deal about how Nevadans think and what they want. The answers to the current questionnaire should also be enlightening. Of course, there might be some who will reject this year's Young-Raggio quesitons as an election-year promotion. And it's true that this year's questionnaire cannot be considered strictly informational, as was the case with the first one two years ago. At that time both men had two years left in their terms of office.

This time around, both are up for re-election, and the ad can quite properly be considered part of their campaigns. But that is no reason for voters to ignore the questionnaire. Many of the questions concern matters of major importance to Washoe County; and the answers will be a considerable help to Raggio and Young if they are returned to the Senate. Even if they are not returned, the answers will be useful to whoever succeeds them in office and, in fact, should be of use to the entire legislature. Among the significant issues: should Nevada require a deposit on beverage containers to discourage litter; should the city-county relief tax be increased from one-half cent to one cent; should the Equal Rights Amendment be adopted; should the state permit no-fault divorce; should the legislature support a "right to life" amendment to the U.S.

Constitution; and should public officials be required to periodically disclose their general areas of financial interest? 75 Years ago -1901 The new Babcock memorial kindergarten was formally accepted by the trustees. grow. And grow. And grow. In the past 10 years, federal spending has gone up 180 per cent, but revenues are up only 130 per cent.

Annual deficits; have risen from $3.6 billion In fiscal 1966 to nearly $70 billion in fiscal 1976. The national debt currently amounts to more than $9,000 for every household in the country. There are au kinds of reasons for this, not least of which is-the public's demand for more and more government services but not higher taxes to pay for them But another, which has been receiving Increasing attention, is the fact that in preparing the vastly complicated federal budget every year, the most Congress is usually able to do is to focus on the increases invariably requested by the govern-. ment's multitude of departments and agencies. Rarely does it demand justification of a program itself, or inquire whether it I is serving its intended purpose, or whether its results have" been worth its costs, or whether it is overlapped or duplicated by some other program.

Lately, however, a lot of people have been talking about administering an antigrowth hormone to our federal Topsy in -the form of something called "zero-based budgeting." Under zero-based budgeting, Congress would be required to examine all aspects of a spending program from scratch, not merely requested increases. The idea is not a new one, having been pioneered in private industry and first proposed to Congress back in 1972 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But now it would be embodied in a law, known as the Government Economy and Spending Reform Act of 1976, being pushed by Sen. Edmund S.

Muskie, D-Me and co-sponsored by some 50 other senators. In the House, more-than 100 members are sponsoring similar legislation. Like the perennial subject of tax reform, zero-based budgeting may be a will of the wisp. Its supporters agree that a thorough-going review of federal spending would be a massive 1 job, but say it could be done on a staggered basis over a period of several years, as has been proposed in the not-unrelated matter of reforming the government's regulatory agencies. Also, the process would be aided by a self-destruct mechanism built into the plan.

That is, spending programs "-would automatically terminate at a given date unless; Congress, after review, decided otherwise. Call it zero-based budgeting or a sunset law on federal-spending, something has to be done lest Topsy eat us out of I house and home. 50 years ago -1926 The 1927 Star auto, said to average 33.1 miles to the gallon, was shown for the first time in Reno. 25 years ago -1951 Sir Oliver Franks, British ambassador to the United States, was presented with a "pipe of peace" during a Nevada visit with Gov. Charles Russell.

The pipe was hand-carved by Fred Forbusch of the Stewart Indian School. 1 1 1 a i 1 Dlitflbuled hi t.A. Time! Synditote Some of these matters, such as the bottle bill, and the Equal Rights Amendment, were vigorously debated in 1975, and many legislators were sincerely perplexed about which position to take. The bottle bill, in fact, became so confusing that it never came out of committee. Legislators would no longer welcome indications of public sentiment in these areas.

Think when you vote Paul Harvey Extravagant Congressmen must go crease. None of us stands to make a profit on lmiation, as government pensioners do. And then there are new matters, such as the right-to-life issue, on which legislators will also welcome guidance. There is no gaurantee that the legislature will go along with all the public responses. But the responses cannot be ignored, if they come in sufficient numbers.

The Young-Raggio questionnaire offers the average citizen a chance to participate in his government. It is an opportunity that every citizen should take advantage of. With most American pensioners eaten alive by inflation, with most American widows forced to live on incomes below the poverty level, here is a man on a pension which he says is much more than he deserves. He is former Rep. Hastings Keith After serving 14 years in Congress, he was for a few months on the Defnese Manpower Commission.

Until he was retired at 57 on a pension of $1,560 a month. Keith considered this pension adequate and generous. But 35 months later his pension was increased to $2,206 a month. That is an increase of 41.5 per cent in less than three years. That increase is 50 per cent more than the increased cost-of-living, which had gone up less than 28 percent during that time.

And Congress has further added what's being called a "kicker," which boosts congressional pensions 1 per cent every time the cost of living increases, and that 1 per cent compounds itself as often as twice a year. What's it to you? Feed this 1 per cent into a computer, along with the projected lifetimes of our government's 2.3 million employees and their surviving spouses, and the future costs of this "1 per cent kicker" above and beyond any real increase in the cost of living will cost you $150 billion a year. None of this was mentioned during the congressional consideration of this "add-on" windfall. Outside government, comparatively few Americans are assured a cost-of-living in We have been celebrating the first presidential campaign in memory in which both of the standard-bearers are such really nice guys that it's almost a toss-up which one to vote ior. This is good, because landslides can be dangerous.

When any President wins overwhelmingly, he is likely to carry with him into Congress some who do not really deserve to be there. The American electorate may be learning that. It may be that Americans who historically, lazily, have voted a straight party ticket will take a closer look at the "individuals" who want to be senators and congressmen this year. Adding to the congressman self-interest in padding nis own pension is the National Assn. of Retired Federal Employees, which lobbies vigorously for perpetuation of the fattest' possible pensions.

This, of course, is but one of the ex- travagances of the recent Congresses which have voted for themselves pay raises andl fringes all out of proportion to the "hold-the-line formula" which they recommend for the rest of us. It may well be that many Americans, too slothful to think for themselves, will be-registered and coerced to vote this year. Few such will consider and select individual can-. didates, so those who do care must. Berry's World Holmes Alexander vast sea bottom Educating drivers THERE'S NO doubt that the drinking driver is the main hazard on today's highways and streets.

State records show that 56 per cent of all fatal traffic accidents last year in Nevada were caused by drunk drivers. Anything that can be done to reduce this hazard is welcome. Therefore every citizen of the state should endorse the new educational program to be set up by the State Office of Traffic Safety. It will be offered to persons convicted of driving under the influence, and will be similar to courses now given in Reno, Carson City and Las Vegas. These courses have been noticeably successful here and elsewhere across the country.

The problem in Nevada has been that much of the state lies outside populous areas, and the smaller counties and towns either cannot afford to set up these classes or lack the expertise to operate them. Yet the need for them is every bit as great in the outlying areas as in the metropolitan centers. State Traffic Safety Director John Borda and his staff saw this need, and now have the funds to begin a program that should be beneficial to all Nevadans. This program won't elirninate the drunk driver there are too many chinking drivers to get rid of them entirely; but it should help cut down on accidents and fatalities. And for that, Borda and his staff deserve the thanks of everyone who rides in a car, or walks across a street.

Seapower's editor-in-chief James D. Hessman, the most commercially valuable (and viable) mineral deposits lie between two sovereign American states. He describes this rich territory as "a great swath of seabed running from a midocean area south of Hawaii to the offshore waters of Southern California." Congress and President Ford have already laid claim to U.S. rights in zones 200 miles at sea. By stretching the mileage another digit, from hundreds to thousands, we could drive our grubstake in the Hawaii-California ocean floor.

The stretch would be unthinkable only in terms of the past. But today, when 157 different countries, some of them landlocked, are in the argument about benefitting from trillions of tons of ore, worth multitrillions of dollars, according to Seapower, no claim looks like an open-ended hyperbole. I'm not sure that Karl Marx himself wouldn't take the American side of the argument. Only the U.S. and three other free enterprise nations (West Germany, Japan and France) have the technology for submarine mining operations.

Without the input of this technology the nuggets (or of Srecious minerals are entirely worthless. In "Das Kapital," larx argued that the in-put of labor entitled the laborers to ownership of the product. Thus the ocean wealth is "ours" if we create it. How we share it, if at all, is up to us. Strong-minded Presidents and Congresses rightfully aware of their people-owned corporations back home, can deal with these matters a lot better than UN conferences can.

Of course, American governments looking after American self-interests had better be backed up by the gunboats, or in modern parlance, by the task forces. WASHINGTON, C. While the Republican delegates in Kansas City were squabbling over Convention rules, Secretary of State Kissinger stopped off in New York for the UN Law of the Sea (LOS) Conference and seemingly laid down some curbstone law on his own. He said he'd return to the LOS Conference before its scheduled termination on September 17, and we won't know till then, if then, how much authority the Secretary carried with the 157 countries there represented. But Dr.

Kissinger said, more plainly than he usually speaks, that the U.S. has made about all the concessions about divvying up the treasures of the seabed with the Third World have-nots that it's going to make. More significantly, coming from our Lone Ranger of the diplomatic mesas, Kissinger added that there were some proposed give-aways to the poverty nations of the earth which f'our Congress would never ratify." These giveaway proposals are many in number, but single in purpose: to get the u.S to fetch the oceanic wealth ashore and then share it with all. Kissinger is quite right that Congress will "never" accept a come-and-get-it treaty which obliges U.S. mining companies and unions to do the work without getting a lion's share of the recompense.

But the have-nots can be stubborn, too. The authoritative Seapower magazine for August intimates that the LOS treaty may end up as one of those "last great hopes of mankind" which never made it. In that case, whoever's President in 1977, and whoever's Secretary of State, may drop 'the grand design of a UN treaty, and go back to pacts between individual nations. There is another possibility, as I see it. That is for the U.S.

to annex sea bottom as we have often annexed land territory, by conquest or by some twtst-the-arm agreement. According to "Not a bad idea, but will the public GO tor a tournament in which all ot the participants have had sex-change operations?".