The Montana Standard from Butte, Montana • 4

4 The Montono Standard, Butte, Monday, May 8, 1989 The LlonGana SGandtacdl Off icial newspaper of Butte-Silver Bow Founded in 1876 Opinion, commend Doneld W. Serryntan Rick Poet Jeffrey B. Gibson Publisher Editor Editorial Poge Editor Bro. Clyde goes to reward Sniff carefully Joe Hurray 6 I'll miss hearing from him 9 cans. Mostly, though, he seemed to feel sorry for them.

I used to point Republicans out to him in the newsroom, those who would admit to it, and I'd ask Clyde to try to preach a little populism to these misguided folk. Whether he ever did any lasting good with them, I don't know. Some of them would claim to agree with Clyde but, of course, Republicans are liable to tell you most anything. I suspected they were sim the small society '989 King Feuucn Syndicate. Inc WorM norm Montana League of Cities and Towns and a legislative lobbyist, told a reporter that if he didn't know better, he'd think the Legislature hadn't met this year.

almost like they weren't here," Hansen "They didn't help and they didn't hurt us." That's the best kind of Legislature. Every time we vote for a legislative candidate, we say this little prayer under our breath: "Please. Don't do us any favors." This year's Legislature just kind of idled along for 90 days. The governor Just kind of idled along with it, if you overlook his eleventh-hour pitch for a sales tax. It's when they pop the clutch and try to go somewhere that they're dangerous.

Too bad A federal appeals court has overturned Dewey Coleman's death sentence because he was sentenced under a law that was passed after his trial. Some- Montanans thought it would have been unfair to execute Coleman because his partner in crime, Robert Nank, was given a prison term in exchange for testifying against Coleman. Nank is white, Coleman is black. As we recall the crime, Nank and Coleman were stranded by a disabled motorcycle along a highway in Eastern Montana when Peggy Lee Harstad, 21, came along in her pickup truck. She stopped and offered to help.

Coleman and Nank repaid her kindness by kidnapping her, stealing her truck, raping her, trying to beat her to death with a motorcycle helmet and finally by dragging her down to a drainage ditch and hold-' ing her under water until she drowned. It probably would be a little unfair to execute Coleman and not Nank, although sometimes half a loaf is better than none. Justice would have been served if the state had held a double necktie party a long time ago. Appropriate The Montana Grain Growers Association is having its annual golf tournament in early June. Practicing up for threshing season.

A lot The gross national product is now running at $5 trillion a year. We don't even know how to spell $5 trillion, but we know you have to put in a lot of zeroes. We just read the Forbes magazine cover story on Dennis Washington. According to Forbes, there are a lot of zeroes in Washington's annual income, too. Actually, there are many Montanans with zeroes in their incomes these days.

The difference is that Washington has a number in front of all his. want to abolish nukes By Jeff Gibson Standard Editorial Writer Gov. Stan Stephens traveled to New York last week to help kick off the promotion of a new perfume. The perfume is called "Montana." It's a product of the Revlon Corp. At first we thought the new perfume was named after the State, of Montana.

That would be appropriate during this Centennial year. But it's actually named after the guy who "created" it Paris fashion designerClaude Montarta. It could have been worse. He could have named it "Claude." It may be stretching things a bit for the governor to use the unveiling of Claude Montana's perfume to get publicity for the State of Montana, but Gov. Ted Schwinden did something similar.

He once invited San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana to visit the State of Montana. Yet, Montana wasn't named after Joe, and Joe wasn't named after Montana. Nonetheless, we like the idea of naming perfumes after states. There should be 50 perfumes, one for each state. Women could trade them like baseball cards, until they collect all 50.

An ounce of "Montana" for a pint of "North Dakota," or a gallon of "New Jersey." Too much Once again, news reports tell of fabulous prices being paid for old paintings. There's a 12 day art auction going on now in New York City. A 1901 self-portrait by Picasso is expected to bring $15 million. One Montana newspaper printed a photo of this painting. Ye won't be bidding $15 million for it.

We know a kid who keeps a Mike Tyson poster taped to the back of his school locker. The Tyson poster is the better art work, and it only cost $2. How true Stop us if you've heard this one. It's been making the rounds. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has really got to want to change.

Here's another one: How many Irishmen does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to hold the bulb and one to drink enough whisky to make the room spin. On the tab Cartoonist Paul Driscoll says he's discovered why the Legislature authorized a Montana credit card. They're going to finance state government with it. A blessing Alec Hansen, director of the Doonesbury DID HEAR PRESIDENT PEAQAHS 7HINKJN6 OF 6ETT1NG BACK INTO THE BUSINESS I PONT BELIEVE TT! UJHERE'PiOU HEARTH IS? I FORGET.

BUT ITS ALL OVERTOON! 7 PUFF! LUFKIN, Texas There it was in a two-week old copy of the Lufkin Daily News, that Clyde C. Wright Sr. died. I didn't get the news until I got back in town from my trip to Cuba. I'll miss hearing from him.

Others will, too, I'm sure. Anybody who reads the local newspaper with any regularity, at some time or another, read Clyde C. Wright Sr. He was one of our more dependable letter writers. All the 20 years I've been editor here, Clyde was faithful in making his opinions known.

Early on, I admit that I dreaded seeing his letters come in, written as they were, with little or no punctuation and in a cramped, tiny handwriting that strained my eyes and, at times, my imagination, just trying to figure out what he was saying. After awhile, I got used to Clyde's letters. I even got to looking forward to them. Clyde had two ongoing themes: 1. That everybody ought to vote in every election.

2. That everybody ought to love everybody all the time. Love your country and love your fellow man; be a good citizen and a person. Maybe you have a life's philosophy that's an improvement over Clyde's. But it would be hard for me to imagine what it is.

Clyde was a Democrat, first, last and always, and his letters reflected as much. I remember, years ago, the Democratic governor came to Lufkin for some sort of special ceremony, a big deal for a little town like ours. When we processed the news photos we'd taken dozens there was Clyde smiling out of every one of them, standing at the governor's right hand. We had no choice but to run what we had a lineup of the governor, Clyde, the mayor, county judge and so on. The news editor asked how we should identify Clyde.

I thought for a moment and then decided we didn't have to. Everybody knew Clyde. So it was, if he ever had an evil thought about anyone in his entire life, I suppose it would have been directed against Republi- Germans LONDON The democratically elected leader of West Germany, bowing to his public's opinion, last week decided that the threat from the Soviet Union had virtually vanished. With that policy-changing decision made, Chancellor Helmut Kohl informed his NATO allies that nuclear missiles and artillery the "equalizer" weaponry that had for decades offset the Soviet bloc's huge advantage in conventional arms and troops would not long be tolerated on his nation's soil. This came as a stunning surprise to stick-in-the-mud American strategists who thought Europe would resist the Gorbachev peace offensive.

Only weeks before, Secretary of State James Baker returned from a visit to Europe persuaded that he had negotiated defense in our time. The understanding was that the U.S. and other NATO allies would not press for modernization of the most important short-range missile until after the next German election in 1991, as if that would fool dovish German voters. In' return, the Germans agreed not to interfere with the conventional arms reduction talks in Vienna by demanding other negotiations to take away our nuclear equalizer or so Baker thought. Perhaps sensing a lack of resolve in our deal-making secretary (and surely counting a weakening of support in German public opinion polls), Kohl shook up his Cabinet and chose a get-tough-with-NATO posture.

He sent his eminence grise, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, to Washington to assert a policy that was designed to win votes at home by thrusting a thumb in the eye of the Atlantic alliance. Thunderstruck Americans and Britons cannot understand the logic of "the third zero" no nuclear weapons of any kind in the new German position. We point to a peace in Europe that has now been kept longer than any period in centuries, thanks to the nuclear deterrent. We point to the foolishness of removing the big incentive to the Soviets to end their tank and troop dominance. But the Germans have a plan that transcends this logic of arms control.

In German eyes, the end of the Soviet threat offers the chance of an end to German postwar deference to the West. They have entered the post-postwar era. Bonn has demonstrated its dedication to democracy and sees the time as ripe to assert German national interest. That explains this week's split in NATO. The Federal Republic is serving notice of a new assertiveness; next will come a half-step back, offering a cordial compromise in time for handshakes at the gathering of Western leaders next month.

The next assertive step is to strengthen bilateral German-Soviet relations, Jeading to recognized German leadership of the economic development of Eastern Europe. That's a market of 150 million people, most of whom would prefer their economies to be dominated by efficient Germans than repressive Russians. And then comes agitation for the reunification of Germany. West Germans know that their future absorption of Communist East Germany is the prospect that sets teeth on edge in just about every country in Europe, which is why Germany's reunification is not on its public agenda. Talk of it now might mute some of the European nineteen-ninety-tooting, and tight federation with Western Europe is in Bonn's interest.

But count on this: East Germany is not the Brotherland; it Js part oLthe Father ply trying to get him to leave them be. Clyde was a small man, almost shrunken in appearance. But be had one heck of a handshake, strong, sure and solid, even in his 70s and even after his heart attacks. I read in his obituary that be was a retired construction worker, having been a member of the old CCC Camp back in the late 1930s. He was also a Baptist, the old-fashioned kind who calls everybody "Brother." I was always Bro.

Joe and after awhile I even got to calling him Bro. Clyde. But there was something about the way he said it that seemed different. I think what it was, he meant it. Clyde had a real brother, Sam, who he outlived by several years.

I liked Sam, too, though I didn't know him as well. Every so often Sam would get a pickup truck load of watermelons and take them by the courthouse to share with the old fellows at the domino pavilion. I don't guess anyone has done that since Sam died. I can't grow watermelons and, moreover, don't have a pickup truck. I'll leave it to one of you to fill Sam's place, if anyone is so inclined.

As for Clyde, I'm going to do my best to take up the slack. So, lest we forget, the local school and city elections are coming up next Saturday. As Clyde sort of would have said it: Vote as you please, but please love Cox News Service by Oil! Yates 2-S of NATO as long as the Americans can be duped. However, even Americans can understand that 210,000 U.S. troops stationed on West German soil, denuded of a nuclear defense, become sacrificial pawns.

Our strategists are still mumbling about "burden sharing" while most euphoric Europeans with the striking exception of the realistic Mrs. Thatcher are thinking about laying down the burden. That is why a small signal was sent from the U.S. this week, soon after the German third-zero shocker. Two-paragraph item: U.S.

troops, who manned the missiles that were pulled out, are coming home. Despite all the boilerplate Bush NATO rhetoric to come in the next month, those returnees are the first of the many. For after the third zero, ending the chance of effectively defending Europe from a Soviet attack, comes the fourth zero: no American troops. Send the word, send the word to our dangerously overconfident ally: If Germans will not defend themselves, then it's over over there. New York Times loan this money back to Butte Water Company to finance much needed improvements at an additional 12 percent profit for himself.

Quite a nice deal, for water rights which cost him $10. (As shown on an April 28, 1986 quit claim deed from ARCO to Washington). There are also environmental issues to consider with piping the Silver Lake water to Butte. Currently a good bit of Big Hole water ends up in Silver Bow Creek and flows into the Clark's Fork after going through treatment in Butte. Currently all the Silver LakeWarm Springs Creek water also flows into the Clark's Fork River.

The proposed tranfer of Warm Springs CreekSilver Lake water to Butte to replace the Big Hole water would mean that eleven million gallons per, day less water would be in the Clark's Fork. This will have negative effects on the fisheries, water quality, (increasing heavy metals concentrations), and may affect downstream water rights. Warm Springs Creek downstream from Myers Dam (where the eleven million gallon per day diversion would take place) would suffer even more. Without mitigation, Warm Springs Creek would dry up much of the summer. The amount of water to be piped to Butte is greater than the total flow of the creek in August and September in several recent years.

And taking the water out of the creek would increase heavy metals concentrations and hurt trout populations year long. Butte consumers have a right to clean drinking water. Federal law (the Safe Drinking Water Act) requires all surface water to be filtered (including Warm Springs CreekSilver LakeWarm Springs Creek water to Butte and concentrate its efforts on building a good water filtration plant and fixing the many other problems with their system. The capital to upgrade should come from Dennis Washington, whose holdings in Butte reportedly made $100 million in profit in 1988 alone. By focusing attention on Silver Lake, Butte Water Company, is diverting consideration of better long term solutions.

rmwved Safirc Kohl chose get tough posture 9 land, and every politician knows it. Bonn's plan to seek its destiny eastward will work best if ties to the West are maintained. That means continuing the pretense Washington should pay to upgrade water system by garry trudeau WHAT 6ET OUTA ir'STWE. HE'S JUST L0OKJN6 FOR. THE RIGHT PROJECT! MR.

PRESIDENT! I SEE A BUPPY PfCWRE yOUANPTOMCRUISB! AMI NUTS? AM I AMLP MAN WHO IS (Editor's Note Michael Grayson is an Anaconda-Deer Lodge deputy county attorney.) By Michael Grayson Recently the Standard and local television have run stories comparing the quality of Silver Lake water to Big Hole River water. Aside from the fact tba the Big Hole is at its worst during spring runoff, the comparison misses many of the real issues at stake here. The press needs to investigate the economic implications ofHhe proposed lease of water to Butte Water Company on Anaconda and Butte; as well as the environmental implications that are involved in de-watering Warm Springs Creek. I will readily admit that Silver Lake water is cleaner than Big Hole water during spring runoff. But this simple fact does not tell the whole story.

The water that would be piped to Butte from Warm Springs Creek (after it flows down from Silver Lake to Myers Dam) was originally used at the Copper Smelter in Anaconda. This water provided the economic life-blood of Anaconda for 100 years. Today, Dennis Washington and MRI "own" the water. I object to any owner transferring the water to a point outside of Anaconda. Any prospective industry that may want to re-locate here will need water rights.

I want to make sure a substantial amount of water is available for use in Anaconda for future economic development. It is not right for Anaconda to suffer the loss of its industrial water resource. Whatever solution is reached must provide for the economic well-being of Anaconda. Butte consumers will pay dearly for the Silver Lake water. Dennis Washington owns Butte Water Company and MRI.

He has proposed to the Public Service Commission to lease the water rights to Butte Water Company for $843,863 per year for ten years. If the PSC were to approve this lease and pass the cost on to the consumers, each water company customer would pay at least an additional $70 per year. Where would this money go? To Dennis Washington's bank account. He proposes to.