After reading the Aug. 6, Timberjay opinion page, I found that I had similar desires as the two grandparents from Cook, who loved their 10 grandchildren and wanted the grandchildren to successfully raise their own children. My own experiences, however, have given me a different life perspective. (BTW, grandma has been deceased since 1998). I have heard about Project 2025, but I don’t have the couple’s same worry.
In 1969, I was required to take organic chemistry at the University of Minnesota. We students were reminded by Professor Bourque’s tough exams that real scientists dare not flunk Organic Chemistry 101 and 102; or else, they should find another career.
Professor Bourque taught us that refineries distill crude oil and produce organic compounds that are building blocks of compounds which make everyone’s life better. Dr. Bourque told us that from organic compounds we get petroleum jelly from heavy paraffins, methane and propane gases for home heating, isopropyl alcohol from propane. (FYI, isopropanol is used by nurses to sterilize your arm before a blood-draw and by the homeowner to prevent the spread of COVID). Alfred Nobel invented TNT (2,4,6 tri-nitro toluene) from volatile (but carcinogenic) benzene.
I was the Grand Rapids DNR Area Fisheries Supervisor during the 1991 Enbridge Pipeline oil spill on the Prairie River. Then, my three pre-teen children had already been trapping otter, mink, and muskrat, harvesting wild rice, and catching walleye, redhorse, and small mouth bass within a few hundred yards downstream of the spill.
I was familiar with established protocols involving chemical spills and knew that they fall within the purview of the Pollution Control Agency. DNR’s hydrological and biological purview requires PCA’s consideration. Our agency placed walleye eggs downstream of the spill-site and determined impacts to mussels.
David G. Holmbeck
Grand Rapids