Agriculture to blame for decline of salmon
I just wanted to set the record straight regarding “Mourning the coyote” (Letters, March 22). The precipitous decline of the California salmon population is not due to pollution or overfishing.
The low number of salmon is primarily traced to unbalanced water practices that regularly divert too much of the water needed by salmon.
About 80% of the water used in California (a public resource) goes to agriculture with literally trillions of gallons going to grow almonds and other nuts in the western San Joaquin Valley, an area considered a desert.
In the middle of the last drought from 2012 to 2016, as salmon numbers were decimated, 340,000 acres of new almond orchards were added in California.
Almonds require a gallon of water to produce a single nut. California’s salmon runs still haven’t recovered from the losses suffered in that drought.
Jeff Richards, San Carlos
Opportunistic approach
Regarding “Are racist postings cause for removal?” (Front Page, March 23): San Francisco politicians are stooping to the lowest form of opportunism in demanding that Alison Collins resign from the school board over what they term racist remarks she posted years ago.
If it were not for the current uproar over actual racist incidents, her remarks would hardly merit comment. And it is no coincidence that criticism comes during an unrelated recall campaign. I’m as sorry as anyone about the pain Asians are experiencing, but taking every remark out of context only makes intercommunity relations worse. Simply using the term Asian or Black in a sentence does not make someone a racist.
Paul Rude, Berkeley
Distrust in health care
Regarding “State health officials confirm report of vaccine underdosing at Oakland Coliseum” (sfchronicle.com, March 8): As a student nurse, I recently had the opportunity to learn about unethical experiments in U.S. history that have negatively marked African Americans. It is important to address how the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1932, which lasted 40 years, affects the COVID19 vaccination effort and how this recent shortcoming of underdosing in a disproportionately impacted community by COVID19 further enables vaccine hesitancy.
Due to the long history of atrocities like experimentation with African Americans, there is distrust in the government and the health care system.
The fast rollout of the vaccine, coupled with strategically choosing Oakland as a pilot location, along with ethnic disparities in deaths related to COVID19 and then this underdosing with thousands of people possibly being impacted, all play a role in continued distrust in the government.
This is a serious public health concern as history continues to shape beliefs. African Americans are less likely to access care.
It is important for health care professionals to understand and be vigilant to reduce these type or errors that can further impact decisions like getting vaccinated against a deadly virus or not.
Cinthia Sanchez, Pittsburg
Risky not to vaccinate
What the pandemic has taught me is that Democrats and women are the ones who care enough about their fellow Americans (and even those beyond our borders) to risk getting the vaccine. While Republicans often speak of every one doing their part for the greater good and the need for sacrifices, both physical and economic, they seem singularly unwilling to put their sermonizing into action.
A survey found that nearly half of Republican men, Congress members included, are refusing the vaccine on the grounds that it might be risky. So, it’s OK to risk sending our children into war, but they can’t risk protecting their grandparents and neighbors. It’s OK to risk walking around in a society where every other person is carrying a deadly weapon, but the vaccine is much too dangerous to risk.
I’ve learned that Republican men are a troupe of selfish cowards who bellow about how they are the real Americans. But when I look around, I see that they are the only ones who are unwilling to do their duty to protect America.
Ken Paris, San Leandro