NOTE: The following letter was penned by our very own Tom Kruzen, who for various reasons is unable at present to post to this forum. Because the letter is worthy of re-publication, and this is as good a forum as any, here it is:

January 26, 2012

Dear Editor,

I read in the Quill that Senator Roy Blunt and Representative Jo Ann Emerson-Gladney think President Obama short-sighted for not sanctioning the Keystone X-L pipe line that would bring very dirty Canadian tar-sand crude across Midwestern states which currently feed us corn, wheat and other grains. Much of that grain is irrigated by the Ogllala Aquifer. I witnessed this first hand while traveling to Oregon last summer.

Trans-Canada and its American partners have all had their oil spills, blow-outs and have created billions of dollars worth of damage to world water supplies. Has everyone forgotten what happened to the Gulf of Mexico, the Yellowstone River or the Exxon-Valdez???

An inevitable crude oil spill into THE major water source for Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, parts of Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming and Texas would kill much of America’s granary-food we and much of the world eats.

Mr. Blunt and Madame Emerson-Gladney would have us eat oil instead of getting smart about alternative energy. What these dunderhead members of Congress aren’t telling you and I is that this dirty oil isn’t even for our benefit but to be sold on the world market, ostensibly to China. With lusterless leaders like Blunt and Emerson-Gladney, who needs stupidity?

West Plains must remember when its sewage lagoon collapsed into its water supply in the seventies and the county was fed clean water by the National guard for six months. That was fun wasn’t it? Now imagine if it were crude oil!!!

With real alternatives and renewables in mind,

Tom Kruzen