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Barton Springs:
"Death by a Thousand Cuts"?

(Note: The letter below by Hyde Parker Jill Nokes was written to the American-Statesman, not us, but we believe it merits reprinting in these pages -- especially since The Statesman never printed it!)

There is an important story to be investigated; a story about the consequences of those choices -- or non choices -- our community has made that have impacted the watersheds, air, and health of our ecosystems and people. But thatŐs not the story the Statesman chose to devote such considerable resources to last Sunday (see "Toxic chemicals Taint Barton Waters" 1/19/02). Instead, it used incomplete or misleading data, laid blame exclusively at the doorstep of the city government without complete proof, intentionally scared people with mention of documented poisoned sites, and used the tired old bludgeon of labeling certain groups by insinuating that environmentalists valued the life of a salamander above humans.

Folks, you can do better than this. We feel this type of journalism is a gross violation of the StatesmanŐs public trust to honestly and fairly report the facts.

If we are to be convinced that the Statesman's article was not just a cynical ploy to declare Barton Springs dead and therefore not worth protecting (and add the Edwards Aquifer to that, too), then we expect the paper to report the findings on the follow-up testing combined with an accurate explanation of all the factors contributing to this sad state of affairs, with the same resources, zeal, and attention as they did last Sunday. In a world torn apart by fighting, wars, and dissention, why would the only daily paper in town want to divide the city against itself?