Here’s a headline for you: “Funding for endangered salmon knows no limit; Funding for local school infrastructure non-existent.”
This headline paraphrases the Feb. 15 and 16 Peninsula Daily News headlines and serves to highlight the perverse priorities of our state Legislature and the socio-economic decline of rural communities.
Since its inception in 1998, the Salmon Recovery Funding Board has awarded grants totaling over $1 billion dollars toward fish restoration projects throughout the state, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
These monies are in addition to the over $300 million spent by private timberland owners to restore fish access to thousands of miles of viable habitat.
Despite these “investments,” anadromous fish populations continue to suffer.
Why?
Access to quality habitat is not the problem.
Yet we keep blindly funding various so-called restoration, protection and enhancement projects seemingly ad infinitum.
Meanwhile, our state Legislature continues to botch basic education funding requirements as detailed in the McCleary decision.
And rural school infrastructure continues its inexorable decline in the midst of an apathetic, ticked-off and economically marginalized voter population.
Here’s a thought:
Let’s declare “educated children” an endangered species.
Maybe then, the funding will follow.
Tom Swanson,
Port Angeles