Letters to the editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Are the Nye County brothel wars starting again?

After 30 or so years, I started to reread my copy of “The Nye County Brothel Wars” by Jeannie Kasindorf.

It’s about how the powers that be harassed brothel owner Walt Plankington to the point of a firebombing at the Chicken Ranch, with 14 people inside.

Now, 40 years later, the same thing is happening to Dennis Hof. It makes me wonder about Nye County.

Pete Wallace

Gubernatorial candidate waffles on rural water issue

In a show of determined indecisiveness, Steve Sisolak, a member of the Southern Nevada Water Authority board and candidate for governor of Nevada, voted Wednesday to move forward with an appeal of the Nevada State Water Engineer’s recent denial of SNWA’s applications to pump rural Nevada water to Las Vegas.

This political about-face came a mere two days after he was quoted in an article printed in the Nevada Independent coming out against the rural Nevada water grab.

I find I need a spreadsheet to keep track of Sisolak’s positions because in 2017, he voted as a member of the same board to approve the district’s 50-year plan, which included the pipeline as a keystone in its strategy to deliver more water to the Las Vegas Valley. Confused? So am I.

Taking water from rural Nevada to support the unsustainable growth model in Las Vegas would have devastating ecologic, economic, and social impacts on Lincoln and White Pine counties. For Mr. Sisolak to play both sides of this critical issue in the name of advancing his campaign tells us everything we need to know about him personally, but nothing about his true position.

Joni Eastley

Tonopah, Nevada

Dinner theater players thank supporters, community members

On Saturday, September 15, the Shadow Mountain Community Players ended their 13th season of presenting live theater to the residents of Pahrump as well as visitors.

We would like to thank the people of Pahrump for their ongoing support. Our shows have included everything from classics like “Oscar Wilde” to murder mystery dinner theaters.

We would also like to thank the following businesses for their past and continued support: Smith’s Food and Drug, Nevada State Bank, the Pahrump Senior Center, the Pahrump Valley Times, Channel 46 and Pahrump Life Magazine, and Nevada Treasure RV Resort, which provided this season’s meals and the venue.

Thanks goes to our acting casts in all three shows this year, not only for their talent, but for their determination to give the audience the best show possible. Over the years we have featured performers as young as nine years old and as old 86.

We would also like to thank Dr. Tom Waters and Deanna O’Donnell for presenting our family with the Butch Harper Kindness Award. It was quite a surprise.

In October we will cast our season opening show scheduled for sometime in March.

Carlton McCaslin

Shadow Mountain Community Players

Democrat appalled at behavior of her political party

I am an 81-year-old registered Democrat. I have never been so appalled at the way my party is acting just to regain power. Maxine Waters is a disgrace to humanity and Chuck Schumer is just one step up out of Aunt Max’s sewer. I don’t believe that Paul Ryan or Mr. McConnell are much better.

The only answer and cure is term limits and a balanced budget. They call it politics and I call it disgusting. We need to stop all of these people who they call lobbyists, outlaw them and be damned.

I have been hearing for years about how corrupt Washington, D.C. is. Well, we finally elected a president who wants to change all that. This is at last a chance to finally correct everything that is wrong in the Swamp (cesspool).

All I see from my party is obstruction. Don’t get me wrong, the other side is not much better. We need to elect people that support President Trump.

We may never again have a chance to save our country from what the rest of the world has become. Every country wants what we have and will never stop trying to destroy us. They keep us fighting among ourselves and we lose track of where we should be going.

If you want any further proof of what is to become of us, look no further than our next door, to California. You talk about a cesspool!

I have a lot more that I could add but space is limited for rebuttal and I truly respect that.

Stacy Riney

Reader would like to see national sports coverage

We readers don’t hear one word about national sports in the sports section. Surely you could put the standings from the past Sunday in our paper – baseball, football, basketball, golf, auto racing – NHRA and NASCAR.

If we readers want to know about these things we have to buy a Las Vegas paper.

Instead of the second section being called sports it should be called the comics section because adults who have kids in school and play sports are the only readers.

Melvin Blackburn

The difference between communism or socialism

In comrade Dennis Crooks’ September 14th letter in the PV Times, Mr. Crooks is splitting hairs between communism and a form of socialism, which the U.S. has been traveling on that road for some time now.

Literally the word Nazi translates to National Socialist Party, while the former USSR acronym stood for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Other than the former being a national movement and the latter being an international movement, one of the other main differences was, or is, in Nazi government allowed private ownership of business with government approval, while under communism the government actually owned the business.

Basically, they were the right and left train tracks taking the people on the train to the same destination, which essentially will result in the loss of the freedoms of real choice for most, except for the well-connected to the powerful and the powerful themselves.

For the average citizen, things like health care will be a “one size fits all” rule as long as “resources” are available from the government.

And yes, the former president does have strong socialistic tendencies that were instilled in his thinking most of his life, especially his formative years, by many who believed in socialism and at some critical years by an actual communist. (See the book “Dream From My Father.”)

Also, reading his and other books, one can easily know the former president was always in favor of a “single payer” (government) health care system, but being smart enough to realize at the time that might fail, he deceitfully enacted a form of “crony” capitalistic system, deeply flawed and destined to fail, eventually leading to a government controlled system. That’s straight out of Karl Marx’s manifesto, “the ends justify the means.”

David Jaronik

Scientific investigation will determine Yucca’s suitability

The 10 AUG 18 letter to the Pahrump Valley Times by Mr. Walt Grudzinski presents critical commentary about the Yucca Mountain project without a full appreciation of the actual situation. The Pahrump Nuclear Waste and Environmental Advisory Committee supports the Nye County Board of Commissioners in matters including nuclear waste disposal.

Members of this committee have worked on the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP), worked at and volunteered as environmental management advisers to the NNSS (formerly the Nevada Test Site). Members have commented on the YMP siting process throughout the years and have kept up to date on underground water levels and flows, either locally or regionally through constant interaction with the United States Geological Society (USGS).

It is important to first note that when a commissioner speaks about “letting the science speak for itself,” contrary to the implication of Mr. Grudzinski, it is a statement that clearly means that even though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has found that the Yucca Mountain site is likely to meet regulatory requirements, it is important to complete the licensing hearings to give an opportunity for others to present dissenting views to be heard. The congressionally-created Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an authoritative, independent, agency that was assigned responsibility to review and oversee the potential licensing of Yucca Mountain. That’s correct; no decision has been made to proceed with building the repository. That cannot happen until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determines that there are no arguments contravening the case for the safety of a repository at Yucca Mountain.

Mr. Grudzinski makes a serious error in selecting a number of scientific parameters, selecting web pages that contain material that sounds as if it should be relevant, and concluding that the science of Yucca Mountain must pose a threat, in direct opposition to more than 30 years of scientific investigation overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, presented in public meetings, and published in peer-reviewed journals. One cannot judge the suitability of a site for a repository by looking at single parameters - it is the behavior of the entire system taken together that must be assessed. Mr. Grudzinski errs in concluding that water in the Pahrump Valley would be at risk. The aquifer of the area in which Yucca Mountain is located is not connected to any water system in the Pahrump Valley. He further misses one of the most important attributes about a repository at Yucca Mountain - the repository would be located 1000 feet above the water table. That attribute was pointed out by the United States Geological Survey as one of the reasons Yucca Mountain could make the most suitable site.

Regarding waste containers made by the lowest bidder; yes, the procurements will be competitive. As they also are when bidding on building an aircraft carrier or jet aircraft for the government. What Mr. Grudzinski misses is that acceptance of a container for disposal will be subject to stringent requirements, again overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Finally, the seismicity of Southern Nevada was recognized even before study of the site began. While the actual area of Yucca Mountain is relatively seismically quiet (see work by the Nevada Seismological Laboratory on Earthquakes in Nevada, 1840s - 2012), the demonstrations of the acceptability of the Yucca Mountain site assume the occurrence of a far larger earthquake that has ever occurred there based on geological evidence.

The Pahrump Nuclear Waste and Environmental Advisory Committee has followed the science of the Yucca Mountain project for years, attended public meetings, posed intelligent questions of the scientists, and relayed our views to the Board of County Commissioners.

The committee does not profess to be security and intelligence consultants as the author has identified himself, but possibly, might be considered intelligent consultants who live and work in our valley. We have followed the process to site the repository from pre-EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) to the present and believe we can address issues pertaining to the Yucca Mountain site in a logical, non-bias way.

Speaking for the entire committee,

John Pawlak and Mary Duff

Co-chairs, Pahrump Nuclear Waste and Environmental Advisory Committee