Stop! Visualize beauty. What is the first thing that comes from your
soul and materializes in your minds? Is it something man has made, or is it
from the hands of God?
Ask yourself who is going to benefit from this [Falls Crossing]
development. Is it Puget Western? Is it the people of the Valley? Is it nature?
My personal assumption is that PSE has exploited that raw power of the
Falls. For corporate gain, Puget Western is going to exploit the last thing left,
the raw beauty of the Snoqualmie Falls.
Edward Abby once said, “Why is it that the destruction of
something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of
something created by God is called development?”
The corporations are constantly driving toward bigness and
concentration. We have now finally realized how heavy a price we have paid in
overcrowding, [in] pollution of our environment. Not necessarily our
environment but we greedily and blindly take from raw nature and manipulate it
for our own comforts and personal gain. Everything has grown so large so
fast. The growth of the cities, organizations and urban sprawl. We have people
trying to enjoy both worlds. Living in the country and driving to the city
for work.
For example, this couple moved up to the Snoqualmie Ridge. Not
picking on the Ridge, just trying to make a point. One morning the wife looks
out the window and sees a black bear. So she calls the game warden and
says, “I have a black bear in my backyard.”
He says, “No, I think you are in his backyard.”
First in point, our main problem is sheer growth _ growth which
crowds people in slums, propels suburbs out over the countryside. It burdens to
the breaking point all our olds ways of thought and action, our system
of transport and water supply and education.
Second is the destruction of the physical environment,
stripping people of contact with the sun, clean air, clean creeks, rivers, streams,
the destruction of indigenous vegetation replaced by what looks good
seasonally, condemning the people to a life among concrete, neon lights and
an endless flow of automobiles.
This happens not just in the cities, but in the very suburbs as they are
now trying to do to our beautiful town of Snoqualmie. This is a place
where people once fled to find nature, but now Puget Western is trying to
exploit the raw nature of the Falls for their own profit.
Therefore, the time has come when we must actively fight bigness
and over-concentration, and stop the growth and the reckless power of
these mega corporations. We need to bring the power of government,
technology and the direction of growth fully under the control of the people, to
recapture and to reinforce the values of a more human time and place.
CORY L. BUSBY
Snoqualmie
