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Forced separation inhumane
EDITOR: I woke up at 4:30 this morning to the sound of 3-year-old tip-toes approaching my bed and the familiar whisper, “Mama?” My son climbed under the covers and snuggled back to sleep.
I lay awake, listening to the soft sounds of his breath in the darkness and imagining a different life. In it, ICE agents are forcibly separating us, prying his arms from around my neck, dragging me away.
I’m not sure if I would I scream in my terror and rage or be able to whisper comfort into his ear in those last seconds — something that he might remember — wherever they are taking him — to give him confidence and hope. What could I possibly say?
No one would risk the lifelong trauma of being torn from their child unless their current circumstances were more horrific. We know the stories: crushing, futureless poverty, war, murder, rape. That people have to weigh the danger to their children under these circumstances against the danger of forced separation dehumanizes us all. How can anyone who has ever loved a child argue that forced separation of families has a place in immigration policy?
I hesitate to tell my son that parents are taken from their children for fear that just knowing it happens will frighten him. How would I explain to him that I could be deported at any time — to prepare him without terrifying him — what would I say? Yet mothers of children right here in Healdsburg have had that conversation. Their children carry that fear with them every day.
With relief — and despair — I stroke my little boy’s hair while he sleeps safely right next to me. I would like to be sleeping, too. So would the mothers in detention who can’t reach out and touch their babies for comfort; the neighbors who don’t know if they will be able to hold their children for another day; the mothers awake at dawn weighing the risk of separation against the risk of staying where they are. But how can we sleep?
America Worden
Healdsburg
THP on hold
EDITOR: Friends of Felta Creek was handed a preliminary court victory in its effort to stop a timber harvest on a sensitive stream tributary to the Russian River. The judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Sonoma granted a temporary hold on any timber harvesting operations pending the outcome of an August 17 trial.
The timber harvest plan (THP) was proposed back in January 2017 on a 160-acre parcel purchased by Ken Bareilles, a Eureka attorney, logger and land developer. Located on sensitive Felta Creek, it can only be accessed via a one-lane, private, gravel road that runs closely along the creek. Logging trucks must also pass West Side School and its 170 young students on a small, county road that has challenging existing conditions.
Felta Creek is one of the last and best habitats for endangered Coho salmon and steelhead trout. According to NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service and the UC Santa Barbara Sea Grant Research Program (which have been monitoring Felta Creek for decades), in some dry years, it has been the only stream in the entire Russian River watershed where native fish have returned to spawn. Friends of Felta Creek aims to protect this last precious refuge.
Neighbors, school officials and parents wrote letters during two public comment periods to express their opposition to the plan. Parents and school administrators voiced concerns about student safety, while up to 30 log truck trips per day drive past the school for four months.
Neighbors objected to traffic impacts on access to their homes as well as wear and tear on the road and its bridges. Felta Creek Road is likely to be blocked for many hours each day, raising safety concerns should there be a fire or other emergency.
Objections on ecological grounds included potential soil erosion, stream sedimentation, degraded water quality and stream flows, impacts on endangered species and the extensive removal of tree canopy in the face of climate change.
Despite over 130 letters of opposition, CalFire, which regulates timber harvests in California, approved the THP in November 2017. Neighbors formed Friends of Felta Creek and filed a lawsuit against CalFire for approving the THP without adequate impacts analysis and non-compliance with CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act). The trial will be held on August 17.
Friends of Felta Creek seeks a conservation buyer (or buyers) to purchase the 160-acre parcel and place a conservation easement on it, protecting it forever. A century ago, the American bison, the icon of the American west, teetered at the brink of extinction. If not for the efforts of a handful of people who kept a few dozen animals alive there would be no bison herds today. Coho salmon in California are at a similar crossroads now. Here is an opportunity to act locally and have a big positive impact on the future of this species.
Lucy Kotter, Watershed Coordinator
Friends of Felta Creek
Make a difference
EDITOR: It is hard to think of a child being victimized. No one likes to think child abuse exists in their community. But sadly, in Sonoma County, approximately 500 children were found by the courts to have been abused or neglected by their families. When that happens, the child enters foster care, which can be a disorienting, frightening and an unsettling experience for any age child.
Let us stand up for every child too young to speak for themselves.
One of the most effective ways to do this is by becoming a CASA volunteer. We are thankful that approximately 220 children in foster care in Sonoma County have a Court Appointed Special Advocate, a CASA, to help guide and advocate for them in the judicial and child welfare system. Unfortunately, at the same time we have 55 children still waiting for a CASA and referrals being received weekly.
Research shows that children in foster care, who have a CASA, live happier, healthier lives as adults. As little as 10-12 hours a month can make a child’s life brighter. Our summer training begins July 19. Visit www.sonomacasa.org or call us at 565-6375.
Millie Gilson
CASA
