Letters: Population growth and agriculture runoff are algae bloom culprits

William Louda insinuates that septic tanks are a cause for algae blooms. ("Excessive fertilizer fuels algal blooms," Letters, Wednesday)

Since he is a research professor at Florida Atlantic University, it strikes me that his department is government-funded. We have limited landmass in South Palm Beach County and most of the population in Palm Beach County are near the coastal areas. I would suggest that if the government were serious about algae blooms it would limit residential multifamily building and build desalinization-type plants that can turn liquid sewage from treatment plants and storm sewers into potable water.

Government is not interested in seeing more septic tanks because it would limit Palm Beach County's population. Agriculture irrigation and increased multi-family building population needing sewage plants discharging untreated water and storm sewage drainage are the primary culprits in estuary algae blooms -- not residential septic tanks with drain fields.

Dennis Clark, Boynton Beach

Air travel 'ban' distorts

Green New Deal's words

Regarding the letter “Democrats' sharp turn to the left is turn-off” (Feb. 12), we must ask just how does the phrase, "to expand high-speed rail so broadly that most air travel would be rendered obsolete” (from the referenced New York Times article) turn into “programs that would stop all air travel in a decade”?

We’re playing the game "Telephone: Politics Edition." The original words from the six-page Green New Deal proposal are: “...build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary,” which became the phrase “…to expand high-speed rail so broadly that most air travel would be rendered obsolete” in the Times article, which morphed into U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney’s statement, “when we outlaw plane travel” and finally devolving into the letter writer’s words: “programs that would stop all air travel in a decade.” Now you know why we can’t have nice things.

It is sad that legacy energy interests are so petrified that they need to pollute this much-needed global conversation and our thinking.

Marty Grivjack, Jupiter

Abolish Senate,

Electoral College

I read with some amusement Catherine Rampell's sarcastic column "What America really needs to do is abolish Congress" (Tuesday). She actually was half right.

The Senate and the Electoral College have become outdated institutions that should be abolished. The House of Representatives represents the people. The Senate represents the states. This is a powerful entity that may have served a purpose when our country was established to protect the diverse needs of different states. We no longer need a federal body to do so. It serves solely to create inequality between citizens.

Likewise does the Electoral College that frequently negates the popular vote. 

Jeffrey Brown, Palm Beach Gardens

Can anything productive

emerge from Washington?

Chaos in the presidency and in Congress makes us wonder if any meaningful legislation will be passed at all. Our faith and trust in leadership of both parties has eroded, leaving us with divided government and no respite in sight.

Will the next two years be spent listening to all those Democrats who want to take on Trump in 2020?

Darryl Harris, Lake Worth