From the Archives: Scientists’ So-Called “Volcanic Eruption” Projections are Restricting Our Freedoms

FROM THE SEATTLE NEWSMAKER ARCHIVES, MAY 17 1980

BY TED NEWELL, NEWSMAKER OPINION COLUMNIST

If you’re like me, you’re tired of hearing “so-called” “experts” from the “US Geological Survey” lecture us every day about a “catastrophic volcanic eruption” from Mt. St. Helens. It’s time to call their malarkey what it is and reopen the Gifford Pinchot National Forest!

For more than a month, Washington Governor Dixie Lee Ray has not only closed access to the mountain for tourists, she has also barred property owners around the mountain from even visiting their own homes. All in the so-called “name” of “safety” from a “catacylsm of unimaginable proportions” that might not even “happen.”

Let’s take a look at the so-called “science” that these “scientists” use to justify their “freedom hating.” First, they have been predicting disaster for weeks, and what do they have to show for it other than a series of volcanic eruptions and a massive, slowly expanding ominous deformation of the mountain’s north side?

Second, scientists also predicted that by 1980 we would all have flying cars. I don’t know about you, but my Chevy Lakewood only “flies” when I am driving to Winchell’s for donuts! (Boy will I ever be in trouble if they reduce the speed limit around school zones!) But seriously folks, scientists have never predicted anything correct even once ever. I had somebody look that up in the World Book Encyclopedia for me.

But more importantly, what right does the government have to keep us from our homes, cabins, lean-tos, liquor stills, hidden marijuana fields, hobo graveyards and other valuable property in the Mt. St. Helens area? Thankfully, they haven’t closed down Harry Truman’s inn at Spirit Lake, but that’s the kind of crazy talk you can imagine them saying next. Let’s stand up to these so-called “authorities” and let them know “we” as “citizens” are perfectly capable of making our own “informed decisions” about “seismic activity,” “volcanic gas emissions” and “water safety while drinking,” among other things.

Join me tomorrow for a rally at the mountain! I promise everyone we will have a blast!