Readers Write: Nuclear power, climate, public lands, deficits and rural booze

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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The recent reporting on tritium near Xcel’s Monticello plant (“Xcel steps up pumping at Monticello nuke plant as radioactive water moves toward Mississippi River,” StarTribune.com, May 12) misses a crucial point: What we’re witnessing is monitoring systems working exactly as designed, not an environmental crisis.

The Star Tribune article correctly notes that multiple state agencies confirm “the plume’s movement does not threaten human health or the environment” and that tritium in the river remains “below detection limits.” These facts should headline the story, not be buried beneath alarming language about “radioactive groundwater.”

Let’s put tritium in perspective: Its radiation cannot penetrate human skin and is too weak to register on a Geiger counter. The water currently testing “just below” the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety threshold would require drinking over 2,000 gallons in one sitting to receive radiation equivalent to a single chest X-ray. Australia’s drinking water standard for tritium is 100 times less restrictive than the EPA’s, highlighting just how conservative our regulations are.

The nuclear industry faces a communication paradox: Companies simultaneously tell us there’s nothing to worry about (there isn’t) while trumpeting heroic mitigation efforts for a substance that poses virtually no danger. This mixed messaging undermines public confidence.

As Minnesota pursues clean energy goals, we need fact-based discussions about nuclear power’s role, not sensationalism. Monticello has operated safely for decades, preventing millions of tons of carbon emissions and providing millions of dollars in tax revenue to support schools and essential services. Let’s report on nuclear energy with the context and perspective it deserves.

Eric Meyer, Falcon Heights

The writer is executive director at Generation Atomic.

I was distressed to read in the Minnesota Star Tribune that the Trump administration recently dismissed a highly regarded University of Minnesota scientist, along with hundreds of scientists volunteering their time and expertise to produce the next National Climate Assessment, the most trustworthy and comprehensive source of information about how global warming is affecting the United States.

When I was a teenager, many of my friends were older than me and received their driver’s licenses before me. In an intentionally reckless act, one of them while speeding down a rural road at night briefly turned off his headlights, plunging the view ahead into total darkness and risking the lives of himself, me and his other helpless passengers.

I never imagined that my government would commit a reckless act that endangers the well-being of 340 million Americans by intentionally terminating the production of expert foresight for how the changing weather patterns that we already are grappling with and anticipate will impact all aspects of our society. We are facing climate hazards, but the Trump administration is eliminating our ability to see and prepare for them.

Patrick Hamilton, St. Paul

The Star Tribune has brought us numerous stories of the Trump administration’s actions including the firing agency staff, obtaining personal data, cutting programs to help the poor and impoverishing important research programs. What hasn’t been covered is the devastation this administration and the GOP are wreaking on the environment and public lands and waters.

Marine sanctuaries are being opened to commercial fishing, and the public’s federal lands are being lined up for sale to corporations. Reductions in national park staff will limit management and restoration of these national treasures enjoyed by all Americans and visitors from around the world. And the Arctic is again under attack. The House Natural Resources Committee, to pay for billionaire tax cuts, has introduced legislation that would again open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and seismic testing that would greatly disturb polar bears and other wildlife. The public would have limited ability to challenge these actions. It would open up Cook Inlet, home to endangered beluga whales, orcas, seals and sea otters to offshore oil drilling. Tongass National Forest, an immense expanse of old-growth, carbon sequestering, temperate forest would be opened to more logging, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act would be gutted by silencing public input and weakening science and environmental review.

It is mid-May and temperatures are already climbing close to 90 degrees, with wildfires and drought risk. Trump and GOP actions are not responsible energy or environmental policy but are desperate attempts to benefit the 1%’s tax cuts, grease the skids for corporations and deny the climate crisis.

The Star Tribune must do a better job informing us of the full slate of coercive actions being taken at the federal level and we must continue to resist before our voices and public lands are fleeced from us.

Catherine Zimmer, St. Paul

The writer is an environmental scientist.

President Donald Trump has stated that our trade deficit is an emergency. He has roiled financial and commercial markets around the world with threats of tariffs.

He is correct in stating that the U.S. does face an emergency. But he has selected the wrong deficit as the primary danger. The real emergency is our country’s fiscal deficit, which amounted to 6.4% of GDP in 2024.

The two deficits are related, and Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal refers to them as “twin deficits.” If the U.S. runs a fiscal deficit, then our citizens have more money to spend. And a good portion of this money will be spent on imported products, thus feeding the trade deficit.

The U.S. has been enabled to run massive fiscal deficits for one reason: The world has purchased the debt issued by the U.S. needed to fund these deficits. The world has continued to buy U.S. debt because it has believed that the U.S. remains a safe investment.

The manner of Trump’s imposition of tariffs has unnerved many in the world. The incipient meltdown of the market for U.S. Treasuries following “Liberation Day” tariffs forced the president to walk back some of these tariffs. And if the U.S. enters a recession as a result of the tariffs without a fundamental reordering of our fiscal house, then our fiscal condition will deteriorate and the need for government borrowing will increase.

Unfortunately, even a massive reduction in federal spending will not come close to solving this problem. According to Ip, extending the Trump tax cuts would result in a budget deficit of 7% of GDP in 2029. To reduce the deficit to 3% of GDP will require $12 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, an amount vastly greater than the president’s proposed cuts.

We will need to address entitlements — Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare — and we will need to enhance revenue through additional taxes. It will not be easy. We will need brave and responsible leadership.

Will we be able to recruit leadership to address this and other real problems in an effective manner? Or will we continue to succumb to the siren song of demagogues?

Maybe the president is a step ahead of us on this issue. He’s buying cryptocurrencies.

Sheldon Sturgis, Minneapolis

The headline read, “Fewer drinkers at music venues weakens revenue” (May 9). Well, duh! Maybe if Twin Cities saloons and venues would stop overcharging for a drink, revenues and consumption would go up. C’mon! 6 bucks or more for a shot or a beer? Out here in the boondocks, it’s half that.

Jerry Grehl, Harmony, Minn.