THUNDERBIRD TREATMENT CENTER
As professional social workers in Alaska, we observed first-hand the success of Indigenous-based models of recovery, and we welcome occupancy of the space on Vashon formerly known as Vashon Care Center to be used for the Thunderbird Treatment Center.
We are a family familiar, with the devastation of drug addiction, and also, a family with personal experience of the joy of a life of recovery.
In 2009, we lost a beloved family member to an overdose. At the time, we were living on another island in Puget Sound. We saw firsthand a young person become attracted to drugs. We watched with amazement the ease with which that person obtained those drugs on our tiny island. We had front row seats in the search for treatment, the treatment center that was found at an exorbitant cost, 1000 miles from home, the relapse, and the final bad choices.
Sometimes a second round of treatment is needed. Or a third. This was not an option for our dear one due to cost and distance.
And yet, we have another family member who also went to treatment thousands of miles away, who now has 40 years of sobriety and lives a life dedicated to public service. That treatment center is known as one of the best in the country. Hazelton Betty Ford is situated in the town of Center City, Minnesota, a very small town, that, despite hosting this treatment center for the past 75 years, is not a home to a plethora of untreated addicts, has not needed to add a huge infrastructure of emergency services and does not have an exorbitant crime rate.
By all appearances, Center City is a safe and desirable place to raise a family. Fears about an increase of violent crime and other negative impacts of this service being located on Vashon, are, we believe, simply unfounded.
While the treatment model for Thunderbird Treatment Center will be Native-based, Thunderbird will also serve non-Native people. Vashon is a refuge, a place of hope and healing. May we all be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Janna Gingras and Liz Illg
FOREST THINNING
I applaud and support the forest thinning planned in Island Center forest.
But I have two concerns that might not be on the radar of forest professionals. One: Thinning opens up sunlight for native understory plants, but invasive seed sources from surrounding lands might populate those openings faster than anticipated.
Himalayan blackberry loves sunlight, but English ivy is the primary threat. It can be controlled by cutting vines off trees, since it goes to seed when it climbs vertically. Slow establishment of invasive plants can change ecosystems as much as sudden fires.
My other concern, which I have not corroborated, is that heavy equipment and logging roads may tourniquet and further fragment already fragmented forests. Both fungal networks and tree root exudates (organic fluids released from plant roots) redistribute water resources, making forests more diverse and resilient to fire.
My observations of red cedar die-off during our last extended drought is that trees survived where they had unimpeded connections to nearby wetlands. Roads are such an accustomed baseline in our mechanized culture that we might under-appreciate their effects on the environment around us.
Continue with the good work, but I suggest our forest-concerned community find a way to make it easier for private landowners to control invasive plants. And we should plant pioneer species next to roads to assist the restoration of interconnected trees in the ground, which is a key component of healthy forests.
Steve Richmond
