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Show 4 Wednesday August 22, 2012 OPINION www.dailyutahchronicle.com SALLY YOO/The Daily Utah Chronicle UTA contract beneficial to students G ood news is in store for all U students who regularly use UTA services such as TRAX. The U sealed up a ioyear contract with UTA that will continue to provide students and employees with free transportation. The flip side is the cooperation between the U and UTA will continue to be reflected in the tuition of full-time students. To be fair, the $84.50 fee is nothing new Students have had to pay similar fees for transportation in the past. Still, it is reasonable to expect students to be curious about where their money is actually going. In spite of this, the U cannot and should not allow students to opt out of non-applicable fees including transportation. DYLAN VOCAL StaffWriter Unfortunately, the fees paid to the U do not give it rights to manage or do away with the programs it funds. Although it might seem like a student should not have to pay for a program they receive no benefit from, it is this practice that allows the institution to provide a number of diverse groups and activities. Were students allowed to choose where their tuition goes, only popular programs would thrive. As for the deal with UTA, students who use the pass are benefiting greatly as the cost for a two-month UTA pass already outweighs the student fee. According to a U statistic, there are about 6,800 student or employee riders using UTA per day. This expanded base of patrons benefits the transit authority as well, with 8 percent of its ridership coming from the U. The advantage of keeping UTA strong is an ever-increasing network of public transportation, including the expansion of TRAX. U students should also be praising the longevity of the Io-year deal, which will protect them from any price hikes or a potential switch from flat public transportation rates to a distance-based fare system. In addition, public transit opens up parking on campus, a result that should be a breath of fresh air to those who prefer the security of their own cars for getting to school. The transit also provides the U with a much needed connection to downtown Salt Lake City. Although it's not considered a true college town, the U's effects on the city are present and noticeable. Without regular student transport, the two would start to diverge. Essentially, the plan benefits those who need help the most. It maintains a form of equality on campus by offering students who are otherwise unable to procure transportation with a ride to and from school. By providing these means, the program is creating a diverse and equal setting that serves research and academics well. Believe it or not, the U is looking out for its students. It does this by jumping on presented opportunities and maintaining a presence within the state. It would be nice if every student who enrolled in the institution could have his or her needs catered to perfectly, but that is an impossible goal. It simply must be understood that by joining the U, we have to accept that we cannot manage every decision. This is not to say that students should remain quiet about U policies with which they strongly disagree, but it might be beneficial to first stop and consider how universal student transportation is improving the community. letters@chronicle.utah.edu Media controls Earthquake in Iran could be example of Utah's future our opinion of 0 n Aug. II, northern Iran suffered two massive earthquakes. Measured by the United States Geological Survey at 6.4 and 6.3, the number of casualties is at least 30o with thousands injured in the lightly populated cities of Tabriz and Varzaghan. The scene is chaotic with carnage everywhere and families separated without any mode of transportation, food or energy. The causalities would have been even more catastrophic had the quakes struck a few kilometers south, where a portion of Iran's nuclear waste is stored. But Iran is so far away and relatively isolated from the United States, so why should we care? Because studying mountain-to-desert to mountain the land formations in Iran can teach us about dangers we might face in storing nuclear waste in Utah. The similarities in geography and earthquake hazards between Iran and Utah are worth noting. The large mountain ranges in Iran — Elburz Mountains to the northeast and Zagros Mountains to the southwest — line up with the large mountain ranges in Utah's Rocky Mountains to the northeast and Sierra Mountains to the southwest, and they match in climate, composition and availability of rivers and lakes. Utah and Iran are both located in beautiful deserts of about the same ROSE JONES StaffWriter size in the centers between the mountain ranges. Most importantly, both Utah and Iran store nuclear waste in treacherous earthquake zones. Iran stores nuclear waste from its nuclear energy facilities. Utah takes in heavy financial benefit by allowing corporations such as Energy Solutions to store nuclear waste from other states and countries on privately purchased Utah land. The Iranian nuclear facility in Arak is about the same distance from the Anatolian Fault line that the Tooele nuclear waste storage facility is from the San Andreas Fault line. There is one big difference: most life from the Anatolian Fault to Arak is rural, but the U sits in the middle between the San Andreas Fault and Tooele. Both Anatolian and San Andreas faults are strike slip, the worst type of fault for nuclear waste to sit on. Utah is pushed and pulled between the Pacific and North American Tectonic plates, which causes the strike slip. Iran is between the Arabian, Indian SLC politics and Eurasian Plates. Iran has a one in three chance of a severe quake. Utah has a one in one shot, as the weight of the most severe earthquake from San Andreas rests in Salt Lake City. The fault is ioo years overdue for slip, according to the Utah Geological Association. The destruction from a 6.4 quake in Salt Lake City would be monumental. The threat of cracking the fuel rods in stored nuclear waste capsules would bring even more devastation to Utah for decades to come, regardless of technologically advanced rescue devices and plans. Nuclear waste does not diminish for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, it gets hotter and more volatile with age. It can never be discarded permanently, and even though nuclear waste storage corporations claim the waste can be mixed with other less toxic components, that alone does not change decay rates. Any amount of nuclear waste will decay, and that process makes it hotter at the start of the mixing. Right now private energy businesses in Utah are hosting enough nuclear waste to wipe out huge segments of our population, should an earthquake occur. We need to take into account the perils of our region and protect against earthquakes at all costs. The damage would simply be too huge. I letters@chronicle.utah.edu .dailyutahchronicle. co r•Nr- ‘ ■ f you've recently gotten off of the interstate downtown, you might have noticed a predictable Romney-Ryan billboard (this is Utah after all). But take a closer look. The billboard isn't just advertising the Republican ticket, as it seems at first glance. The billboard is advertising KSL's Doug Wright Show — the popular, conservative talk show with one of the largest audiences in the Mountain West. The billboard brings all kinds of questions to mind, but the fundamental issue is clear: Why would an independent news broadcasting corporation pay for such a glaringly partisan ad? How is this OK in Utah? The line between journalistic integrity and partisanship is notably gray. Newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations all seem to slant one way or another. By measure of simply reporting positive or negative stories on a certain candidate, the media shape their corner of the political landscape and present a bias. In many ways, bias is inescapable. News corporations donate to candidates and super-PACs and newspapers even openly endorse candidates. So, is it any different when a news corporation buys ad space and plasters it with its own name and the names of a presidential ticket? It is. KSL's blatant actions are going to further divide our already deeply partisan state. They've opened the door for a league of partisanship in media that Utah StaffWriter has never seen. Throughout this election cycle and those to come, media sources in the Beehive State will now have greater leniency and boldness to openly and financially support certain candidates at the expense of their opponents and the integrity of our election cycle. Although this might not have a huge impact on national elections, statewide and local elections could now be decided by the media. As the saying goes, the media do not tell us what to think but they do tell us what to think about. This alone is enough to impact an election one way or another. In our muddled, hateful political climate, people look to the media to find clarity and sound information on candidates and elections. Therefore, bias as blatant as KSL's also diminishes the trust we put in our billboards, radio stations and broadcasts. And thus it seems that any responsibility for providing that sound, unbiased information is lost. Utahns will soon have nowhere to go to find the truth about their future or potential leaders and our state will suffer for it. letters@chronicle.utah.edu |