Readers React: Getting the lead out of tackle boxes

To the editor: I was very disappointed by George Skelton’s cavalier dismissal of the effects of lead tackle on wildlife, particularly waterfowl. (“Brown administration’s angling to ban lead fishing weights,” Column, Sept. 21)

Here in New Hampshire, we have greatly restricted the use of lead in tackle because it has a history of killing our loons when they ingest it.

Does Skelton think solid lead is somehow less a hazard than lead in paint or gasoline, both long since prohibited?

Lead shot for waterfowl hunting has also been banned, and I believe California condors have suffered many losses from feeding on gut piles or remnants of wounded big game containing lead. Alternatives are available.

Banning lead hasn’t ended fishing here, and it won’t in California either.

Paul Nickerson, Londonderry, N.H.

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To the editor: There are so many people devoting their lives to making the world a better place, but their efforts are often undercut by many others who don’t want to make the smallest effort required to fix a problem.

Last month, Skelton lamented the possibility that he might (gasp!) have to bring his own bags to the grocery store, something I have been doing for more than 30 years (which has saved more than 30,000 plastic bags from the landfill).

Now, Skelton howls at the prospect of having to fish using non-lead sinkers in order to remove from the environment a material identified as a “carcinogen and reproductive toxin,” according to a separate article in the same paper.

I’ve been fishing for more than 50 years, and the prospect of switching to a nontoxic material for my weights is not giving me an attack of the vapors.

Why doesn’t Skelton think about helping out just a tiny bit?

Cindy Segal, Upland

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