Our View: Snail mail is slowing more

There are times when an idea sounds good during its initial pitch, but absolutely fails in its implementation.

Among thoughts too numerous to mention, it seems the U.S. Postal Service’s idea of consolidating its processing plants and shipping mail from southwest Wyoming to a plant in Salt Lake City was one that sounded good on paper, at least for now.

So far, we can say the change has affected us and our ability to send papers outside Green River.

For the past two weeks, our subscribers in Rock Springs haven’t received their print copies of the Green River Star in a timely manner. Both the April 22 and April 29 editions weren’t delivered to our postal customers until earlier this week. We’ve worked out an arrangement with the Rock Springs Post Office that will ensure our Rock Springs readers will get their print editions the same week they’re published, but the issue seems to have come from sending the papers to Salt Lake City.

It doesn’t seem like our papers are alone, as a few have reported their letters taking longer to reach their destination.

Some would argue the plan was horrible from the start, but we realize the USPS is in a bind. They’re losing money as a result of fewer pieces of mail sent through the system, which is mostly due to the raise of cellular and internet-based communications. Any company, even as large and complex as the USPS, is faced with a simple task when revenues fall -- cut costs or bleed money.

So the USPS decided to cut down on its processing centers, consolidating its lightened mail load to larger, regional processing centers.

While we’re sure this makes sense in many larger and densely populated regions, rural areas would be the ones to suffer with possible delays. Rural states, like our beloved Cowboy State, deal with mail sent to and from lightly populated communities over vast distances. Increasing the distance to send mail does nothing to get it to its destination faster. Sending mail from Green River to Rock Springs, by way of Salt Lake City in the case of our newspapers, doesn’t speed the efficiency of anything.

We realize there will be some wrinkles to iron out with the USPS’s new postal arrangement and we’re hopeful to see everything return to normal, or at least as close to normal as possible.

With shrinking revenue and letter loads however, watching physical mail slow to a snail’s pace might be the only thing we can do.