Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 10:03:14 -0700 From: spooner@gbis.com (Rick Tompkins/Kathy Harrer) Subject: [lpaz-repost] Memorial Day: The Klamath River and Lost River Disasters of 2001 To: lpaz-repost@yahoogroups.com
Hi -- Just sharing a missive written by an old friend. He copied it to me, and I don't believe he'll mind my spreading it around.
Rick
>From: Michael Church Voth
>Subject: Memorial Day: The Klamath River and Lost River Disasters of 2001
>Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 22:27:40 +0100
>
>Hello Xxxxxx,
>
>The environmentalists haven't eaten us yet, though they may have to try
>soon. I don't know if the local problems around here have come to anyone
>else's attention, but the federales have shut off all irrigation water
from the >Klamath River Project. A judge ruled that, under the Endangered Species
>Act, all the water behind the Klamath dams had to go to the endangered
>Suckerfish -- which are basically water rodents who have survived every
>drought for a thousand millennia. They are so prevalent in the Pit River
>that they regularly ruin a fishing experience for a real fish -- like trout.
>
>To be fair, the environmentalists are also up in arms about this one. The
>birds -- geese, ducks, eagles, quail, cranes, mockingbirds, and so forth --
>are rampant up here. The judge cut off their water too, and is screwing
>with the salmon run. So, the Indians are pissed off as well. The farmers
>of the Klamath and Tulelake basins had prepared their soil for the planting
>of their regular crops -- alfalfa, potatoes, horseradish, and such. Now,
>there is not water even for the cover crops which could preserve the
>topsoil against the erosion of the winds.
>
>The Endangered Species Act is causing unspeakable damage to a local
>environment and economy. In my corner of the Modoc, the farmers get
>their water from wells and the ranchers mainly can get by on dry pasture.
>My summer garden is pretty lush and green. Drought is not a surprise -- it
>is a recurrence within natural cycles. The federal government is creating
>another dustbowl in a community where the families have long ago learned
>to share scarce resources when they are scarce, and over many generations.
>
>And all the cooperation was for naught, it appears. The U-Haul franchise
>is doing a brisk business in Klamath Falls. The Hispanic population,
>especially, tends to not own the farms upon which they work, and there
>is no work for them this season. The schools already lack pupils in the
>classrooms. They will lack more pupils, as the banks foreclose upon the
>offspring of the landholders who settled the area, mainly veterans of the
>World Wars who were promised irrigation rights in return for their
>willingness to settle these basins.
>
>The little towns are closing down: Newell, Tulelake, Merrill, and so forth
>-- communities which gracefully weathered the Great Depression have no
>apparent recourse from the Endangered Species Act.
>
>The Modoc Plateau, where I live, is geologically isolated from the Klamath
>and Tulelake basins by a ridge. Here, the farmers depend for water upon
>the wells and springs, and the ranchers depend upon the range they have
>long held, though with continuing annoyance from the federal Departments
>of Agriculture and Interior.
>
>Still, 30% to 40% of the income produced in Modoc County appears to
>have been from agricultural enterprise in the Tulelake Basin, and that has
>now been destroyed by the United States Government.
>
>On the road between the Modoc National Forest and Klamath Falls, every
>field has a large hand-lettered sign protesting, in some form, the occupation
>of the West by an extraconstitutional army of invasion. Most of the signs
>include the word "BETRAYAL," in loud uppercase letters. It is fitting that,
>on Memorial Day, many of these hand-lettered signs have the proud word
>"Veteran" boldly highlighted. These folks are clearly wishing for the
>Berlin Wall -- the fence that separates East from West -- to fall one more
>time, so that we may be free Americans once again.
>
>Have you heard of any of this disaster, down in Flagstaff?
> [Or, over in Nevada? -- M.]
>
>We are somewhat remote, and sometimes hope that we will not have to
>secede all by ourselves. The children in the Tulelake area now produce
>theatrical plays. Want to guess who the villains in these productions are?
>
>The Modoc Plateau was about beef and timber and alfalfa and about the
>incredible wildlife -- bird, bear, deer, and some ornery humans who are as
>endangered as I. If Tulelake can be destroyed by a federal judge and the
>ESA, how's YOUR environment gonna fare? Gone with the Wind, and
>any breeze from a swamp on the Potomac River?
>
>This is a trial run for both environmental destruction on a large scale and
>for driving settlers off the land. The ESA is clearly an excuse to promote
>what amounts to environmental havoc and the economic displacement of
>thousands of humans, and the relocation of migrant workers to locations
>which the federales will no doubt decide to target next time around.
>
>This cannot be tolerated. The ESA is environmentally destructive to every
>species within its scope -- including most especially the species it
>pretends to protect -- and to the larger ecosystem of native flora and
>fauna. The Sucker judge, interpreting the ESA without a Constitutional
>perspective, is killing the salmon and the eagle and the farmer and,
>ultimately, the suckerfish.
>
>And: EVERYBODY INVOLVED KNOWS THIS!
>
>On the High Modoc, we eat the beef grown by our Scottish neighbors,
>and the lamb grown by our Basque friends. For our American Veteran
>neighbors, we are at a loss how to honor them properly, for their lands
>have been rendered liabilities instead of inheritances. We plant our
>vegetables with care, as if there might be a coming war, and our hearts and
>our pantries are open to those who remembered how to stand tall.
>
>Yrs,
>Michael
>The Highlands
>
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