| 114th Year, 1st Issue | Thursday, August 15, 2002 | Sparta, North Carolina |
Over the past 30 years, environmentalism has developed into a billion dollar business based on, in large measure, hysteria, junk science, selective data manipulation, lies and outright fraud. In spite of the exposure of issues like the Fish and Wildlife Service lynx fraud in Washington State, the manufactured suckerfish "crisis" that lead to the Klamath Basin tragedy or the spotted owl controversy initiated by a graduate student's casual observations, the misuse of science and the acceptance of scientific fraud without consequences has become a hallmark of the movement. But regardless of the basic ethical and moral issues involved, the real damage and immediate danger arises from the Federal legislation enacted as a result of this kind of fraud and misrepresentation; legislation that remains in effect in spite of the discrediting of its basis and which is then used by the environmental high priests to pound its targets into oblivion. The Antiquities Act and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been used for just that purpose, and the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), now wending its way through Congress, provides another opportunity to further implement their agenda; it has already been tagged as the Condemnation and Relocation Act. The effects of the movement are easy to dismiss when you are not personally involved, so consider the following:
The Klamath basin was settled nearly 100 years ago as a result of the Reclamation Act of 1902. As part of an agreement with the settlers, who were granted the land as payment for their service to their country, the Federal government created a revolving "reclamation fund" for the development and management of irrigation projects in the "arid and semiarid lands in the said States and Territories," which was reimbursed by settlers' mandatory repayment of the construction costs of the irrigation projects. More than three generations of farmers tilled this land, raised their families and bequeathed their land to their heirs. In 1999, the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC) used a localized drought to change all that. Relying on a U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist's report, claiming that low water levels threatened a fish, the ONRC forced a legal suit against the government under the ESA. Using the Fish and Wildlife report as justification, the judge ruled that the ESA trumped the government's 100-year-old obligation and ordered the water to the farms shut off. The result - 1,400 families without income; land values dropped from $2,000 per acre to $35 per acre; 100 years of family development and heritage destroyed. The ONRC's agenda was publicly revealed in their suggestion that the Federal government pay the Klamath residents $4,000 per acre and allow the land to revert to its pre-1900 condition under government ownership - fish are of no real concern; driving people off the land is the goal. 1,400 families are destitute, Oregon taxpayers will bear the cost of the lost tax revenue, federal taxpayers will foot the bill for the buyout and pay the legal costs of ONRC - total governmental costs for Klamath have recently been estimated at $200-$250 million dollars.
Having destroyed a way of life, the Fish and Wildlife Service report that supported the ONRC has recently been declared highly questionable, if not fraudulent, but ONRC's objective is achieved. Cost to the ONRC - $0.
Meanwhile, logging in the northwest has decreased 89 percent since 1990 and entire communities have been destroyed to save an owl that was not endangered. The recent Fish and Wildlife Service fraud in Washington state, planting lynx hair in the hopes of invoking the ESA, would have resulted in additional hundreds of thousands of acres under governmental control and additional jobs lost. In 1979, Carter used the Antiquities Act to co-opt 100 million acres of Alaska, placing it under Federal control; Clinton followed in 1992 with another 100 million acres - most of the state is now owned or controlled by the Feds. 89 percent of the state of Nevada, 66 percent of Idaho, 50 percent or more of California, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado are under federal control.
In all, about 42 percent of the United States is under centrally planned and federal control. Compare that to the less than 5 percent of the land that is populated.
Do the land grabs and community destruction actually help endangered species or the environment? According to the National Center for Policy Analysis: "For all of its power, the ESA has not worked well. Of the 1,524 species listed as either endangered or threatened during the ESA's more than 20 years of existence, only 27 had been delisted by the end of 1995. Seven of the 27 had become extinct, eight others had been wrongly listed and the remaining 12 recovered with no help from the ESA. In fact, no species recovery can be definitively traced to the ESA."
If you believe that it can't happen in your backyard, dream on.
Back to the Mushroom Chronicles Archive
Email: allnews@ls.net