| 113th Year, 33rd Issue | Thursday, March 28, 2002 | Sparta, North Carolina |
The success of the war in Afghanistan and the performance of our young men and women in that effort have occupied the media continuously since October. The courage and skill of our armed services is rightly due all the respect and support the media can provide. Yet we should not fail to acknowledge the heroic efforts of other members of the federal government, struggling to professionally exercise the duties of their office. I would suggest the following as a starting point:
In the early 1990's, the Forest Service sprang into action after its environmental assessment indicated that the sale of timber from California forests would jeopardize the spotted owl. Recognizing that cancellation of the sales would have a tremendous financial and personal impact on the residents, the brave souls of the service were nevertheless determined to do their duty. More than thirty planned sales were cancelled and the area placed off-limits to commercial activity, as required by the Endangered Species Act. An industry was killed off, unemployment became the major social problem in the area and financial losses were in the tens of millions. But the service stood firm in their constitutional obligations.
In 1998, in a Federal Claims Court suit brought by the Wetsel-Oviatt Lumber Company, the Forest Service agreed to pay $9.5 million for four canceled timber sales. Judge Lawrence S. Margolis ruled the cancellation to be "arbitrary, capricious and without rational basis" and that the forest service officials knew their findings were faulty when they ordered the sale canceled.
According to forest service documents, compensating lumber companies for California timber sales canceled in the 1990s because of the spotted owl incident has already has cost the government $15 million. That's in addition to the personal cost already described.
In April 2001, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service ruled that a one-hundred-year-old obligation of the federal government, to supply irrigation water to Klamath Basin farmers, must be overruled in favor of saving an "endangered" sucker fish and salmon. Based on the services' report, which triggered the Endangered Species Act's intervention, all water to the basin was shut off. In spite of the immense hardship visited upon their fellow citizens, the services were true to their oath to uphold the law. In all, 1,400 families saw their farms at risk of bankruptcy. In addition, land values plummeted and businesses that supplied the farms stagnated or failed. But the services were stalwart.
In January 2002, National Academy of Sciences concluded that federal biologists had no scientific justification for their efforts. The academy found that data "has not shown a clear connection between water level in Upper Klamath Lake and conditions that are adverse to the welfare of suckers." It also noted that the best year ever recorded for sucker survival was a low-water year and challenged the Marine Fisheries Service's effort to increase river flows, arguing that it could make conditions worse for salmon by raising water temperatures. A pity about those poor farm folks. In 1999, federal and state wildlife biologists began a study of the endangered lynx in Washington state forests. Of course, under the Endangered Species Act, if evidence was found indicating the lynx was present in the area, all activity — roads, off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, skis, snowshoes, livestock grazing, tree thinning — would be banned. The federal government could go after ski resorts, stop road building, restrict ranchers and eliminate lumber interests. But regardless of the unpopularity of their efforts, they would labor on like the professionals they were, concerned only with the scientifically determined outcome.
In December 2001, a previously unreported Forest Service investigation found that three Forest Service employees, two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials and two employees of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife had planted evidence of the lynx in the study area.
An action like this, which undermines the very concept of scientific inquiry and severely impugns the integrity of federal research, could not stand unchallenged. As a response proportionate to the severity of the offense, the employees were counseled on the inappropriateness of their actions, removed from the study and reassigned; presumably to another study. Due to confidentiality concerns (and, I would venture, to maintain their self esteem), their names were not released.
Consider the contrast between these examples of "professionalism" by supposedly well-educated scientists, duly empowered by the federal government to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, with the professionalism demonstrated by the 19- and 20-year-olds currently embroiled in Afghanistan.
Wouldn't it be nice if these scientists were capable of meeting the same standards as the kids? In any non-governmental activity, the same actions would result in termination or prosecution — in government, it results in bigger budgets and never having to say you're sorry.
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