Well, Gee!

I was just watching Ruby Ridge on the tube and wanted to find out if there was anything new...ended up on a farmer's fight against the government page...

Found out about this law. They want your property/farmlands/homesteads/acreage...you name it!

http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/articles/cara_land_grab_vote.htm

-- Stephanie Nosacek (pospossum@earthlink.net), July 29, 2001

Answers

Stephanie, do you think this is a really objective site?

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), July 30, 2001.

Stephanie Thanks the link is some thing anyone who owns land and wants to protect property rights. I as one who owns 118 acs. Indiana Country Friend Jack Bunyard

-- Jack Bunyard (bunyard@cnz.com), July 30, 2001.

Hi Stephanie,

The site you gave is very exaggerated and not at all what the bill is all about. I think when sites like that publish this stuff it is because they are misinformed. The name calling also bothers me and is not very objective nor have they done thier homework or read the bill before putting up that site.

This bill is all about preserving our land - it does not grant money for investment, etc. It modifies some of the current laws to provide for quicker funding and less red tape for things like preservation of historic sites, assures for preservation of the inhabitants of wild life and endangered species, and provides for preservation of seashore life, etc. We are building and impacting the land at such a high rate and with no disregard to the its inhabitants and this bill would assure that our grandchildren and great grandchildren can grow up where they can see sea life, birds, etc. and also that historical sites are protected and not vanish into the newest subdivision going in!

The entire text of the bill is at: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi? dbname=106_cong_bills&docid=f:h701rfs.txt

You can read a more objective text at: http://users2.cgiforme.com/circleofthewolf/messages/30.html

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), July 30, 2001.

I do have a hard time with inflammatory websites - and I'm sure that both websites listed above have put their own SPIN on the matter. However, I've seen this eminent domain issue in action, and it's heartbreaking. The powers that be decided that a local highway needed to be widened a few months ago, and they put 4 families right off their land! Sure, they were paid for their land. But, it's just a frightening thing to realize that our government can just walk up to our front door and say, "Oh, by the way, you'll be moving, because WE want this land." Doesn't matter how long your family has owned the land - how many generations have worked the ground and labored to make a home that could be passed on to the kids. Nope - when the government wants it, the government takes it. It's SCARY!

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), July 30, 2001.

Boy,it sure is hard to ever get more parks and wildlife areas set aside if NO ONE will give up their land, some one has to be put out to make things better for the rest of us!

It's like landfills, everyone generates trash, but NOBODY wants to give up their land to build one, or live next to one. Go figure.

If we don't set aside land NOW for recreational use, it will be gone forever, raped by loggers and developers!

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), July 30, 2001.

You asked if I thought this was an objective site? Well, lets see... Since it was posted by a group of farmers having trouble with keeping the environmentalists from stealing their irrigation water, I would say no it is not objective.

If somebody came and stole my water, I don't suppose I could be very objective about it if my nice green farmland turned into the Sahara Desert. Could you?

If you want to see the picture check here, and see if you would be objective.

http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org

-- Stephanie Nosacek (pospossum@earthlink.net), July 30, 2001.

Annie, if you feel this strongly that the future generations need more land set aside for recreational use than what the Federal Government has already impounded for this purpose, then I suggest strongly that you give your own property to the government, and retire to NYC. Bon voyage!

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), July 30, 2001.

i agree with daffod whats her name. donate your land Annie i am sure my family would love to picnic on the spot where you buried granpa. once you push them over headstones are great for building a fire on.

-- Pops (cindy556@devil-dog.com), July 30, 2001.

Cheryl, It's not that simple. The "government" can't just walk up and take land. If they need to widen a highway, as in your example, they will make an offer to buy the land. The land owner can then ask for more money, just like if someone else makes an offer. The difference is, if an agreement can't be reached, it goes to court, where judge makes the determination.

I knew people in Eureka ,Calif who had been living (some renting, some owning their own property) for many years in the path of the proposed new freeway through town. They were banking on getting enormous prices for their land, in the case of the property owners. The renters were told they'd get something like $3-4000 to relocate. And this was in 1974 dollars!

So far, twenty-seven years later, the freeway has not been built, although several huge old victorian houses were moved out of the way, and power lines were raised to allow these grand dams to be moved beneath them .

Point is, immenent domain is a fairly complicated process. And the property owners stand to make a big windfall.

Also, the more we grow the population, the more the roads will have to be widened, and the more property will have to be purchased by the govt.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), July 30, 2001.

Wall Street Journal - Rural Cleansing 7/26/01

Commentary Rural Cleansing By Kimberley A. Strassel. Ms. Strassel is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.

Federal authorities were forced to cut off water to 1,500 farms in Oregon's and California's Klamath Basin in April because of the "endangered" sucker fish. The environmental groups behind the cutoff continue to declare that they are simply concerned for the welfare of a bottom-feeder. But last month, those environmentalists revealed another motive when they submitted a polished proposal for the government to buy out the farmers and move them off their land.

This is what's really happening in Klamath -- call it rural cleansing -- and it's repeating itself in environmental battles across the country. Indeed, the goal of many environmental groups -- from the Sierra Club to the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC) -- is no longer to protect nature. It's to expunge humans from the countryside.

The Greens' Strategy

The strategy of these environmental groups is nearly always the same: to sue or lobby the government into declaring rural areas off-limits to people who live and work there. The tools for doing this include the Endangered Species Act and local preservation laws, most of which are so loosely crafted as to allow a wide leeway in their implementation.

In some cases owners lose their property outright. More often, the environmentalists' goal is to have restrictions placed on the land that either render it unusable or persuade owners to leave of their own accord.

The Klamath Basin saga began back in 1988, when two species of suckers from the area were listed under the Endangered Species Act. Things worked reasonably well for the first few years after the suckers were listed. The Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the area's irrigation, took direction from the Fish and Wildlife Service, and tried to balance the needs of both fish and farmers. This included programs to promote water conservation and tight control over water flows. The situation was tense, but workable.

But in 1991 the Klamath basin suffered a drought, and Fish and Wildlife noted that the Bureau of Reclamation might need to do more for the fish. That was the environmentalists' cue. Within two months, the ONRC -- the pit bull of Oregon's environmental groups -- was announcing intentions to sue the Bureau of Reclamation for failure to protect the fish.

The group's lawsuits weren't immediately successful, in part because Fish and Wildlife continued to revise its opinions as to what the fish needed, and in part because of the farmers' undeniable water rights, established in 1907. But the ONRC kept at it and finally found a sympathetic ear. This spring, a federal judge -- in deciding yet another lawsuit brought by the ONRC, other environmental groups, fishermen and Indian tribes -- ordered an unwilling Interior Department to shut the water off. The ONRC had succeeded in denying farmers the ability to make a living.

Since that decision, the average value of an acre of farm property in Klamath has dropped from $2,500 to about $35. Most owners have no other source of income. And so with the region suitably desperate, the enviros dropped their bomb. Last month, they submitted a proposal urging the government to buy the farmers off.

The council has suggested a price of $4,000 an acre, which makes it more likely owners will sell only to the government. While the amount is more than the property's original value, it's nowhere near enough to compensate people for the loss of their livelihoods and their children's futures.

The ONRC has picked its fight specifically with the farmers, but its actions will likely mean the death of an entire community. The farming industrywill lose $250 million this year. But property-tax revenues will also decrease under new property assessments. That will strangle road and municipal projects. Local businesses are dependent on the farmers and are now suffering financially. Should the farm acreage be cleared of people entirely, meaning no taxes and no shoppers, the community is likely to disappear.

Nor has the environment won, even at this enormous cost. The fish in the lake may have water, but nothing else does. On the 200,000 acres of parched farmland, animals belonging to dozens of species -- rabbits, deer, ducks, even bald eagles -- are either dead or off searching for water. And there's no evidence the suckers are improving. Indeed, Fish and Wildlife's most recent biological opinions, which concluded that the fish needed more water, have been vociferously questioned by independent biologists. Federal officials are now releasing some water (about 16% of the normal flow) into the irrigation canals, but it doesn't help the farmers or wildlife much this year.

Environmentalists argue that farmers should never have been in the "dry" Klamath valley in the first place and that they put undue stress on the land. But the West is a primarily arid region; its history is one of turning inhospitable areas into thriving communities through prudent and thoughtful reallocation of water. If the Klamath farmers should be moved, why not the residents of San Diego and Los Angeles, not to mention the Southwest and parts of Montana and Wyoming? All of these communities survive because of irrigation -- water that could conceivably go to some other "environmental" use.

But, of course, this is the goal. Environmental groups have spoken openly of their desire to concentrate people into cities, turning everything outside city limits into a giant park. A journalist for the Rocky Mountain News recently noted that in June the Sierra Club posted on its Web site a claim that "efficient" urban density is about 500 households an acre. This, in case you're wondering, is about three times the density of Manhattan's most tightly packed areas. And it's not as if there were any shortage of open space in the West. The federal government already owns 58% of the western U.S., with state and local government holdings bumping the public percentage even higher.

Balanced Stewardship

Do the people who give money to environmental groups realize the endgame is to evict people from their land? I doubt it. The American dream has always been to own a bit of property on which to pursue happiness. This dream involves some compromises, including a good, balanced stewardship of nature -- much like what was happening in Klamath before the ONRC arrived. But this dream will disappear -- as it already is in Oregon and California -- if environmental groups and complicit government agencies are allowed to continue their rural cleansing.

-- somebody (something@somewhere.com), July 30, 2001.

Annie, would you live next to a landfill or give up some of your land for public use?

-- somebody (something@somewhere.com), July 30, 2001.

Annie, you made a good point. Sorry that Daffdilady and pops made such antagonistic replies.

Daffodilady, pops, believe it or not I AM donating my land to the future; I have a small, 15 acres, piece of virgin growth forest, with over a quarter mile of salmon stream, which we plan to put into a conservation easement, to guaranty that it remains in its pristine state in perpetuity. We figure that since we got the property basically for free, as part of a killer deal we made on our 43 acre homestead, and we did not grow the trees or make the stream, why should we, or our kids, profit by subdividing it? Better, imo, to preserve it for wildlife, and possibly nature trails.

On the other hand, Annie's concern about future land for recreational use (not to mention preservation of wildlife habitat) is valid, but that does not mean she, or anyone else, should have to "donate" her land for the purpose. You two were just being hateful to her. For shame!

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), July 30, 2001.

Just for your information, you all, we HAVE donated our land to the rest of America! We live in the middle of Wayne National Forest, a lovely area full of deer, turkey, black bear, and yes, even mountain lions, and, due to the fact we have no children, the land, 104 acres of it, is going to the Nature Conservancy upon both our deaths.

And yes, we used to live next (1/4 mile away) to one of the top 10 most toxic waste dumps in the Superfunds listings in NE Ohio, and we still tripled our money when we sold it, so I guess there will always be folks willing to live next door to a "dump"!

Many thanks for your support JOJ, everyone is always quick to cry wolf, but few are willing to deal with the wolf directly!!!

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), July 30, 2001.

Annie,

"Raped by loggers and developers"

If you have ever used wood, you have participated in this rape. If you live in a house, you have also. You have "developed" a place to live, or have had it done for you.

Think about it.

So why are you so adamently against yourself?

Loggers replant. Don't forget that. Making them into some evil entity that should be stopped is QUITE short sighted, but that's something that most of us have come to expect from environmental wackos like you.

Your hipocracy is showing ... for all to see!!

Mk

-- Mark K. (totallly_disgusted@yahoo.com), July 30, 2001.

Mark K, I am against logging practices that advocate clearcutting, which severely disrupts the surrounding ecosystems and effects the rivers and ground water for hundreds of miles distant. Yes, there are ecological ways to create lumber, but they are not used nationally. Here in my county, right next to us, there is logging going on, but with minimal impact on the ecosystem here. logging CAN be done the correct way, but it's hardly ever done that way out West for some strange reason!!!

And, we live in an old farmhouse built of timber from this land in 1862, it's hardwood oak and will last through several more generations after we're gone, thats called true recycling! When we need timber, we go to our woods and harvest what we need and have the local Amish sawmill turn it into useable boards, so I hardly see how I'm a hyprocrite!!!

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), July 30, 2001.

Got to finish reading all the posts to this in the morning, getting bedtime. But i just wanted to comment upon the loggers re-planting what they log. This is not always the case. In VA where we used to live )just moved in May to AR) loggers don't neccessarily have to. And when you look at the mess they leave when they clear cut and don't re-plant it is really sad, looks like a war zone! thats why we ended up selling. Now i did capitalize upon buying land that was clear cut when we purchased our farm there 6 yrs ago. It sold cheap. Then we cxapitalized again after they clear cut the neighboring woods in a 5 mile stretch of us. We lived in the boonies in the middle of the woods and it was so beautiful. I have no regrets, we sold for a profit because they logged it, then sold it for development, and guess what? for 1,000 an acre, yep, in the boonies!

But most above board companies do re-plant, but most don't have to. Then if they choose not to they can either bulldoze for pasture or can sell it to some unsuspectiong soul and they get into issues because they don't know it has to be re-planted. No, I am no eco nut, not yet at least.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), July 30, 2001.

Bernice, I'm glad that in Yellville, you aren't bothered by logging-- yet. Nearly whole counties in southern Arkansas and some very large tracts in northern Arkansas are owned or long term leased by one of the big timber companies-can't remember which one as it's been a while since we moved away. They come in and take the hardwoods that are common to the area and plant acre after acre of pine in monoculture. It messes up the local wildlife that are dependent upon diversity and while it's regrowing, there are lots of problems with erosion on the northern tracts because of the nature of the rocky ground. I know we need houses and other wood products but I don't see why the timber companies can't replant the local timber species that they take first. I know a pine grows faster than an oak but we still need the oaks, hickories, etc., for the wood and wildlife.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), July 31, 2001.

Okay, annie and joj, I just wanted to know your addresses so that come vacation time, instead of renting a motel room or cabin we can just grab our tent and come and camp in your backyards!

Please forward me your addy.

-- Stephanie Nosacek (pospossum@earthlink.net), July 31, 2001.

EUREKA! CA! hey jump off joe, has any one replaced that cool chicken foot on hyw. 101???? attended humboldt state, participated in a sealed bid for some land, came in 35k too low, MOVED.

-- bj pepper (pepper.pepper@excite.com), July 31, 2001.

hey WE live in SW Va. Logging is a way to make a living here. Most all clear timber areas will regenerate it self. It aint pretty, but in 35 to 50 yrs Guess What? more trees to harvest.

-- Nathan Harris Sr. (barnyard_mini@yahoo.com), August 01, 2001.

Funny, I live in an over-logged area too. The trees they try and pass off now are so poor that they bend right over and break off.

Yeah, those some trees might grow back...how long does it take the soil that washes away to grow back? Last time I checked, the figures were 50 years to make one inch of forest soil. Betcha it can wash away pretty darn lively without any trees to slow it down.

-- nofan (notimefor@nyhatemail.com), August 01, 2001.

<<<< This bill gives money directly to the same Environmental groups that want to restrict many areas to human traffic. My children will not be allowed to set foot in many places, so how will my children see this wildlife you speak of?

Living in Maine and watching many people from outside the state move in. (Massachusetts, CT, NY, PA, NJ) this is the typically stuff I hear from them all the time.

They complain that they moved to Maine for the beauty, but couldn't live without a freaking Dunkin Donuts,(Northeast Starbucks) super Walmart, McDonald's and strip malls and paved roadways.

Then they have the audacity to complain that they are is being "OVERRUN", and they need to stop the sprawl!

It's called NIMBY and I've got mine, but you can't have yours.

NIMBY -- Not in my backyard

<<< Ah...wrong answer. There are plenty of people that have been forced off after receiving much less than market value for their property. They also do NOT ONLY use it for highways and other projects, but are and have used it to purchase large tracts of land.

New Hampshire just PASSED a law in which they DO NOT have to inform the owner that they are taking their land. They can walk up to you today, without ANY prior notification, and snatch your property from you. Other states have been tinkering with the same ideas.

In Northern Maine, Environmental Organizations have been purchasing land left and right. So how is this happening? More money from the state and federal govt. to purchase more land under the auspices of CARA.

Yesterday I gave information about a deal where the Enviro. group knew about the sale before the public did. This was done with help from the state, company and Envir. group.

Don't they arrest Wall Streeters for insider trading and collusion?

Lew

-- lew (lewr93@aol.com), August 01, 2001.

BJ, I don't remember any "cool chicken foot". Sorry, Was it part of the "hippie" driftwood sculpture down near Eureka Slough there, right north of the Eureka City limits? THAT was cool. Of course, some rednecks had to keep tearing it all down, and painting ugly anti hippy slogans all over the place. But, damn, those spaced out "head' kept rebuilding it better every time!

Stephanie, the land you're referring to isn't quite in my backyare; it's down the hill a quarter mile or so. Do you really want to come camp out here? It's really nice. Are you tidy?

COME ON, LEW! Gimme a break, already! You trying to tell us, "New Hampshire just PASSED a law in which they DO NOT have to inform the owner that they are taking their land. They can walk up to you today, without ANY prior notification, and snatch your property from you." I don't THINK so.

If you believe that, please send me the number of the "law" which was just passed, and preferably the url for New Hampshire's laws; I guess I should move to the "show me" state, because I don't believe you. I think you must have heard this from someone with as much of an agenda as whoever told you Klamath Lake is man made.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), August 02, 2001.

Wait, sorry Lew; there's one way the states have been pulling this off. My apology. It's called RICO, and stands for Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization.

A lot of states are using it to generate income for the cops by accusing people of growing dope, and such things.

It's not quite just "walking up and taking your land", but it's ugly, and clearly unconstitutional, in my mind, because you don't even have to be found guilty of any crime.

We just passed an ititiative in Orygun to overturn it. Boy, there are a bunch of pissed off cops!

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), August 02, 2001.

This piece by former congresswoman Elizabeth Furse sheds a lot of light on the Klamath Basin issue. It was published in the Seattle Times recently. ---------- Editorials & Opinion : Thursday, July 12, 2001

Guest columnist Government made right call on Klamath Basin irrigation

By Elizabeth Furse Special to The Times A congressional hearing in Oregon last month provided a glimpse of how a handful of politicians intend to exploit a severe drought in the Klamath Basin to further their long-standing goal of repealing the Endangered Species Act. The American people, however, overwhelmingly support the act and efforts to protect the nation's imperiled fish and wildlife. Some farmers in the Klamath Basin, an area that straddles the California-Oregon border, will not be able to use the amount of water they typically receive from the government. There is a reason for that; there is too little water. The region is a high, dry desert to begin with, and 2001 is the driest year in the basin since record keeping began.

This spring the government decided that federally subsidized irrigation would have to be substantially reduced to avoid the extinction of several species of fish, including wild Klamath River coho salmon. That decision, although difficult and controversial, was absolutely correct.

In 1909, the federal government began a foolish and ill-conceived policy of replumbing the entire Klamath River system with the intention of turning this high desert plateau into farmland. The area was opened to homesteaders who received access to an irrigation system paid for by the taxpayers. As populations grew, the government diverted more of the river, drained more wetlands, and promised more water than the river could deliver.

Naturally, the ecosystem in the Klamath Basin could not handle these intrusions. As irrigation increased, the basin's lakes shrank and grew warm, and the rivers dried up. The native fish species that once thrived in them began to disappear. Much of the basin's wetlands, once the staging ground for one of the mightiest concentrations of migratory birds on the planet, was converted to farms and, as a result, bird numbers plummeted.

The government irrigation program may have been a great boon for the farmers living in the basin, but many other people have suffered immeasurably from this largesse. The Klamath River was once the third-greatest producer of salmon and steelhead in the United States, and supported a fishery that provided thousands of family-wage jobs. As irrigation drained much of the water out of the Klamath River in recent years, the fishing economy collapsed. An estimated 3,700 fishing-dependent jobs have been lost in nearby coastal communities alone. Today, a visitor to once-thriving towns along the coast will see few fish but plenty of ?for sale? signs on fishing boats.

The government's irrigation program was even more devastating for the region's numerous Indian tribes. The Klamath Indians, for example, forced from their ancestral homelands, received solemn guarantees in a treaty with the government that their fishing rights would be protected for all time. The fish that once thrived in the region formed the backbone of the tribe's economy, culture and religion.

The government ignored this promise when it replumbed the basin for irrigation, sending the river and lakes into an ecological tailspin and completely destroying the fisheries. Today, lake fish on which the tribe relies are hanging on the very precipice of extinction. So, too, are the once-abundant salmon in the Klamath River on which many different tribes rely.

While the government's experiment with desert agriculture in the Klamath Basin has exacted immense costs, the benefits have been marginal at best. Farming represents only 6 percent of total employment in Klamath County and income from farming and agricultural services provides just 1 percent of the county's total personal income.

Moreover, agriculture receives taxpayer subsidies at every stage of the process, from federal price supports for crops to heavily subsidized irrigation water. Even so, agriculture in the basin has struggled: Last year, part of the Klamath Basin potato crop was plowed back into the ground because there was no market for it.

The Endangered Species Act didn't create the problem in the Klamath Basin. Rather, it is a warning, a ?miner's canary,? indicating that we have created an unsustainable ecological Frankenstein: The basin is on the edge of collapse.

Politicians and others who have long disliked the ESA see this tragedy as an opportunity to attack the act. They are cynically using the farmers' plight as a tool for their own purposes. But ?fixing? the basin's irrigation crisis by amending the ESA is like trying to put out a five-alarm fire by pulling the batteries out of the fire alarm.

We must say no to this ?quick fix? and work together to find a balanced, long-term solution to the water fight in the Klamath Basin, one that protects all of the people involved, farmers, fishermen and Indian tribes alike.

Elizabeth Furse is a former congresswoman from Oregon's 1st District (1993-1999). She is currently on the staff of the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University, Portland.

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), August 02, 2001.

Ahhhhh... the rural cleansing topic on one of the goat lists i am on mentioned the Kalmuth basin (sp?) issue. Really thought provoking stuff there.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

While we are on the topic.... saw this interesting tidbit on msn news about drilling in the artic. heres the link.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/606922.asp?pne=msn

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

when you use force to take what belongs to someone else that is robbery. who does it and why does not make the victim feel any less miserable. simply put the ends DOES NOT justify the means. for perspective, it WOULD NOT be morally right for me to put a gun to your head and take your calf (kid,lamb,dog or whatever). if i wear a badge and feed the animal to some welfare cheat, i am not any less wrong.

-- Pops (cindy556@devil-dog.com), August 03, 2001.