Posted on 04/20/2006 8:15:28 PM PDT by Marius3188
COLUMBIA, Mo. - Awash with wildlife and native plants but devoid of cars, tract houses and other signs of modern life, the section of the Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge near the historic Missouri River town of Arrow Rock in many ways resembles the route traversed by explorers Lewis and Clark more than two centuries ago.
The refuge's Jameson Island unit is a landscape that former Arizona governor and federal Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt envisions duplicating along the rest of the river's 350 winding miles from St. Louis to Kansas City - a plan sure to raise the hackles of farmers, barge operators and eminent domain-bashing politicians.
"It's a demonstration of what can take place all along this river," Babbitt said Thursday night at a University of Missouri-Columbia lecture held in conjunction with Earth Day, which is Saturday. "The river was left to do its natural job of restoration."
As interior secretary under President Bill Clinton, Babbitt helped designate a section of the upper Missouri River in Montana a national monument. After leaving office in 2000, he pitched the national park idea without success several years ago.
This time, he said, the push for a federal landmark in Missouri must emerge from the grass roots, not unlike the successful efforts that led to similar designations a century ago at Colorado's Mesa Verde and the Florida Everglades.
Removing the Missouri River's intricate system of manmade levees would not only protect and restore wildlife, but also increase tourism while giving the state a national identity it now lacks, Babbitt told an estimated crowd of 100 people.
"Millions of people cross this thing without any idea of what's here, and of the grandeur that could be restored," he said.
What little barge traffic remains is not worth the cost of further neglecting the Missouri River as a natural and cultural resource, said Babbitt.
No one in the audience disagreed. But David Humphreys, a Jackson, Miss., attorney for barge operator Magnolia Marine Transport Co., called the proposal troubling.
"To the extent that it would impair navigation further than the U.S. government already does, then of course we'd be opposed to it," he said before Babbitt's appearance in Columbia. Babbitt spoke earlier Thursday in St. Louis.
Babbitt acknowledged several hurdles to his proposal, including the loss of up to 300,000 acres of fertile farmland in the river bottoms and flood plains.
He suggested the federal government would be able to find enough willing sellers of land to patch together a national preserve, invoking the creation of the Big Muddy refuge after landowners voluntarily sold their property following the devastating 1993 floods.
Some in attendance were less certain. Eric Butler, a geologist who recently worked as a contractor at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, said residents there still resent the way authorities gobbled up land for the park in the 1930s from unwilling property owners.
"To this day, 70 years later, there's a great deal of resentment toward the park and the federal government," Butler told Babbitt.
Babbitt, now a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and author of a new book that promotes the Missouri River plan and other conservation measures, reiterated his belief that the government would not have to resort to legal measures to acquire land in the proposed park's path.
"You rule out the use of eminent domain - period," he said. "It's off the table. It's not necessary.
"This is not something likely to happen next week or next year, or maybe in five or even 10 years," he added. "But ideas have power. And once they're in circulation, the unanticipated or unexpected become possible."
"You rule out the use of eminent domain - period," he said. "It's off the table. It's not necessary.
"This is not something likely to happen next week or next year, or maybe in five or even 10 years," he added. "But ideas have power. And once they're in circulation, the unanticipated or unexpected become possible."
Yeah..Sure.. Check out www.landrights.org
But, given the political power to do so, the enviro-wacko lobby wouldn't hesitate to do "whatever is necessary".
But, given the political power to do so, the enviro-wacko lobby wouldn't hesitate to do "whatever is necessary".
Count on it happening the next time we have a Democrat presidency.
Of course Babbit only sees good coming from this, so he won't list any bad effects on the local population, nor how this advances the UN agend of create development-free, human-free, "bio-corridors", with the goal of forcing (er, encouraging) all humans to live only in designated areas.
Reserve and Corridos, Buffer Zones, Normal Use Zones. Wildlife Corridors, etc.
If there are any doubts, just google "yellowstone park buffer zones", where human activity was restricted in order to "preserve" the "precious" nature of the park.
Or Google "Man and the Biosphere" and "hereitage corridors".
see: http://www.americanpolicy.org/prop/greenpacman.htm
The US government presently owns over half the land east of the Mississippi River. Putting aside how the Founding Fathers never envisioned a condition where government would use the power to tax to tax away the very land from underneath the citizen, how much land is enough?
To Socialists and Do-Gooders, there is always a plausable reason for takign just a few more a acres.
In fact, we ought to be calling for the US Government to put up all but the most vital lands for auction and use to proceeds to retire federal debt from the Chinese.
You can say that again. Leave us alone. Go meddle in the affairs of some blue state. Missouri is among the last bastions of free America left.
I can still invision boys running around the MO river with fishing poles and squirrel dogs with a 22 rifle..ohh..being young..
Sounds nice. Can we drill for oil there? :)
This is reality outside of Saint Louis and KC proper throughout the state. There is a large pond in my subdivision (of 1+ acre lots) that one of the residents stocked to get rid of the growth. It wasn't but days later that two boys were out there with fishing poles...
Yep and when it become a National Park there will be no hunting or firearms.
Of course, you probably knew that already.
check it out :
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/BigMuddy/
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