Posted on 12/13/2001 9:54:57 AM PST by farmfriend
Granges File Suit To Delist Coho Salmon
"We will wait no longer. The time to sue is now!", declared Leo T. Bergeron, Master (President) of the California State Grange, in announcing the intention of the California State Grange to join with the Oregon State Grange, the Greenhorn Grange of Yreka, California, and the Jackson County Pomona Grange of Oregon to file suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Department of Commerce (DofC) to de-list the Coho Salmon in Northern California and Southern Oregon. At their recent National Convention, the National Grange voted to support the Western Granges in this suit.
The action comes on the heels of the recent decision in Oregon by the Federal Court to de-list the Oregon Coastal Coho Salmon. The court called the listing arbitrary and capricious and without scientific merit. The case was argued and won by the Pacific Legal Foundation, who is also representing the Grange in this suit.
The filing is in response to the listing of Coho Salmon as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The listing has forced over 1,400 farms to be without water. The domino effect of this action spelled economic disaster in the Klamath Basin through unemployment, loss of property values, and loss of business in this agriculture-dependent area. In addition, thousands of acres of wildlife refuge which hosts more than 430 species, including the ESA-listed Bald Eagle, is also threatened.
One of the major reforms sought by the Grange is the use of peer-reviewed, verifiable science in the making of regulatory law.
The Grange is the oldest grassroots property-rights organization in the country. Founded in 1867, Grangers fought for property rights and against monopolies, and were a powerful legislative force with advocates in Washington, D.C.. and in 38 or the states.
"Rampant regulatory laws being imposed upon citizens by the utilization of junk science' in the application of the Endangered Species Act has awakened a sleeping giant," said Bergeron, who was instrumental in forming the four-state Grange coalition. "We can look forward in this new Millennium to seeing a revitalization of Granges across the nation to fight for government accountability as to the effects its regulations has on the citizens it governs. "
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Note to editors: Complete information on the lawsuit can be obtained from Russell Brooks of the Pacific Legal Foundation, (425) 576-0484. The Greenhorn Grange has set up a dedicated fund to help defray the cost of this lawsuit. Donations may be made to Greenhorn Grange Coho Fund, 300 Ranch Lane, Yreka CA 96097.
Great news!
Go here for :
Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought.I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my sanction was its only power. I saw that evil was impotent that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it.
Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on my self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan so throughout the world and throughout mens history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectives countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values the impotence of death.
I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was "No".
--Ayn Rand, Galts Speech, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
[all one paragraph in the original]
Guess I'll have to read the article ;)
When you see that trading is done,
not by consent, but by compulsion
When you see that in order to produce,
you need permission from men who produce nothing
When you see that money is flowing
to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors
When you see that men get richer
by graft and pull than by hard work, and your laws
don't protect you against them, but protest them against you
When you see corruption being rewarded
and honesty becoming self-sacrifice
You may know your society is doomed.
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
It is not well known that the Iron Gate hatchery fish on the Klamath were not even considered part of the SONCC coho ESU that was listed. We allege the "natural spawners" in the mid-Klamath are all progeny of this hatchery stock, yet they are listed. To make it even weirder, the Trinity River stock WAS included in the ESU and it was also the source of Iron Gate broodstock. The Trinity got its stock from the Columbia. The natural spawners in the Trinity are considered offspring of the Trinity hatchery fish. Although both are in the same ESU, only the "natural spawners" are listed.
I personally think Leo is not being realistic to think that scientific scrutiny would fix this. The scientific "experts" are where this all came from. They are so theoretical and removed from reality, that they will only verify that this garbage is good science. (They already did that with the Upper Basin biological opinion
These academic biologists have done so much to destroy all credibility in holding science as a discipline that will provide a verifiable body of facts upon which to base decisions. They should hang their heads in shame.
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