Free Republic

California, Oregon and the federal government are working on a way around congressional barriers to the removal of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The states, the U.S. Interior Department and the owner of the dams, PacifiCorp, announced Tuesday that they have agreed in principle to pursue removal through the federal dam relicensing process. The move comes after a complex deal to decommission four hydroelectric dams and restore portions of the historic salmon river fell apart when Congress failed to act on a crucial piece of the pact by a Dec. 31 deadline. Republican members of Congress and local elected...

Agenda 21 is alive and well in Klamath County, Oregon. Klamath Basin farmers are feeling the wrath of the Klamath Tribes in collusion with the Federal and Oregon state governments. Water is now basically off limits to ranchers unless they get approval from the tribes, and approvals are few and far between. ... The success of this plan spells disaster for not only the Klamath Basin family farmers, but for all family farmers, as it will be a precedent. Without locally grown produce and animal feed, we will be even more dependent on imported food at a much higher price....

A judge has ruled that coho salmon have been illegally listed as an endangered species, a victory that comes too late for the farmers of the Klamath River Basin and the families of four young firefighters. In the spring of 2001, the government ordered irrigation water cut off to 1,400 farms in southern Oregon and northern California to save suckerfish and salmon... [snip] Last week, federal judge Michael Hogan agreed with the Pacific Legal Foundation that the government violated the ESA when it failed to include hatchery fish in its assessment of the coho’s status. ...the Klamath community was practically...

On September 4, 2003, Judge Robert E. Jones of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon released an opinion ordering the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to reconsider its denial of a petition filed by several Klamath Basin residents to remove two species of suckerfish from the list of endangered species. Walt Moden, Merle Carpenter, Charles Whitlatch, John Bair, Tiffany Baldock and Dale Cross had filed a petition to remove the fish from the endangered species list on October 19, 2001. The petition was based on the testimony of former FWS biologist David Vogel, who told...

Counties hit ruling on Trinity RiverPublished: February 18, 2003 By Laura Brown Triplicate staff writer Del Norte and Humboldt counties are asking Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to appeal a judge's decision that could pose harm to Trinity and Klamath River fish. "It's a fiasco. These judges are next to God when it comes to making these decisions," said David Finigan, chairman of the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors. In identical letters, the neighboring counties ask Norton to appeal Judge Oliver Wanger's December ruling that fragmented a decision promising to return 47 percent of the Trinity River's flow....

Trinity County will support Klamath River suit By John Driscoll The Times-Standard Trinity County will join with Humboldt and Del Norte counties and other cities as a friend of the court in a lawsuit being waged against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation over the bureau's Klamath River operations. The Trinity County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 on Tuesday to support the lawsuit pressed by fishing and environmental groups. The lawsuit claims the bureau's operations violate the Endangered Species Act, and was refiled shortly after 33,000 salmon died on the Klamath River. About half of those fish were bound for the...

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) - Displaying dead and decaying salmon, members of a downstream Klamath River tribe demonstrated Friday against the federal government's decision to cut back on emergency water flows in the river. Two pickups carrying counterprotesters drove by the rally. Someone in one of the trucks yelled, ``You guys poisoned the fish ... you guys poisoned the fish.'' The Bureau of Reclamation authorized an emergency, two-week pulse of water on Sept. 27 after up to 30,000 adult chinook salmon died in the lower Klamath River. The emergency release from the Upper Klamath Lake will end Saturday to leave...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has denied petitions to end Endangered Species Act protection for two sucker fish that triggered irrigation shutoffs in the Klamath Basin last summer. Officials said Tuesday that protection is still warranted for Lost River and shortnosed suckers, and the petitions to remove them from listing contained "no substantial information" that had not been considered in an earlier review. The initial petition was filed by Interactive Citizens United, a private property rights group, and Richard Gierak, a member of the group's board of directors from Yreka, Calif. "All the scientific...

04/25/02 Commercial salmon fishermen and environmental groups filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., to make federal water managers in the Klamath Basin release more water into the Klamath River for salmon. The groups said the action, if successful, would not severely affect the amount of water available to farmers in the Klamath Project. Many of the farmers went without water last year because of federal Endangered Species Act restrictions. But Dan Keppen of the Klamath Water Users Association said farmers are concerned that a court injunction in the case could limit water to farms and set...

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." Thomas Jefferson. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6 "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington. "The First Rule of Cheating is - - Don't Get Caught." Well, what happens when Green militants invade government, bend official policy to promote Gaia paganism, use government money and police power to enforce green corruption, hide their agenda from the public through media complicity, and then get caught?...