ND
Farmer Just Keeps Filling the Potholes
Alvin Peterson
never liked the deal his father made with the government forty
years ago. Peterson claims the government tricked his dying
father into granting it conservation easements on his farm. “They’ve
done this in a sneaky way – you’d think you were
living in Russia,” Peterson said. “I’ve
had trouble with them ever since they stole this land from my
father.” But Peterson, now 78 years old, has been
giving the government heartburn for decades, as well. He
is constantly clearing the waterways that feed the prairie potholes,
explaining; “I didn’t make the waterways, the good
Lord did.” Fish and Wildlife theorizes the protected
potholes will attract waterfowl, but Peterson disputes that idea. “Those
wetlands, the ducks can’t survive there. They’re
so full of cattails, there is no place for them [the ducks] to
breathe and no place for them to land.” The feds
aren’t throwing in the towel though. They charged
him with illegally emptying wetlands and he was convicted last
month, the second time in four years. He faces up to a
year in prison and a $10,000 fine, although Assistant U. S. Attorney
Cameron Hayden said he won’t request jail time. Peterson
was first convicted of pothole crimes in 2004, sentenced in 2005
to two years probation and a $4,000 fine. As soon as his
probation ended, Peterson was back at work, draining the potholes
again. Then, federal wildlife agents entered his property
under protection of armed U. S. marshals and filled in a waterway
to re-establish the potholes. Peterson says the bodyguards
were unnecessary. “I’d never hurt a Fish and
Wildlife man,” he said. “They suffer by living.” Lloyd
Jones, the Dakota’s refuge manager, said the government
began buying conservation easements in 1958 and has spent $60
million to control some 1.5 million acres in the upper Midwest. Although
the program has not always been trouble free, disputes are generally
worked out. “Ninety-nine percent can be worked out,” he
said. “Alvin would be the 1 percent.”
Bush
Administration Changes the Rules
The Bush administration
has environmentalists howling, again, due to last-minute changes
to federal rules. New rules will speed oil shale development
by 2 million acres in the West. There will be an auction
for drilling rights near three national parks, changes to the
Endangered Species Act, and an exemption for large farms regarding
air pollution reporting. It is hardly unprecedented as
the outgoing administration tries to put rules in place that
the new administration wouldn’t go for. One of the
more controversial rule changes involves the Endangered Species
Act. The changes, which environmentalists view as significant,
would eliminate the requirement to conduct an independent review
by either the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of any federal project
that could affect a protected species. The rule states: “Federal
agencies are not required to consult on an action when ... the
effects of such action are manifested only through global processes
and (i) cannot be reliably predicted or measured at the local
scale, or (ii) would result at most in an extremely small, insignificant
local impact, or (iii) are such that the potential risk of harm
to species or habitat are remote.” Environmental
groups’ lawsuits forced the federal government to list
the polar bear as threatened because of claims global warming
is causing their ice-floes to melt. Interior Secretary
Dirk Kempthorne cautioned it should not be an excuse to regulate “greenhouse
gas” emissions, however. John Kostyak of the National Wildlife
Federation views the rule change with a jaundiced eye. “The
agencies that are pushing these projects through are inherently
biased…[and] they don’t like delays associated with
endangered species,” he said.
Klamath
Dams May Fall
The Bush administration
is backing a plan to breach four dams on the Klamath River in
Oregon and California, marking a 180 degree change from its previous
position. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said, “We
had our directive from the president to find a collaborative
solution so we don’t keep pitting people against each other.” The
Klamath plan is supposed to help salmon recovery while allowing
irrigators enough water to continue farming, although details
are lacking on that front. Proponents think the time is
right to resolve the issue of fish versus farmers with the election
of Republican senator James Risch of Idaho and Senator-elect
Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, who beat Oregon’s Republican
Gordon Smith in November. “Never before has there
been a better time to create a regional forum so people of the
Northwest can directly influence how to recover the upriver stocks
[of salmon] while making the affected communities whole,” said
Chris Wood, of Trout Unlimited. However, Norm Semanko,
of the Idaho Coalition for Water, says Risch will do right by
his constituents, who represent business, agriculture and statewide
local governments. “You’ve got someone (Risch)
with a proven interest and understanding of the issue,” Semanko
said. At present, the discussion focuses on Klamath River
dams, but the Snake and Columbia Rivers are sure to soon enter
into the picture. Secretary Kempthorne was reluctant to
compare the Snake and Columbia to the Klamath situation. “We
have to evaluate each situation on a case by case basis,’ he
said.
California
Loses Trout to Save Frogs
The Center
for Biological Diversity (CBD) has scored another win and California
sportsmen lose, big time. The California Department of
Fish and Game (DFG) reached a settlement with the litigious group
by agreeing to stop stocking trout in 175 lakes and streams in
California. The ban takes effect immediately. CBD
and the Pacific Rivers Council sued the DFG in October 2006,
charging the agency should be required to complete an Environmental
Impact Statement for each lake or stream before it could plant
trout in any of them. DFG decided to negotiate rather than
lose access to all the lakes and streams. “We actually
were pleased with the negotiations,” said Jordan Traverso,
DFG deputy director. “When we got into court
November 7, we were told to work something out or stop the plants.” State
and federal biologists agree that the ban on trout plants will
have no affect on frog and tadpole populations. To illustrate
how ridiculous the no-trout mandate is, sportsman, Tom Stienstra,
reported that all the trout were netted out of a wilderness lake
in the Humphrey Basin as a test, and killed to protect the frogs. The
next year all the frogs died, killed by a chitrid fungus. Regarding
the frog deaths, Roland Knapp of the Sierra Nevada Research Laboratory
said, “It’s a mystery and we don’t know who
the real bad guy is.” Stienstra writes the CBD lawsuit
will having a chilling effect on other sports. “The
success of this lawsuit by environmental factions should throw
a scare into all who fish or hunt. With the same premise,
that an EIR is required before fish are stocked or hunting is
permitted, a similar lawsuit could shut down virtually any fishing
or hunting program.” And, as they say, what starts
in California will spread to the rest of the nation sooner than
later.
