I will share this with friends.
Alan
I submitted the following response to the Capital Press.
Bob Rawson
With regard to the Commentary made by Don Curlee in The Capital Press – 1/09/09 titled: “California salmon deal fishy” I have this response.
Mr. Curlee’s article is an empty condemnation of environmentalists who dare to put their concerns about the collapsing fisheries of the world ahead of the short term profits of his rich friends. Perhaps they need those profits to fly to Alaska where there are still fish to catch?
His attacks on such environmentalists’ amount to simplistic character assassinate and guilt by association which he uses as a substitute for facts. He presents no foundation or examples of environmental excesses to support his disdain for environmental protection. Instead he uses trigger words repeated over and over by his ilk to elicit an emotional appeal directed at a preconditioned audience.
Restoration of fishery habitat isn’t about making salmon happy. It is about sustaining our lives and the web of life we depend upon to exist on this planet. Curlee appears to be just one more media lackey hired to carry water for the greedy, if I may borrow a trick from his play book and character assassinate him back. I can do this because unlike him I have facts and values on my side and he has ignorance and greed on his. In point of fact, 90 percent of the large marine species of fish that we rely upon for our food are gone.
For example the Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna are about to blink off the screen. Our West Coast Salmon fishery as a food source was, and is, a public trust that belongs to all of the people of the world, not just Mr. Curlee’s rich fishing buddies. The fish have gone the way of the forest the wilds and the commons. Their survival habitat has been privatized, exploited and ruined in order to maximum short term marginal profit and concentrate public wealth in private hands. When the agricultural crops described by Mr. Curlee have been reduced to 10 percent of their baseline levels instead of annually increasing and expanding in acreage, then his position might be on an even footing with the plight of fish that he ridicules.
Mr. Curlee’s clients are selfishly seeking to maximize their profits at the expense of saving the remaining stocks of these valuable sources of “real food”. Just who is doing the frolicking here? I’m sure Mr. Curlee’s hunting and fishing buddies can afford to fly to Alaska and kill something. That is rich people frolicking. That is not sustainable or economical gathering of “real food”.
What his article amounts to is a further extension of a greedy, short sighted and self centered world view.
Bob Rawson
Regarding Capital Press – Big AG Commentary: California salmon deal fishy
I have been accused of having outdated fuzzy logic before, but now this guy…wow!
Sincerely yer radical fish worshipping enviro Terra-ist,
Brock
Commentary: California salmon deal fishy The Capital Press – 1/09/09 By Don Curlee
The fishermen and hunters I know don’t always get their game, but they seem to know where to find it. Oregon and Alaska are popular destinations to find salmon.
Makes me wonder why some folks propose spending millions to bring salmon to the fishermen of the San Joaquin Valley.
What kind of convoluted reasoning supports spending hundreds of millions in federal tax money and stealing millions of acre feet of agricultural water to restore a river that has been dry for 60 years just so salmon can frolic in it?
This is the scenario on the table in a bill before Congress. The version omits the $500 million in federal funding proposed originally, putting even more of a burden on farmers and private enterprise.
At one point the proposal included an even exchange of new water for the amount released down the San Joaquin River. That suggestion also has been withdrawn.
People who discuss the issue point to the decision by Fresno Judge Oliver Wanger ordering implementation of the plan. The judgment was based on environmental law and precedents. Water purveyors who disburse water for farm use saw the congressional proposal as the least intrusive of several proposals.
The predicament underscores the awesome power that environmentalists and fish worshipers have achieved. They seem to dictate the costliest, most unreasonable actions based on the flimsiest evidence. They’ve been doing it for 50 years, and they seem to gain momentum with each decision made by helpless judges and intimidated legislators.
Much of what passes for environmental law began with noisy and possibly baseless demonstrations by environmentalists with nothing better to do. A study of the progression of environmental law is likely to reveal that many cases made by the environmentalists have been hollow and misdirected, even destructive.
The San Joaquin River fiasco might be another of those off-center actions. The 319-foot-tall Friant Dam near Fresno prevents the salmon from swimming farther upstream to spawn. To be attractive to the fish, major refurbishing of the area below the dam will be required.
Reports have indicated that the water behind the dam is too warm to encourage the envisioned salmon migration from the Delta. Environmentalist support for the plan ignores or discounts this scientific finding.
Isn’t it time to recognize that radical environmentalism has run amok? Isn’t it gaining control of every aspect of our lives? Perhaps the environmental movement didn’t begin with that goal. Perhaps the movement has been hijacked by political manipulators seeking change at all cost.
From an agricultural perspective it is obvious that each new environmentally inspired regulation or proclamation tightens the vise on opportunity. Do we want water for fish to find their way to the base of Friant Dam, or do we want water for the production of food to feed ourselves and others?
What hunters, fishermen and society in general need to find is some reality. While the search might take them beyond the banks of the San Joaquin River, they can bring reality home for dinner without buying a hunting or fishing license. Such a deal.