Another nail in the coffin

[BuzzH]

Paul,

You must be rapidly approaching age 50...

Please provide ANY data from ANY source that will refute a single thing in that article. For starters, there would still be some power produced at the dams even with breaching, and we dont need to start a nuclear reactor to compensate for the loss in electricity....do some research with Ringer.

Ringer said, "Are wild fish in substantial numbers below the Snake dams?"

Yes, check out the wild fish numbers in the Hanford Reach....about the last portion of free-flowing river.

 

[ringer]

OK Buzz, I give up. Let the breaching begin.

 

[BigHornRam]

Marv,

I'm with you. I'd like to find electricity at 1.87 cents per kilowatt. Would pay for a life time of sheep hunts in short order! But Buzz's source says it's out there at that price, so how can it not be true?

 

[BigHornRam]

Here's MattK's response to my question reguarding where his priority for cheap food is.

"On my list right above military spending"

That is a excellent stratagy there Matt. High food prices and weak national defense is a sure fire winning combo for the left. I recommend you embrace this idea and promote it to it's full potential!

 

[MattK]

BHR- Right now I can justify subsidies to farmers far more than I can justify the spending going on in Iraq to "hold the peace". Also, there is a great waste in military spending. It's one area money is not accounted for at all. If I ran my books as the military did, I would be fired. I'm not against the military or military spending just the waste. If I could justify the spending by saying our troups were getting the best machinery, great. Rumsfield wasn't even able to say that.

As far as subsidized farming, I've never said I was against it. I am against the farmers abusing public land.

 

[Nemont]

I am against the farmers abusing public land.

MattK,
Just a note. Hardly anyone farms public land. Some state sections get farmed but very few. So that statement may show how far removed from agriculture you might be.

Nemont

 

[MattK]

Nemont- I used "farmer" as a general term. I probably meant "agricultural user". That statement goes more toward ranchers. Farmers are subsidized in other ways. I really didn't mean to put a hidden meaning in.

 

[Nemont]

MattK,

I wasn't looking at a hidden meaning I was just pointing out that farming generally doesn't take place on public lands.

Nemont

 

[JoseCuervo]

Kind of funny how the Fishing Industry is all for Breaching, but we should somehow care more about some grain farmers on the Palouse and a couple of Corporate farms that pump water for money losing apple orchards?

Fishing groups plan legal fight in dam decision
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
The Bush administration's recent conclusion that dams pose no threat of driving endangered salmon extinct is facing a federal court challenge by conservation and fishing groups.

Opponents, including the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, assert that the policy set by the National Marine Fisheries Service fails to protect and restore salmon and steelhead as required by the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit, to be filed in 60 days, is part of the groups' larger effort to have four dams removed on the lower Snake River in order to restore once-abundant fish stocks.

Bush administration officials have dismissed dam removal from consideration, arguing that the Endangered Species Act authorizes the fisheries service to consider only how the dams will be operated, not whether they should exist.

U.S. District Judge James Redden, presiding over the ongoing legal battle of the dams, raised several questions about the legal and scientific footing for the government's position earlier this year.

"I am concerned," he said, "about whether or not there is a train wreck in our future."

 

[JoseCuervo]

Oregon Governor's State of the State Speech...

Governor blasts federal salmon efforts

GRANTS PASS - Gov. Ted Kulongoski demanded Monday the Bush administration commit to restoring Northwest salmon in its plan for operating Columbia Basin hydroelectric dams.

"As governor, I will not sit by while the federal government attempts to dismantle our environmental legacy, undermine our values and erode our sovereignty," Kulongoski said in his State of the State address in Salem. "The time has come to draw a line and say enough! That's what I intend to do starting with the federal government's 2004 Biological Opinion for the Columbia River Power System."

Kulongoski warned that he is willing to join a lawsuit brought by environmental and fishing groups over the biological opinion, which is the federal government's blueprint for balancing salmon against federally operated dams in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

"This is in Oregon's long-term economic interest because the sooner salmon gets back up to abundant levels, the greater the opportunity to avoid restrictions imposed on our economy by state and federal law," Kulongoski said.

Kulongoski supports plans to install fish slides on major dams to help young salmon migrating to the ocean avoid deadly turbines, but also feels much of the federal money spent on salmon could be allocated for better projects, said Jim Myron, environmental adviser to the governor.

Myron said the governor's position was laid out in a meeting last week with the federal agencies responsible for the dams. The governor has until early February to decide whether to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff.

The biological opinion is a document produced by NOAA Fisheries to assure that the dams do not harm 14 species of salmon and steelhead protected by the Endangered Species Act.

A federal judge declared the 2000 version illegal. The changes offered by the Bush administration last fall jettisoned a movement toward restoring the Columbia and Snake rivers to a more natural condition, and embraced the eight major dams as part of the landscape that could not be removed.

NOAA Fisheries spokesman Brian Gorman said the federal government remains committed to salmon recovery, but the biological opinion only determines whether dam operations harm protected salmon. A draft salmon recovery plan will be issued later this year.

The governor's position was welcomed by salmon advocates, but criticized by Senate Republican leader Sen. Ted Ferrioli as a drag on Bush administration efforts to create new jobs, especially in rural communities.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Good for Gov. Kulongoski! I hope he raises hell!