Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
Fighting for Our Right to Irrigate Our Farms and Caretake Our Natural Resources


Extremists who denied water to Klamath farmers now want to protect salmon-killing fish
,
 February 18, 2003

Issue:  Environmental extremists who fear House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo might take steps to reform the Endangered Species Act have now demonstrated why such reform is badly needed.  For two years the extremists sought to deny water to Klamath Basin farmers ‹ and were largely successful ‹ allegedly to protect the Pacific Salmon.  Now that recent court rulings have made the strategy of withholding water to protect salmon highly questionable, many of these same activists, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, have petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to withhold water from Klamath farmers to protect the eel-like fish known as the lamprey.

The problem for the extremists: LAMPREY KILL SALMON.

The lamprey is an invasive species which is, essentially, a giant bloodsucker which attaches itself to adult fish and feeds off their blood, killing them.  In the 1950s lamprey invaded the Great Lakes, wiping out the entire population of sport fish.  Only after years of research did scientists learn to kill the lamprey larvae so an ambitious program of restocking lake trout, salmon and other fish could begin.

Comment 1: Congressman Pombo would be well justified to seek major revisions in the Endangered Species Act.  Obviously, extremists and their allies in the federal government abuse it.

Comment 2: If the extremists who wanted water withheld to allegedly protect salmon now want it withheld to protect a fish which kills salmon, you have to assume that their real motive is to simply deny farmersą water and drive them off the land.

Comment 3: Sound science, not the petitions of extremists or the generally uninformed rulings of courts, should determine whether a species is threatened or endangered and what should be done to protect it.

Comment 4: Environmental extremists demonstrate distorted concern for many species, but seem to care little about American families that they drive from their homes and into poverty.

Tom Randall
Winningreen LLC
3712 N. Broadway ­ PMB 279
Chicago, IL 60613



e-mail: trandall@mishoreline.com
 

 

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