LETTER OF OPPOSITION
Written by: Bill Pickell
February 03, 2012
The Daily World
It didn’t before, it
shouldn’t work now
In the early
’80s the environmentalists came to Washington State thinking they
would save all the last free-flowing rivers on the Olympic Peninsula,
put them under government control, and have then declared “Wild
and Scenic.” They were totally shocked when local Peninsula
residents rejected their anointing and chased them into Oregon, where
they found fertile waters and eventually got government regulatory
control on some 60 rivers.
Since that time our Peninsula
river’s have remained wild and scenic as God created them under
current regulatory law administered by the state, federal government
and private landowners. All those rivers have the highest quality of
water and fish runs that their habitat will provide and have been
disturbed little by man’s activities.
Now cometh the 2012 Wild
Olympics proposal for federal scenic and wild designations led by a
coalition of national environmental groups, with Pew Foundation
funding, Seattle leadership and Congressman Norm Dicks and Sen. Patty
Murray as their standard bearers. While they extol the Peninsula waters
as pristine and wild and scenic they offer no evidence that current
laws and management are insufficient. They just want a political legacy
at the expense of the residents.
Appealing to your emotions, they
conjure up scenarios of new dams to be built and residential
developments on these rivers. Just when was the last dam proposed in
the Olympics or how many developments has the government built on the
Peninsula? There have been no proposals of dams — in fact they
are ripping them out now, and I know of no government developments.
Yet Janet Strong expresses
these same fears of dams and developments in her editorial of Jan 19;
following with “we now have a golden opportunity to get our share
(of wild and scenic rivers) and increase the numbers across
America.” It’s like a competition to her at the
taxpayer’s expense.
Wild and Scenic river
designations within the Park are ridiculous as the park is a wilderness
park and is managed as such — nothing will change. However, on
the National Forest it is a different story as one-quarter mile on each
side of the river will be frozen in time — just as it looks now.
And within the “view-shed” of one-half mile — if it
can be seen from the river, horrible things like logging or road
construction or even campgrounds could not occur. Thousands of acres of
forested lands would be locked up. It is mass preservation on a grand
scale with legislation that is unforgiving. Oh and there is management
money for the miles of rivers designated—from a government that
is now financially destitute.
When the river savers came in the
’80s, they had maps with “wild and scenic” designated
corridors leading from the Park to the sea. Whole rivers, the
Humptulips, Hoh, Wynoochee, Satsop, Quinault, Dungeness, Bogachiel and
the rest of the Olympic rivers were all included, encompassing all the
private lands adjacent to the waters. The land grab was unachievable
then, so now some 30 years later the Wild Olympics reduced their
gluttony a bit — to just 24 rivers — but all on public
lands. Their goal is still to control the river from source to the sea
— it’s just a matter of waiting for the timing. Remember,
he who controls the waterways controls the lands adjacent and the
people thereof.
Just follow land sales and
you’ll see the environmental icons such as the Nature
Conservancy, the Cascade Lands Conservancy (Forterra), the River
Network and others are busy as beavers gobbling up riverside lands then
transferring them, at a profit of course, to a federal or state agency.
Previously taxed private lands become non-taxed government lands
shifting costs to other land owners. With pork-barrel connections such
as Dicks and Murray legislating and financing the river and land grab
it’s a done deal if the taxpayers don’t rebel. After 30
years it’s an opportunity to reject this wild and scenic program
and send the Wild Olympics crew packing.
Bill Pickell
Hoquiam
Wild Olympics Scam thanks Bill for
publishing these great truths in the Grays Harbor Daily World