Tuesday, April 13, 2010

National Monuments, Continued

National memos really put the citizens of the proposed areas, on edge.

The following was a comment from a different part of the country.

"I live within the boundaries of the proposed Siskiyou Crest NM The local
fears are both palatable and hysterical. I received this email yesterday:

'Steve Fisher tells me that there will be a community meeting at the
Community Center this Wednesday at 6:00 p. m. on this subject.

I didn’t speak at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting because I
am far from understanding all that is involved in the creation and the
administration of national monuments. At the basic level I don’t
understand how such conduct by government can be tolerated in a democracy.

I could speak about how leaving an area alone diminishes the production
of forest products, water quality and quantity, wildlife habitat, plant and
animal diversity, aesthetics, recreation, and salmon populations, but
everyone in the room was well aware of this.

What I have recently read of recent of similar takings of public and
private resources for the environmental movement frightens me to the
extreme. In the recent past the Environmental Industry has taken over
millions of acres of the West in a manner that appears to me to be a blatant
violation of the very basic philosophy of democracy. Just the very lack of
logic in using the Antiquities Act for the environmentalists’ acquisition
of all this land is alarming, but I understand that such action has been
upheld numerous times in the federal court system.

Once the National Park Service takes control of the public lands
designated as a national monument their people start acting like criminal
street gangs. There is a concerted effort to remove all the private land in
and around the monument. This is a blatant effort, supported by your tax
money, to drive all human activity from the area. They not only rescind all
the grazing rights, but they remove all the water rights families have had
for generations. Most land management even on the private land is stopped
because it threatens the national monument.

The National Park Service has been able to rescind all contracts held by
private citizens prior to their acquisition of this land. No, I don’t
understand how this is legally possible. Should the Klamath Siskiyou
Wildland Center succeed in getting the president to sign a document creating
the Siskiyou Crest National Monument, I see all the grazing rights
terminated, all mining stopped, all land management and fire control
stopped, and very important in our area, all the co-op roads closed to use.
Can you imagine what will happen to the value of private land within the
monument once access is removed? This allows government to acquire private
land on the cheep!

From what they are saying in their email, the Klamath Siskiyou Wildland
Center feels that they are so righteous that they will tell the Department
of the Interior what to do on their national monument. They speak of
removing all the logging roads. Well, all the presently used roads were
constructed to access timber. Closing roads not only denies access by the
public, it also prevents prompt response by firefighters. This will insure
that there are no small fires. Despite what the Wildland Center says, these
fires do great harm to the environment. In the short term the amount of
surface erosion goes way up putting silt in the creek beds. This render it
impossible for salmon to spawn. Wildlife cover is greatly reduced to their
detriment. In the longer term, brush invades the site and reduces the
diversity that the environmentalists so cherish. The environmentalists say
that the conifer forest will return, but I suggest that they look at the
Haystack Fire of 1955. Water yield goes up after a fire, but water retention
is reduced significantly. All the water leaves during and shortly after the
rain storm. Water quality is obviously reduced by all the suspended silt
created by the erosion. Recreation: I don’t know of any group or
individuals that go partying in a burn.

This is all part of a world-wide program whereby urban cultures take over
rural cultures. In 1962 there were about 1,000 officially ‘protected’
areas worldwide. Today there are 108,000, with more being added daily. The
total area of land now under ‘conservation’ protection has doubled since
1990, when the World Parks Commission set a goal of 10 percent of the
planet’s surface. That goal has been exceeded as over 12 percent of all
land — a total area of 11.75 million square miles — is now under
‘conservation’ protection. That’s more than 7½ billion acres!

Contrary to what the environmentalists say, this is very detrimental to
the land and to the planet. We aren’t going to deter this program with only a resolution by our Board of Supervisors. But what we can do to thwart this deleterious
philosophy is far far beyond me.'"

Let's keep talking, folks!

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