Here's a link:
[url]http://www.ar15.com/columns/index.html?column=LIBERTY[/url]

So, what do you guys think?

Somebody need to float a dam buster bomb from upriver and just blow the sucker.

Geez, it's like political pork around here. Everybody's got their pet links.
Liberty, I've read a little bit at the website and seen some coverage. What I want to know is whether the lake is the only breeding ground for that fish. Didn't the Bureau recently open up around 78,000 acre-foot of water? What do the farmers want and what do they really need? I'm trying to understand if there's a common ground that can be reached...take less water, relocate the fish's natural hatchery, something...Is anyone on either side considering compromises? Have the farmers approach Bush? He's not so animal conservation-minded. Are these people too small a group to throw some sort of lobby? Sorry about all the questions, but Klamath is too insignificant for the media. As long as they secretly hope that Condit actually killed Levy, the fields of Klamath could turn into desert before you hear anything else. I'm afraid this is just a "local issue". Me, I'm with the farmers.  

I wouldn't exactly call the Klamath situation political pork. This is shaping up to be the line in the sand drawn against ALL federal land ruining, then grabbing, via the ESA.

The token amount of water sent to the farms is hardly enough to water all of the farms, and it is being sent far too late to salvage any of the growing season. It is merely a media show to try and quiet the national uproar that was begining.

The idea behind this water cut off was to force farmers to sell their land at a price far below what market value would be for productive farmland. The Nature Conservancy has been after the farms for sometime, with little or no luck.

All of sudden there becomes an issue of a suckerfish, and the water gets turned off to save the fish. Fortunately, the farmers were able to rebuke the claim that the sucker is endangered, so another red herring appears. This time it's the coho salmon. The farmers have been able to rebuke that claim as well, so then it became indian fishing rights trumping farm irrigation. Each time the farmers prove that the environmentalists are lying, the enviro nazis come up with another excuse.

The goal is to destroy the land value, so it can be bought up for pennies on the dollar, and returned to it's natural, useless, state, and to force farmers into the city, and into dependency.

Independent producers of food and other necessities are contrary to one world government goal of an entirely dependent lower class. Each time an industry is destroyed, and land grabbed, this country gets smaller, and more dependent on government for support. It has happened to thousands of loggers, ranchers, farmers, and thousand of people who's livelihood depends on loggers, ranchers and farmers.

It's all about control.

Another harmful side effect of the water shut off has been the drying out of a large preserve which receives it's water through the farm irrigation system. It is said that as many as 10,000 bald eagles may perish, and untold thousands of other migratory birds, because the marsh has been dried up. But you won't hear that on the Blather Report either.

I'm not quite sure what to make of that comment.

No. The lake is an artificial lake anyway, so they really shouldn't be there anyway.

Yes, but it is way to little, way too late.

They want recognition that they are more important than some stupid fish. They also want more water.

No common ground. They watermelons want the farmers gone, and the entire area off limits to people.

Its a livelyhood situation. Can't compromise your life away.
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They talked to Norton, she rejected their demands. Bush is pretty green, as he subscribes to a lot of the same beliefs as the grees.

there is about 2,000 of them, but they don't have much money, since they lost this years crops

The media isn't showing it because they agree with the watermelons. If they show the price of their beliefs, there would be a great outcry. Can't have that.

Its not a local issue if the feds are involved.
Its good your with the farmers.

By "pork" I only mean that this particular forum is supposed to be about columns posted at AR-15.com, but folks just seem to like linking other sites' articles. Reminded me of political pork hidden in legislation and was kinda funny to me and had nothing to do with the situation in Klamath. I gotta admit, Liberty, your column got me more interested than the news coverage did.

So here's the thing I don't understand about thev intractability of conservationists sometimes: Often it seems they value the land and the lesser animals above humans, no compromise. I'm a little torn because I do believe in conservation, but we're talking about family farms here, not the governmental gift of the Arctic refuge to the oil companies. Maybe it's because of my line of work, but I can't believe there isn't a solution here. Well, I guess more reading on this, maybe from the Nature Conservancy's side.

"Often it seems they value the land and the lesser animals above humans, no compromise."

So do many Buddists. Maybe not above, but on the same plane as humans.

Yes this is an artificial lake made for irrigation. The sucker fish that they are trying to protect has been a menace in that lake for years. There have been many attempts over the last 30 years to poison the suckerfish from the lake but they just couldn't kill them.

Sounds kind of ironic doesn't it?

I live just one mountain range to the west of all this so it is a very active subject here. I know several farmers from that area and it looks like this season is a bust and they aren't holding much hope for next year. Many are looking for other work, but with the farms doing poorly the whole economy in Klamath Falls is faltering and there are many layoffs right now.