Guest Opinion

By Nita Still, Montague

Pioneer Press

Fort Jones , CA

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

page E11, column 1

pioneerp@sisqtel.net

The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement is only an agreement between the Wildlanders, who are the NGOs or Non-governmental Organizations, and all of the departments of interior plus NOAA and a few others. Very few of the population of Siskiyou and Southern Oregon knew of this "agreement" for the two years they were working on it. This was done illegally and there were many who should have participated in this and then put it on the ballot. They used lawyers from the federal government. If this is not a conspiracy, I do not know what you would call it. It is an illegal and very selfish document. If they are allowed to do this, all the dams in California will be removed. I have a paper by the "Friends of the River," that shows all the dams they want removed.

There is historical proof;

1. That the salmon never swam past Iron Gate , they needed the spawning gravel and there was none past Iron Gate . Coho salmon never came up this way. Most of the salmon, by the time they arrived were tattered and torn and the skin was mushy. This was told to me by a Shasta Indian.

2. The Shasta Indians want to keep the dams. The Shasta Indians, historically, lived in the area of the four dams these group of 26 want to remove. The Shasta Indians were never invited to this two-year "agreement" between the Karuk and the Wildlander obstructionists. (Most Karuks were never informed about this "agreement." If they disagree with it, they should speak up.)

3. The Klamath Tribes went to the mouth of the Shasta River , where it enters into the Klamath, to catch their salmon.

Now here are some other bills that are being put upon the American public:

1. S. 912 and H.R. 2421 called the Clean Water Restoration Act, which will put all surface water under federal control.

2. S. 2032 Food and Energy Security Act has a provision for NAIS or National Animal Identification System which has the ranchers, farmers putting chips in all their animals so they can be identified if they get out of their pens and then they can fine the owners.

3. Food, energy and security, when you look at i t, those three words do not really go together, especially security, and what on earth is National Animal Identification System doing in with food? Besides, there is another bill that will put chips in us. That has been passed. This is being done for security, when the majority of us are innocent.

4. S. 493/H.R. 860-CA Wild Heritage Act - Another Barbara Boxer promotion turning our lands into Wilderness for the "Wildlands Project." She is doing this for the sake of our future, to help the economy in rural areas. All these Wildlanders support it because it puts land out of the human population, especially when they add the Buffer Zones, which, more than likely, will be private land.

They say we need to protect the 60 percent of California 's clean drinking water that comes from out wild lands and free-flowing rivers and "Over the last 20 years, nearly 700,000 acres of our unprotected wilderness - an area nearly the size of Yosemite National Park - have been lost." That is a lot of acreage and how was it lost? This bill does not make sense when, as far as I understand, Wilderness and all that is in it cannot be used by humans.

I heard there is also another bill that will cause all truckers, farmers and ranchers who own trucks to spend $10,000 before 2013 and more thousands after that date having to do with air pollution things for motors. The Mexican truckers are not under that law. What will that do to California 's economy of transportation of goods? I guess the school buses and buses in general will have to do that also?

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