We the People

Pioneer Press

Fort Jones , CA

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

page W11, column 5

pioneerp@sisqtel.net

To the Editor:

The dam removal issue is not about the dams. Nor is it about the algae. It is especially not about the salmon. It is about the taking of land from you and me.

The Karuk, the Yurok, ESA, Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, and the other environmentalist groups have banded together and decided, each for their own reasons, that they don't want We the People living up here in Northern California . They want us only to live on two rather small "reservations" in the state. One being in the north and one in the south part of the state. All else they want to be "wilderness" areas or limited access to same.

First they took away our abilities to make a living here. Enter ESA. Enter spotted own. Exit timber industry.

Not all of us left. Enter Karuk and Yurok tribes with crocodile tears and their oh so sad stories of the declining salmon in the Klamath River . Exit four dams on same. They plan.
Former President Clinton listened to these enviro-nuts and made thousands of acres of prime timber land Wilderness Areas. It looks like the only thing that did was provide a large fire training area.

The Nature Conservancy buys up thousands of acres and they make the land off limits to We the People. Plus they get a heft tax break on the property which hurts our county even more.

The federal government, against any state and county constitutional rights, is maneuvering to take away our right to our rivers by claiming they have jurisdiction over navigable waters now and even more as they try to gain jurisdiction over all waters that run through any federal lands.

The U.S. Forest Service is putting locked gates across our roadways and trails to keep We the People out of wilderness areas.

If these four dams do in fact come ut, We the People will be royally screwed with nary a kiss.

Margo L. Perryman,
Edgewood

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