Posted on 10/05/2002 7:27:41 AM PDT by madfly
No freakin' doubt! If you ask the landowners, I seriously doubt that they will tell you that their rights are being honored by a good faith deal and compensation. The COE is trying to put a friendly face on a land grab and they're running roughshod over the residents in the process.
A group of farmers, miners, and loggers, took to the road with the symbols of a desperate struggle for survival, to educate and support other Americans who face extinction under the Endangered Species Act, only to be labeled as "radicals" by newspapers supporting the environmentalist agenda. These volunteers carry a message of hope, and share hard earned wisdom and experience, an ideology of patriotism and proactive participation in government, a mantra of diligence. Is this radical?
Meet Frank and Peggy Wallace, two of the ten "full ticket" convoy crew members who will travel all the way to Florida with the Klamath Convoy. Married more than 40 years, Frank and Peggy raised a family and built a business which they turned over to their children when they retired. "Frank and I got into this because it already affects our children and grandkids, and soon our great grandchildren," says Peggy, "we are concerned for our family's future."
Then there's Rocky Dippel, an electrician who once owned a mining interest in Alaska. He came to the Klamath Basin in the summer of the water crisis as so many did, to support the farmers' in their fight for property rights. Rocky subscribes to conservative government by the people and for the people. That's pretty radical.
Pat Ratliff is a third generation Klamath farmer who supports himself with photography, these days. When asked why he is on the convoy, he will tell of the experience when armed federal officers stood on the head gate. "They came with guns to take water, in an attempt to force us off our land. That was a real wake up call, I can tell you."
Bill Morris is another citizen of the beleaguered Klamath basin. Bill's family tree is full of wheat farmers. He views infringements on personal property rights by government agencies as criminal actions. "I'd like to know why the federal government does not prosecute these employees and representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife who have been caught giving false testimony and planting imported evidence of non native species. As a citizen, I demand justice and accountability of these individuals and agencies." says Bill.
Bill Ransom is acting wagon master of the convoy. He has close ties to forestry and ranching in addition to other business interests that were all but lost in the water crisis.
Kehn Gibson is a freelance journalist and father of one, a conservationist with a penchant for human interest stories. Kehn, former president of the Scappoose Watershed Council, now resides in Tulelake California.
Finally, we come to yours truly, a visual artist, sometimes writer, mother of one and grandma to four. For my own part, the convoy represents opportunity and challenge. I support equal rights for humans, personal property rights, and the people of the Klamath Basin.
We all share a few basic core principles and beliefs. We believe in justice, in truth, and doing the right thing even when it isn't easy. Now that I think about it, I guess that is a pretty radical notion, these days.
Another long day, we are in Green River, Utah tonight, got in at 11;30 p.m. local time. Peggy Wallace has been saying a short piece at the last two rallies about being a grandmother on this trip because of worries about her grandkids' future, and each time the crowd goes nuts for her. Tonight's rally in Provo went well, bluegrass music and food concessions. Check out what the Utah legislators said in their remarks this morning! Talk to you from Colorado next. Kehn
By KEHN GIBSON
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - The people on the Klamath Relief Fund's convoy to Florida rolled into this high desert city Friday to keep an appointment with three state legislators on the steps of the state's Capitol Building.
The convoy, towing a giant silver bucket and a 30-foot tall shovel that have become national symbols for farmers and ranchers fighting to keep their way of life, is heading to Florida from Klamath Falls, Ore., to help farmers being displaced by flooding as the Everglades National Park is expanded.
Although convoy leader Bill Ransom had been asked by spokesman Larry Lewis of the Utah State Department of Agriculture to "tone down" attacks the Endangered Species Act for fear of "offending people," it was Lewis' own legislators who threw down the gauntlet. Before Ransom could speak, Majority Whip Rep. Dave Ure of Utah's District 53 fired the first shot.
"I see part of my job as protecting the American people, and I'll go a step further than voicing my support for amending the ESA," Ure said. "I believe trade agreements such as NAFTA as being a true danger to this country.
"Besides destroying the lives of some of the best people this country has produced, we could be eating food completely unaware of the environment it was raised in, or the working conditions of the people who harvest it," Ure said. "Americans raise the cheapest, safest food in the world, and if we let the NAFTA agreements govern our decisions we are going to pay for it."
Following Ure to the podium was Rep. Darin Peterson, who voiced strong support for revision of the Endangered Species Act to allow public involvement in the process.
Peterson said that the Bureau of Land Management is currently conducting an inventory of streams in Utah, and there is no opportunity for public comment until after the streams are listed, something he wants to see changed.
"Water rights have always been sovereign to the state, yet under this process that right is circumvented," Peterson said. "The process is being handled by people who are not elected, and they have basically usurped the state's right.",p> Peterson said most of Utah's population - 80 percent, he said - live in urban areas between Provo and Ogden, and remain blissfully unaware of the train wreck that is coming.
"Water is the economic engine of the West, and if you deprive farmers of that, the engine stops," Peterson said. "We lose our ability to fund our schools, and to attract new business to the area. We also turn what once was a productive taxpayer into a burden on the tax rolls."
A fourth legislator, Rep. Margaret Dayton, joined the convoy at a benefit auction in Springville Friday evening. Speaking to a crowd of about 40 people, Dayton decried the fact species are listed as threatened without input from anyone outside of the listing agency, a process she termed "arrogant."
"I think that information should, at the very least, be brought before the Legislature for consideration," Dayton said. "We are, after all, the peoples ' representatives."
When asked, Dayton said no such legislation is now before the Legislature, yet that may change.
"I've heard rumblings," Dayton said.
Convoy Sidebar
Between two planned stops in Salt Lake City, the first at the state Capitol and the second at a rally and benefit auction Friday afternoon in Springville, the Klamath Relief Fund convoy squeezed two other stops into a busy schedule.
The first was a visit to the builder of the 10-foot tall silver bucket that has come to symbolize the struggle of farmers in the 220,000-acre Klamath Basin when irrigation water was denied in 2001 to protect two species of sucker fish listed as endangered. At the second stop the Oregon visitors took in Welfare Square, and came away humbled and empowered. Rod Christiansen owns a metal fabricating business in West Jordan, and built the bucket at the request of his father. "Basically, he volunteered me," Christiansen said.
Paying for the materials and labor to build the bucket, Christiansen then mounted it on a trailer and drove it to Los Angeles, where it became the central piece of the first of four convoys to come to the aid of Basin farmers hit by the water cutoff.
Christiansen said he hoped the bucket would serve to send a message to people about the elected representatives.
"We grew up in this land, we live here, and we should question our government about decisions that affect the land," Christiansen said. "We should be involved in making the decisions about what happens here."
Later, the visitors from Klamath came to Welfare Square, where they discovered that their mission to help farmers is a familiar one to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The LDS Church began a tradition of helping one another during their forced exodus from Illinois in 1846, and sent food to the Klamath County Food Bank in 2001.
Friday, Welfare Square was a beehive of activity, as volunteers staff nearly all of the positions of a cannery, grain silos, bakery, and dairy to produce food from grains and milk provided by a far flung network of Church-owned farmland.
Welfare Square helps members of the Church and others through a system that supports the immediate need as well as giving the tools for the person being helped to get back on their feet again. Food, aid and missionaries are sent all over the world to meet this goal, most recently to Somalia, where several tons of food arrived last month.
As the Klamath convoy departed from Welfare Square, driver Bill Morris said he was very impressed.
"That's how welfare is supposed to work," Morris said. "Get the help to who needs it right away, and give them the ability to put themselves into a position where they can help, too. We can learn from this."
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