New Water Quality Regulations Will Finish Off Klamath Agriculture

The crippling shutdown of the Klamath Project last May left many local residents to believe the primary threat to irrigated agriculture in the Klamath Basin is the Endangered Species Act. But now another controversial federal environmental law is rearing its head: the Clean Water Act.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is holding a public hearing at Oregon Institute of Technology on Thursday, January 24, to accept comments on a new set of water quality rules that will dramatically effect everyone in the business of irrigated agriculture. Under the guidance of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, DEQ is proposing to set strict limits on both phosphorus and temperature in the streams and tributaries feeding Klamath Lake.

Water for Life, Inc., a non profit group defending the rights of irrigators, is very concerned about the new DEQ rules. "With everything else going on in the Basin, everyone's attention is stretched thin," said Water for Life executive director Brad Harper. "Folks haven't had enough time to digest these rules, because if they had we'd be hearing a huge outcry of discontent."

Harper encourages interested persons to attend the public hearing at OIT to learn more and share their opinions. "Perhaps most important, we need to extend the deadline that DEQ has set for these new rules. To say they need more public exposure is being generous - practically no one knows what's coming down the pike, and its all bad."

The current deadline to make comments on the new rules is February 4, 2002. After that date DEQ will issue final rules, unless the comments received give them reason to modify the rules or extend the time to accept additional comments from the public.

"DEQ wants to reduce phosphorous levels by 72 metric tons, and they plan to reach that reduction on the backs of farmers and ranchers," said Sprague River rancher Edward Bartell. "Compare that with their estimate that naturally occurring phosphorus is at least 110 metric tons. DEQ blames agriculture for 40 percent of the phosphorus when natural conditions are twice that."

DEQ and EPA claim that high phosphorus levels are responsible for the seasonal algae blooms in Klamath Lake. The federal and state agencies want to manage the algae blooms to benefit protected sucker fish.

Another contentious issue in the new rules, termed TMDLs or total maximum daily loads, are temperature restrictions. DEQ has said that 64 degrees Fahrenheit is the optimal temperature for resident fish species. Current summertime stream temperatures are rarely so cold and local residents claim the 64 degree standard would not exist naturally even if no humans lived in the Basin.

Many believe these new rules are simply a continuation of the heavy handed regulators who they blame for last year's shutdown which garnered national attention and has President Bush publicly vowing to guarantee the release of irrigation flows this season.

"It appears to be a concerted attack," said Fort Klamath rancher Ambrose McAuliffe. "They hold back water to protect suckers. Now their trying to take agricultural lands out of production to reduce phosphorus levels. Mix in the son-of-CARA funds to buy out so-called willing sellers and its easy to see why we believe our way of life is under siege."

McAuliffe is referring to federal legislation under consideration by Congress to revive a Clinton era proposal to use federal money to buy private lands and permanently remove them from natural resource production. Many view such buy outs as dismantling their rural communities.

DEQ has invited the public to comment on their new water quality rules at a two-hour hearing at the OIT student union (Mt. Shasta room), from 7 to 9 p.m. this Thursday, January 24.

Water for Life, Inc.
P.O. Box 12248
Salem, OR 97309
(503) 375-6003 ph
(503) 375-9017 fax
h2o4life@aol.com

(continued from above) I was disconnected from server 10 times, until I split this post in two...then it said "could not find Godess50??? grrrrrrrrr.

We acknowledge that the development and implementation of a BA/BO as we have proposed will require substantial effort, planning and coordination among both the federal agencies and the various private stakeholders. Ultimately, however, implementation of such restoration actions at a landscape scale is the only means to achieve recovery of the listed species. The present BA/BO consultation, if developed within the framework as proposed above, offers the opportunity to achieve recovery of listed species while minimizing impacts to local communities within the affected Klamath Basin. These community impact issues must be addressed with the input of local government and property owners, and must include, at a minimum: ? Assurances that water use associated with proposed restoration actions would not exceed historic water use levels (i.e. these projects cannot create additional consumptive demand);
? Assurances that the federal government (and not individual water districts served by the Klamath Project) will bear the responsibility for securing take permits and funding for proposed landscape restoration actions
; ? Development of a “good neighbor” policy intended to address potential impacts to adjacent farming operations and the local economy (i.e. lost property tax revenues to local government)
. Both The Nature Conservancy and the Klamath Basin Water Users are committed to and available to help interested federal agencies develop the BA/BO within the context as proposed here. We are interested in constructive activities that compliment the BA and BOs and help create a community working in concert to enhance basin-wide wildlife habitat. If pursued aggressively and with commitment, we believe such an approach would lead to resolution rather than continued conflict regarding listed species, the Endangered Species Act and resource users in the Klamath Basin. The alternative is likely a repeat of April 2000.
Sincerely,
Klamath Water Users Association
The Nature Conservancy of Oregon

Dan and several board members happen to be in a BOR meeting this week, but the phone and fax and mail works.

Dan Keppen
Executive Director
Klamath Water Users Association
2455 Patterson Street, Suite #3
Klamath Falls, OR 97603
(541) 883-6100 - Fax (541) 883-8893

http://www.americanpolicy.org/un/theunsdirty.htm

The UN's Dirty Little Secret
You rarely hear of it. No elected official raises an eyebrow. The media makes no mention. But power is slowly slipping away from your elected representatives. In much the same way Mao Tse-tung had his Red Guards, so the UN has its NGO's. They may well be your masters of tomorrow, and you don't even know who or what they are.
NGO stands for non-government organization. These are activists such as the Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Zero Population Growth and Planned Parenthood. In 1968, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted Resolution 1296 which grants "consultative" status to certain NGO's.
From the beginning, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was the key NGO, along with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). When the World Resources Institute (WRI) was founded in 1982, it became the third leg of an NGO triumvirate that is, indeed, the unholy trinity. These three organizations literally control global environmental policy and its international implementation.
How can this be, you ask? How can private organizations control policy and overrule elected officials? Have you ever heard of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)? 98% of the American public has no idea what UNCED does, yet its impact on our nation and its policies is more profound and frightening than any threat faced in our nation's history, including that of the Soviet Union.
When the dust settled over the 1992 Rio environmental summit, three major documents were forced on the world that will change forever how national policy is made. They are three treaties or "conventions", called the Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity and Agenda 21. Together, they outline environmental policy that calls for, among other things, the taking of 50% of American land to be reverted into wilderness. But more important than all of those documents was the formation of UNCED.
UNCED outlines a new procedure for shaping policy. The procedure has no name. It is not democratic. It is not totalitarian, nor is it dictatorial. It is perhaps best described as "controlled consensus" or "affirmative acquiescence". It really amounts to a bunch of diplomats and bureaucrats who know they are doing evil, but nervously, with sweat dripping from their brows, move forward with the policy, saying nothing. For this is a barbaric procedure that insures their desired outcome, without the ugliness of bloodshed. It is the procedure used to advance the global environmental agenda.
The UNCED procedure utilizes four elements of power: international government (UN), national governments, non-governmental organizations (NGO's), and philanthropic institutions.
The NGO's are the key to the UN's drive for power. The NGO's (private organizations) dream up policy ideas. In most cases it's a new environmental regulation designed to control more property. For example, it was a group of NGOs like the Sierra Club and The World Wildlife fund that came up with the idea for the Biodiversity treaty in 1981.
The policy idea is then adopted by one or more UN organizations for consideration at a regional conference, then at a world conference. Each conference is preceded by an NGO Forum designed specifically to bring NGO activists into the debate. They are trained to prepare papers and lobby and influence the official delegates of the conferences. In this way, the NGO's control the debate and assure the policy is adopted.
The ultimate goal of the conference is to produce a "Convention", which is a legally-drawn policy statement on specific issues. Once the "Convention" is adopted by the delegates at the conference, it is sent to the national governments to adopt. Once that is done it binds that nation to international law.
But then compliance to the law must be assured. Again the NGO's come into the picture. NGO's are responsible for writing into environmental law the concept of third-party lawsuits. NGO's now regularly sue the government and private citizens to force policy. They then have their legal fees and even damage awards paid to them out of the government treasury. Through a coordinated process, hundreds of NGO organizations are at work in every community advancing some component of the global environmental agenda.
By using well funded, private organizations to drum up public support for emotional issues like the environment and to lobby elected officials, the UN has been able to control the debate. With the UN-orchestrated environmental message drummed into classrooms, newscasts, movies, television shows, newspaper articles and into virtually every corner of society, mounting opposition to radical environmental law has become almost impossible.
As a result of the constant pounding of the doomsday message, Americans have been convinced to give up their property rights, turn back their technology and even to give up their national sovereignty through documents like the Biodiversity treaty. So effective is the process that American leaders, even the Republican Congress, utter no opposition. Of course, Bill Clinton and Al Gore are leading the charge to support and enhance the UN's growing power.
The UN is now moving to vastly expand the power and influence of NGO's. NGO's will now begin to lobby for the United States to support the UN's desire for international tax revenue. NGO's will also be given the power to oversee and implement treaty's such as the Biodiversity treaty that will give the UN control of American sovereignty. That means private environmental organizations will be given power over our elected officials. Such language is already written into the Biodiversity treaty, and if Congress votes to ratify it, NGO power will be a "done deal".
Remember who the villains are: The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and so forth - in short, the American environmental movement.
Americans must begin to understand that the debate over environmental issues really isn't about clean air and water. It is about power. Those who lead the American environmental movement, teamed with the United Nations are the worst jackals the world has seen since Hitler and Lenin.

http://www.sovereignty.net/p/ngo/iucn.htm

The IUCN: From the UN to Your Back Yard

©1998, Sovereignty International
Why is it that Biosphere Reserves, World Heritage Sites, Sustainable Development Programs, The Wildlands Project, and Convention on Biological Diversity all call for greenways, protected areas, wilderness reserves and natural corridors surrounded by regulated "buffer zones"? And why do federal agencies, the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, and other environmental groups strongly promote the same "sustainable" development agenda?

It is no coincidence. All of these programs, treaties, and organizations have one thing in common; the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

First accredited by the United Nations in 1946 as a scientific advisor of the General Assembly, the IUCN presently has more than 880 state, government agency and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) members in 133 countries. Its mission is "to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable." (Italics added)

Despite the IUCN's pretense of being a scientific body, the Spring 1996 issue of the IUCN's Ethics Working Group's affiliate publication, Earth Ethics, suggests otherwise. The IUCN, admits Earth Ethics, "promotes alternative models for sustainable communities and lifestyles, based in ecospiritual practices and principles... [To solve] the problems that face the world today, humanity must undergo a radical change in its attitudes, values, and behavior.... In response to this situation, a new global ethics is taking form, and it is finding expression in international law." (Italics added) Likewise, the IUCN's Commission on Environmental Strategy and Planning seems to be proud that they "change human behavior" by using a strategy "based less on facts...than on the values they hold." (Italics added)

Indeed, IUCN "science" is based not on facts, but on "ecospiritual" theories of pantheism (nature is God) expressed in the "biocentric" (earth centered) philosophy that all species have equal intrinsic value--humans are merely one strand in natures fragile web. The IUCN has advanced these ecospiritual principles into the pseudoscience of "conservation biology." Conservation biology holds that "natural" systems are best because they are the result of a millennia of fine-tuning by mother earth. Therefore, the only acceptable management practices for earth's fragile ecosystems are those that follow "natural" patterns. Likewise, biodiversity can only be fully protected by setting aside entire ecosystems in wilderness preserves.

The IUCN's strategy is brilliant. First, the IUCN helped create both the "science" of conservation biology and the Society of Conservation Biology. The leadership of the Society, along with David Foreman (co-founder of Earth First! and Director of the Sierra Club), then dreamed up the granddaddy of all earth protection schemes--The Wildlands Project, which demands that up to one-half of America be put into wilderness reserves and corridors, with the remaining land as buffer zones. Second, credibility for the pseudoscience of conservation biology was bought with foundation funding of conservation curricula within universities, and by strong acceptance by federal agencies belonging to the IUCN. Finally, the IUCN wrote or helped write Agenda 21, the Conventions on Biological Diversity, Desertification, Sustainable Development as well as the President's Council on Sustainable Development's (PCSD) report in which, surprise, surprise, supporting documents like the UN Global Biodiversity Assessment name The Wildlands Project as the template for protecting biological diversity! What seem to be totally independent programs and activities are in reality a masterpiece orchestrated by the IUCN.

Through the IUCN, government agencies such as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the EPA and other federal agencies can huddle in private with the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, Society of Conservation Biology, UNEP, UNDP, UNESCO and many others to develop strategies to implement their "ecospiritual" agenda on the ground by changing US policy -- without any knowledge of Congress or the people who will be affected.

Making US policy is constitutionally the exclusive right of Congress, by the consent of the people, and not federal bureaucrats. Nonetheless, an August, 1993 EPA Internal Working Document states, "Natural resource and environmental agencies... should...develop a joint strategy to help the United States fulfill its existing international obligations (e.g. Convention on Biological Diversity, Agenda 21).... The executive branch should direct federal agencies to evaluate national policies...in light of international policies and obligations, and to amend national policies to achieve international objectives." (Bold and italics added)

IUCN members also dominate the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), which has spawned a host of ecospiritually based programs like the American Heritage Rivers Initiative, the Clean Water Initiative, the Sustainable Communities Program and ecosystem management. Not only do IUCN members essentially control the PCSD, the same organizations dominate the various stakeholder and partnership councils that develop the programs locally--guaranteeing IUCN control or influence at every level, from the UN to our backyards. In the process, our IUCN-member federal agencies have forgotten that we are a government 'by the people,' not federal bureaucrats. A March 1994 Bureau of Land Management Internal Working Document for ecosystem management, proclaimed that federal bureaucrats should "consider human beings as a biological resource."

Given that UN Secretary Kofi Annan is restructuring the UN to allow environmental NGOs direct involvement in policy formulation and enforcement through the "People's Assembly" and the revamped "Trusteeship Council," things are likely to get very dicey since the IUCN is at the head of the NGO list. The crowning piece to this strategy may have come on January 18, 1996, when president Clinton signed Executive Order 12986, which states, in part: "I hereby extend to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources [IUCN] the privileges and immunities that provide or pertain to immunity from suit..." Although it is yet to be tested in court, the IUCN and its US members, now have diplomatic immunity from lawsuit by any American citizen. Since the Sierra Club, EPA and other earth saviors are IUCN members, does this mean they can freely enter private property with impunity, looking for violations of outrageous and contrived international laws that they also originally wrote?

In short, the IUCN through its US members--not Congress nor American citizens--controls or heavily influences almost all US environmental law. The only missing piece to make this a living reality is the naming of the IUCN as the NGO in charge of the UN Trusteeship Council. Something to think about.

Michael S. Coffman, Ph.D.

They can publish all they want and the facts won't support the conclusions. One can't control releases from nonpoint sources on a daily baisis. It's impossible. EPA tried to find a way to do it for thirty years and failed. They can't identify the relationship between a daily maximum and an average attainment target. They can't demonstrate the relationship between a deposition profile and a particular daily maximum. They STILL can't distinguish added pollutants from background sources, much less do they understand the cyclical history of background values and how they differ from what existed prior to development (for example the difference between bison and cattle ranching). Worst, they don't have a clue as to what is optimal much less acceptable. So they just enforce an arbitrary standard anyway pursuant to the respective consent decrees resulting from NRDC suits. They are doing considerable harm to the enviroment in the process. A TMDL (or legislation in general for that matter) is simply a bad tool for managing nonpoint sources but they are using it because it is a handy weapon and they think that they can get away with it. So far, they are right.

One thus has to research each case as arbitrary, capricious, and not supported by the data until a pattern emerges by which to take action against the system in general. That pattern is to control land use with the Clean Water Act in a manner that is adverse to both the public and the environment. One needs to identify that it is being done for corrupt purposes and in the interests of the agency. That is what I found here in Santa Cruz where nitrate standards unattainable by rainwater generated septic system rules that were feeding a corrupt bureaucracy representing select redevelopment interests.

In short EPA may have the authority to regulate sources of water pollution, but they don't have the technical grounds for actions they are taking to control specific nonpoint sources. 303(d) applied to nonpoint sources is simply unenforceable without violating every Constitutional standard in the book.

Does that help?

http://www.allianceforamerica.org/0006009.html

Alliance For America

Temperatures Cold Water Fish Need to Thrive
by Bill Pickel
Current forest practices regulations require shaded streams to meet a temperature criteria from 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit. According to some fisheries scientist, 65° or lower is considered the ideal temperature range for cold-water fish, principally salmonids. But, alas, not all scientists think alike, nor do all fish react alike to temperatures, which rise above the forest practices required norm.
When Mt. St. Helen’s blew her top and decimated the waterways flowing to the Columbia, scientists had a ready-made laboratory to examine mother nature’s wrath. The south fork of the Toutle River was supposedly scoured lifeless, with debris flows and rock flower ash, seemingly polluting the river into a permanent, dead, waterway. Surprise! Things did not work out that way.
Shortly after the eruption, the government enlisted many loggers and their equipment to work at cleaning the river channel of the sediment and debris. Many towers worked from the riverbanks running drag lines from shore to shore scooping rocks, mud and debris, building huge piles of sediment that has formed hills along the riverbanks. One yarder engineer I know spoke of the numbers of salmon that they caught in the dragline buckets which eventually ended up in the logger’s pickups. The fish literally needed goggles as they fought the elements to return to their home spawning grounds. The biologists were surprised at the returns.
Scientists began population studies immediately to assess the damage to the salmon in the affected rivers. What they found challenges the conventional wisdom that forms the basis for our riparian rules today. A Weyerhaeuser study on the south fork of the Toutle river concluded, and I quote:
Stream temperatures have exceeded presumed lethal thresholds for salmon and trout in most years since the eruption.
Habitat conditions were highly unfavorable as indicated by relatively little instream cover, infrequent pool habitat and an absence of riparian vegetation.
Despite these adverse conditions, there have been no instances of temperature related mortality. Coho salmon production rates at all sites were equal to or greater than those measured in other streams of comparable size in the Pacific Northwest.
An abundance of both terrestrial and aquatic food was thought to be at least partly responsible for the high summer production of stocked juvenile Coho salmon in what was considered a hostile environment.
Spawning redds of steelhead were the highest observed in any of the streams surveyed, including those unaffected by the eruption.
Weyerhaeuser scientists as well as their peers were surprised at the above results and the apparent high temperature tolerance that the salmon could endure and adapt to. Conventional fisheries thinking said that fish could not survive in a high temperature aquatic environment, yet midsummer temperatures exceeded previously thought stressful thresholds, and several times exceeded previously stated lethal limit. Perhaps the previous thoughts were just that, not well founded on factual data, and a total underestimation of the adaptability of the salmon populations. The nay saying scientists and politicians call the Mt. St. Helens study an ‘aberration’ and therefore, a one-time unique situation that is not realistic in the real world. Is it really unique?
A University of Washington study, Coldwater Species Constant Temperature Survival, shows a tremendous amount of tolerance to high water temperatures among the salmonids. The report shows that the salmonids survive in temperatures exceeding 80° F, which in turn corroborates the Mt. St. Helens data as not being an aberration. Whether salmon could live forever in tropic water temperatures is not questioned, they cannot. But, can they withstand temporary spikes in temperature? Apparently so.
A letter from Art Gardner, a long-time tree farmer who resides on the banks of the Toutle river follows this article. Art has followed protocol for measuring stream temperatures and includes his findings. You’ll note that temperatures range from 62° to 76° F and he records that he evidences no dead salmon, and the runs are still returning despite the water temperatures.
While conventional wisdom has always said cooler temperatures are always better for fish, and there is corroborating research, little experimentation has been done in the high temperature environments to prove or disprove that fish may be adaptable in that environment. it appears that a rule is established based on the assumption that 65° is the maximum temperature that fish populations can survive and reproduce. That assumption is never challenged, therefore, riparian rules are constructed as a ‘one size fits all’ situation and landowners’ rights are violated as they are forced to relinquish private property to the onerous regulations.
Eastern Washington water temperatures probably exceed the 65° limit in many situations, yet, is that the factor that is causing fish decline? High water temperatures on the Snake and Columbia Rivers have been blamed for killing juvenile salmon during the last several years. The EPA says the principal culprit is the dams and reservoirs on the river. Yet, research by Dr. Bouck, who has some impressive credentials, refuted the EPA conclusion. He found that mid-Columbia fall Chinook populations have generally increased since 1980. The temperature factor again is questioned.
It seems that our regulators are prone to jump to conclusions without looking at all the evidence, or choosing only ‘selective’ evidence, and enjoy exerting their regulatory authority through onerous private property restrictions. Will 200-foot riparian buffers on either side of a creek reduce or maintain 65-degree waters for fish survival, or will 50-foot buffers work, or no buffers? Is there magic in the 200-foot limit - what is the justification - where’s the empirical evidence?
Or are the riparian zones really there to feed organic matter into the waters, large and small woody debris, to maintain healthy ecosystems for fish? Is that not the same debris that just a decade ago the ‘experts’ had us all removing from the streams? And the fish populations were abundant at the time compared to today! Of course, adopting a ‘one size fits all’ requirement on temperature is much easier than admitting that perhaps ocean conditions are the real factor killing our fish. That’s another area that little research is being done.

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