Posted on 10/31/2011 1:47:07 PM PDT by WilliamIII
WASHINGTON — Federal protections for California's delta smelt will remain intact, but Western water controversies will keep on boiling, with a Supreme Court decision Monday not to hear farmers' ambitious challenge to a key environmental law.
The court's decision, issued without comment, effectively upholds the conclusion by a Fresno, Calif.-based trial judge and a lower appellate court that the Endangered Species Act can protect even those plants and animals that don't cross state borders.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
He who delt it smelt it?
When the Obama Administration set aside “critical habitat” for smelt last week it included the Columbia River and many of its tributaries near Portland. It didn’t include smelt-heavy sections of the ocean, where the small but significant “forage fish” spend 95 percent of their lives.
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/10/noaa_protects_threatened_west.html
Dealt a smelt? Lol!!! Whoever smelt it dealt it..
Habitats Receive New Status To Save Smelt
October 21, 2011
More than a dozen West Coast streams, rivers and estuaries received new status Thursday as critical habitat for smelt.
It’s the latest step in protecting the small fish. The smelt is an important food source for marine mammals and other fish, including salmon.
The new decision means any activities receiving federal dollars must avoid disturbing 335 miles of waterways. Marine biologist Marc Romano says smelt – also known as eulachon -– swim in different spots and at different times than salmon and bull trout.
In lower section of many of the rivers of the lower Columbia River Basin, eulachon are spawning, yet these areas are not typically spawning areas for some of the other species that have designated critical habitats,” Romano says.
http://news.opb.org/article/habitats-receive-new-status-save-smelt/
The Supreme Court
4 Justices would have needed to vote to intervene
instead, a sign for the farmers hangs
Gone Fishin’
The question as to whether the Federal Government has the power to destroy you and confiscate everything was decided years ago.
’ OCCUPY’ the valve stations
OPEN the valves
to heck with the judges and the courts
U.S. Government creates dams and water projects in otherwise arid locations.
People move there and create lots of farms and ranches dependent on the dams and water projects.
U.S. Government changes its priorities and diverts water to protect fish.
Land returns to normal: arid desert.
If the people of Eastern Oregon and Washington had spent their own money to build their own water projects then they could decide how to run them.
They chose to depend on welfare projects donated by the U.S. Government.
You’re blaming this on the FARMERS???
Bunch chickensh!ts. You got an opinion? Stand up for it!
Delta put her nose into the wind and the dhimmis, the whitehouse and the SC, SMELT to high heaven.
I do not at all support the efforts to steal water from Northern California and export it to Southern California and the San Joaquin farmers who farm land in a desert.
I used to be opposed to anything to do with the Delta smelt but now I find myself supporting any effort that stops the SoCal water interests from stealing water from Sacramento and stealing farms from my friends in the Sacramento river delta.
Free Republic posters, I ask you to look at this matter critically and see what I see: A massive theft of private land and water rights by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Westlands Water District.
To hear the point of view of the farmers these thieves are trying to disposess please look here:
http://www.northdeltacares.org/
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