Monday, October 1, 2012

Countdown to CAOmageddon: Flaw #55 - Power and Control

What if the folks with the carefully cultivated image of eco-selflessness were actually the greediest, most power-hungry people in the room? Then you'd probably have an inkling about the workings of many environmental groups today. No matter how much "they" get, it's never enough. We saw a recent example of this with an email sent around by the Friends (see bottom of this post). They asked, "Shouldn't we protect 9% of our shorelines?"

The Friends know that 100% of our shorelines are proposed as critical under the draft CAOs. The Friends know that 20% to 25% of our shoreline parcels are already in either parks/public lands or in natural/conservancy designations. They're just hoping that you don't know it. 

I think our question back to the Friends should be, "Shouldn't the Friends have to tell the truth at least 9% of the time?"

But the Friends are just following in the tradition of many environmental organizations in Washington. Our neighbors in Skagit County have their hands full too. For a great summary of how the forces of eco-phony power and control are arrayed against average people, have a look at the video below.




26 comments:

  1. At the last Planning Commission "workshop" on the SMP, it seemed that several of the Commissioners were starting to go down the path of deciding that "all shoreline was critical, but some shoreline is more critical than others".

    I wonder how they will designate this special shoreline? Maybe when they hold the hearings on the SMP, we can offer up some suggestions:

    - Really Critical Areas
    - Double Secret Probation Critical Areas
    - Super Critical Areas
    - Hypocritical Areas
    - ...

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  2. Well boy howdy there is the bumper-sticker ...

    "Hypocritical Areas Ordinance"

    LOL ... those clowns may have all the money and power but we have the best sense of humor ...

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  3. They only have the power we allow them to have. Hopefully as we expose and righteously mock them, they will fade away.

    Remember Mao: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a pun."

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  4. You can deny the facts if you want, but at your own peril. At any rate, please keep out of mainland issues you don't understand. Water withdrawals are unregulated and killing fish. See, e.g. http://blogs.nwifc.org/treatyrightsatrisk/2012/10/02/from-state-of-our-watersheds-lummi-nation-chapter-and-wells/ .

    So just stick to the islands, ok?

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  5. Well, perhaps the last commenter (Two Dogs) can enlighten all of us? Does the number of wells explain it all? Or does the level of consumptive use have more to do with it? Please, help us poor ignorant folk (the street noise) understand the water mass balance situation better. We would really like to know your reasoning, if there is any.

    Simple plots of the increasing number of wells don't say anything about how (or even if) water is consumed. It seems like you might be interested in banning water use, not its consumption?

    So I guess you are against the Tethys water bottling plant? We would really like to know.

    Washington State, with a population just a bit larger than Ireland (north and south) but twice the size, doesn't have enough water? We have the same population as Massachusetts but have seven times the area ... but we don't have enough water?

    There are fewer people living in Washington State than lived in just New York City in 1930 ... just one CITY ... but we don't have enough water to go around?

    Yep, I'm just a fact denier, and I really don't understand, so help me understand it Two Dogs.

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  6. You said it all in your last sentence. The fact is that there is insufficient water for fish, closely correlated with unregulated water withdrawals. We don't know how much water is withdrawn from those wells because they are exempt by state law, exempt from licensing, exempt from monitoring, exempt from everything. Your analogy with NYC is ridiculous, any native fish there were long gone by 1930. Please keep out of mainland issues, ok?

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  7. Fish Killing Fact DenierOctober 2, 2012 at 3:47 PM

    This is good. More please. Are you a Washington Wannabe Redskin from Huxley College, a Swinomish lobbyist or a state legislator?

    "Fact Denier" is a very inclusive term, Orwell couldn't do better than this. So, basically anyone your belief system just can't fit into your manufactured world view? Just pretend we don't exist. It'll be easier for you that way.

    Fact Denier. Come to think of it, couldn't invent a better description of Billy Frank Jr. I love it.

    Every time I drive out on Hwy 20 and stare in disgust at that towering casino monstrosity and massive gas station built out on fragile, delicate, endangered, unprotected tribal controlled tidal wetlands I want to yell out the window:

    "We don't give a *&!!^$ how you do it on the mainland!"

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  8. @Two Dogs ... I appreciate the non-explanation, complete with a thought-terminating cliche at the end. That's twice now.

    Withdrawals don't equal consumption. Residential uses are primarily non-consumptive. I don't think you understand that.

    Withdrawals kill fish? Where are the dead fish? Show me some dead fish. You must have some evidence linking the two, don't you? And you're an expert on the native fish of New York City as well? All the native fish in NYC are gone? That's going to come as quite a surprise to all the people in the Hudson River Valley who celebrate the growing shad runs every year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21OLuSln5_w). Next you'll be telling me that the Hudson has dried up too.

    Since I understand these issues better than you do, I think I'll become more and more involved in mainland controversies, ok?

    Thanks for the encouragement!

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  9. For the sake of factual accuracy, it does appear that American Shad runs have declined recently in the Hudson, despite being fairly robust up through the 80s. However, other species of native fish (e.g., striped bass, sturgeon) are stable to increasing.

    http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/remediation_hudson_pdf/hresoh8.pdf

    And here's a story about all those dead fish in the Skagit. Looks like Two Dogs, respecter of facts that he/she is, has some 'splainin' to do.

    http://www.goskagit.com/news/anglers-get-a-new-catch-in-the-lower-skagit-sockeye/article_0bfe418a-b758-11e1-ae7d-0019bb2963f4.html

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  10. I think I recall the Skagit River System Cooperative coming up to some of our CAO hearings, to tell us dumb islanders what a dreadful thing our local agriculture was, and how we had to heavily regulate it. Our local mega-corporate farms must be killing their fish...

    Perhaps they need to keep in their own mainland backyards, and leave us alone.

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  11. Well the Feds have been out on Sportsman's Lake on San Juan most of the day. Pulled up in a nice new Ford truck with fed license plates and a boat trailer with an EPA license plate. Wonder what they're up to?

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  12. Hey fish-killing fact denier -- if you don't care how things are done on the mainland then STFU about it.

    Anna Dromous -- at least you admit who the fish belong to. Thanks.

    I am going to propose that the Tethys plant should be located in the San Juans -- clean water (per DOE), infinite water supply available from desalinization, no important habitats for fish use. Hopefully you all will support my proposal.

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  13. Awww ... Two Dogs, I'm disappointed. You broke your streak of ending with "ok?"

    I think we understand your position really well, but let me make sure I have it right.

    All the fish belong to the Lummi and other tribes. People who want to build even modest homes in the Skagit watershed are fish-killers and planet destroyers. However, Indian development has no effect on fish.

    Oh, and all us Islanders need to stay out of "mainland business," but you can tell us what to do. On top of that, we're stupid and are unable to see the environmental destruction all around us. We ignore your keen eco-insights at our own peril because you haven't been able to learn us anything.

    Do I have that right?

    Please feel free to continue to elaborate on your position. I really want to capture an accurate representation of your views.

    ok?

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  14. Keep out of mainland issues huh? Wow. Pity this hapless troll.

    Top Dogs hasn't quite figured out that the reach of this blog extends far from the little bubbling kettle of strong opinion known as the San Juan Islands.

    Even unto Bellingham, yea verily. And further: Readers are found in far flung distant lands, in the bureaucratic bowels of agencies, pored over by minions of elected officials voted in on a pack of eco-lies.

    How will the Great and Good contain this spreading contagion of civic outrage? Learn from the Iranians they must.

    What a joke. Let's all say, why don't you people in La Conner mind your own business?

    Anacortes? Where's that? Over the rainbow in some other county?

    Whatever happened to harmonic holistic integral interconnected oneness of all stuff-and-what-not. We're all in this thing together?

    Or something? Nope. Not if Two Dawgs and folks of like mind have their way.


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  15. I caught a salmon this weekend and honestly, he looked thirsty to me.

    Maybe something to this??

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  16. I believe ECK and all readers of the TH would want to continue on a thinking level, a conscience of fair and even thinking about legislation in SJC. Certainly descending to the village idiot level of "two dogs" wasting this valuable and respected space speaking to a person who does not have the mental capacity to offer meaningful commentary is a waste of time for all of us.

    When such persons surface and hopefully they will continue to do so, they should be respectfully be told while we respect their input and hang on their every word, we only ask they read the TH for a month or more to LEARN the depth of the issues they would like to address and therefore other readers of TH might then take the time to respond to their thoughts. Otherwise, no thanks.



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  17. Agree, it was too easy to let off steam on that one. We are battling mainland special interests monkeying about in local affairs all the time, so it gets a little exasperating to be lectured not to become involved in mainland affairs.

    For example. The Department of Interior, Maria Cantwell and Kevin Ranker hold "community meetings" about the fate of the San Juans as a national monument ... in Anacortes ... on three days notice?

    We have major well funded national environmental groups advocating "on our behalf" to turn our communities into a federal reserve without bothering to send representatives here to sit down for lunch and chat about it first?

    We are being used by mainland interests as a social engineering laboratory and petri dish for experimenting fresh new ideas to restrict civil liberties in the name of saving forage fish?

    But you're right. It's not nice to beat up on the lame, halt and afflicted who don't know any better.

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  18. Quite a stream of comments on this one. Interesting that the title is "Power and Control" - isn't it?

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  19. Thanks everyone. Some great comments, and personally, I think the name "The Thirsty Salmon" would be a wonderful name for a pub too.

    Even though things may get a little heated here at times, I very much appreciate that commenters on this blog have steered away from Godwin's Law Territory. Quite the contrary, we have readers who remind us to stay on a thinking and reasonable level, even when we disagree.

    Thank you!

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  20. This thread is absolutely wonderful!

    I've been reading liberal/leftist/progressive/urbanist/feminist/enviro-ist blogs for years, and TH has been blessed with a "troll" in the form of "Two Dogs".

    In best blog fashion, trolls usually are responded to with a series of recipes for tasty dishes. I myself have learned many new ways to prepare meals based on comments to Daily Kos!

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  21. The "Thirsty Salmon Pub" GOOD ONE! And likely it is an important comment on TH that writers have humor AND brains. (Lets not get into fish drinking cause they don't do much of that...fresh or salt water...and certainly not Bacardi.)

    As we resurrect folks from the GRAY world of disaster and depression the "Friends" get their knee pads out for, we need a few fun thirsty salmon pubs maybe.

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  22. Sorry, but I am missing where the thinking and reasonable level of discourse is here. Nobody else said you were all dumb. However, your comments speak for themselves.

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  23. Fish don't "drink water" so us "dumb" people are happy to have you get involved and I think a lot of us can't wait to read your analysis or any qualified peer reviewed thought you might like to submit which will state that wells in the soaking wet Skagit valley are KILLING FISH!

    Stuff and nonsense, friend, you need to do a whole lot more thinking before you sign on to this agenda.

    I have been in the Skagit valley when the whole place was almost a lake of water and I'm sure you have too. These Tribe and raised concerns by others need to be fully considered by people like you. Where is the TRUTH my man? The truth is in common sense and observation. Get out there! Observe! Talk to people living on the land!

    I promise when you rise to the level of a person who has done his homework I won't call you the Village Idiot anymore.

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  24. Your method of calling someone a "village idiot" is very innovative. Customarily, one doesn't usually call someone else a name by adopting the epithet as a nickname for themselves. I guess that's taking the old saying "takes one to know one" to a new level. By that same reasoning, were you calling me/us "Two Dogs" in your posts from yesterday?

    As for the rest of the "content" in your last two posts, I can't respond because I am not fluent in gibberish.

    But keep commenting, if you like. You are good for entertainment.

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  25. Seriously, though, the state and feds have "endangered" "threatened" and species "of concern." What's next? Birds my grandmother really likes?

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  26. Two Dogs: we should stay out of mainland issues? Who the heck do you think screwed up the Sound? Not the islands. And citing the "treaty rights at risk" nonsense doesn't help your credibility. The tribes are, thanks to Judge Boldt, entitled to 1/2 the take--even though they are less than 3% of our population. Not a particular level of take, just 1/2 of whatever the take is. When tribe boats stop sinking because they are overloaded with fish, we'll start worrying about treaty rights at risk.

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