A new endangered species in the Klamath Basin (tell me that I'm
wrong)
Letter to the Editor
January 5, 2003
Last year's events at the "A" Canal Headgates are now a
memory. Klamath Falls
is still recognizable to people across America as the place where
farmers
'stood down' in order to get water for their crops and for the economic
health of their region.
But the Headgates are no more. They have not been preserved as a
priceless
tribute to those who gave so much to defend them. They have, instead,
been
converted to rubble, scooped up and carried away so that all that
is left of
this hallowed place in American History is a construction zone.
It is this very construction zone that raises a Red Flag. All reassurances
from politicians cannot abate the growing concern that something is
amiss.
The construction going on at the location of the former A Canal Headgates
is
proceeding steadily. The workmen know their trade and are doing it
well.
When the work in completed, what will the face of production agriculture
in
the Klamath Basin likely look like?
The deal has been cut. The "A" Canal will function as a
source of water to
the wildlife refuge.
There will no longer be a canal system, an irrigation district delivering
water to the farmers in this part of Oregon. The water will flow to
the
wildlife refuge, Tule Lake and then on to the Klamath River. That
makes the
farmers the newest endangered species in the Klamath Basin, one that
faces
extinction.
Julie Kay Smithson
213 Thorn Locust Lane
London, OH 43140-8844
1-740-857-1239
http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org
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Dedicated to property rights, resource providers, generational land
stewards,
consumers and freedom.
"Either you have a right to own property, or you are property."
- Wayne Hage,
March 1992
Bardon v Northern Pac R Co. 12 S CT 856, 145 US 535, 538 36L, ED
806 - ‘It is
well settled that all land to which any claim or rights of others
is attached
does not fall within the designation of public lands.’ United States
Supreme
Court Decision
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
striking at the root. - Henry David Thoreau
"The sacred rights of property are to be guarded at every point.
I call them
sacred, because, if they are unprotected, all other rights become
worthless
or visionary. What is personal liberty, if it does not draw after
it the
right to enjoy the fruits of our own industry? What is political liberty,
if
it imparts only perpetual poverty to us and all our posterity? What
is the
privilege of a vote, if the majority of the hour may sweep away the
earnings
of our whole lives, to gratify the rapacity of the indolent, the cunning,
or
the profligate, who are borne into power upon the tide of a temporary
popularity?" -- Judge Joseph Story, 1852