Wednesday, September 01, 2004

ANOTHER GREENIE JUDGE

Greenies hate dams

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation violated state and federal law by diverting most of the water from the San Joaquin River to agriculture for more than 50 years, a federal judge in Sacramento ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton found, in effect, the bureau reduced the river to a pathetic remnant of its glorious past.

The specific question before Karlton was whether the agency is legally liable for the decimation of Chinook salmon and other types of fish that were native to the upper reaches of the river before construction of Friant Dam in the early 1940s. Karlton's answer is a resounding yes. "The bureau, by its own admission, releases no water" for preservation of native fish, the judge wrote. "Failure to release water from Friant Dam has rendered many miles of fish habitat unusable, especially in the stretch between the dam and the river's confluence with the Merced (River), and has also adversely affected water quality along the whole course of the river."

"We're very disappointed," said Ron Jacobsma, manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents 22 of the 28 bureau contractors along the Friant-Kern Canal that serves thousands of farmers in Fresno, Tulare, Kern and Madera counties. "Any more downstream releases will really tighten the screws on farmers already scrambling to cope with an ever-decreasing supply of water." The authority delivered 1 million acre-feet of water this year, down from 1.4 million last year....

In January, the judge will hear arguments on other issues raised in the 16-year-old lawsuit. He will later tackle the question of whether to take water away from agriculture. He noted in Friday's order that any remedy will have to be compatible with the bureau's mandate under the law governing the Central Valley Project. "Farmers throughout the valley have dedicated their lives and fortunes to making the desert bloom," Karlton wrote. "They did so in reliance on the availability of CVP water. That reality most likely should be taken into account when the court comes to address a remedy."....

The river's fall-run Chinook salmon were reported extinct in 1949. Spring-run Chinook disappeared after unsuccessful rescue attempts in 1949 and 1950.

More here.




GREENIE "ERRORS"

One of the "sister" ("brother"?) sites to this one is "Bizarre Science", run by the hard-working Aaron Oakley. A recent post there is amusing. Aaron pointed out that the high priests of global warming (the IPCC) had issued a map of global temperatures which showed "warming" spots in red -- but which also showed "no change" in red! They were of course caught out in their little trick and subsequently issued a less misleading version of their map. That the IPCC would even think of doing what they did let alone actually do it shows how desperately partisan they are. But in the "comments" section attached to the post, Green/Left blogger Tim Lambert says the initial colour choice was just an "error"! You can deliberately choose a colour for something by mistake? Poor Tim. I used to have some respect for his honesty but not now. He has in the past shown some respect for the facts but he clearly reveals himself there as concerned only to come to the conclusions that he wants to come to.

*****************************************

Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

*****************************************

No comments: