What about water? info from Okanogan County Citizens Coalition - Author: JMC
Water is, next to air, the most essential ingredient for life. Space scientists
are now looking for it on Mars to
see if Mars ever was host to life. [Lots of luck, guys - if
you find it maybe The Sierra Club will move their
HQ there]
Here on earth we have plenty of water. Over 70% of the earth is covered
by it - much of it to great depth.
The problem with most of this water is that it has so much of the earth's
salts dissolved in it that it isn't good
for very much so far as life on earth is concerned (unless you are a fish).
The World is short on fresh water
Instead of being concerned about that fact, the major environmental groups
are fixated on getting the fresh
water in our rivers back into the ocean as quickly as possible.
Common sense says exactly the opposite.
The longer we can keep that water fresh, the more beneficial to
life - human, plant and animal. See:
Elwha Story
The Battle of the Methow
Over in Eastern Washington, the Methow basin, has been the scene of some
long running battles between the
residents who need water for their crops, their animals, trees, personal
use and radical Enviros, both in and
out of the Washington State Department Ecology (DOE). The latter
have been working hard to get that fresh
water back to the sea as fast as possible. See: Letter
to the Sierra club
One of their tactics has been to force the county and ranchers to stop
running their irrigation water through
canals and ditches and put it in pipes (at costs which threaten to break
some of them). The theory being that
too much of it was soaking into the soil and it was taking too long for
it to get back into the river so it could
hurry on to become saline. Well, it turns out that the water that was escaping
from the canals and ditches into
the soil was doing a lot of good for the soil and even for the fish that
who were the big argument for the enviros.
Finally, a little bit of this common sense has seeped into our legislature
and they have passed some new laws
[HB 2514, RCW 90.82 and HB 1336] which put the responsibility for watershed
planning back where it
belongs - in the hands of the locals. A quote from the OCCC Newsletter
of April 04:
Now that the locals have not submitted to the inane, confusing and
factually indefensible positions
fostered by the DOE, the DOE wants to scuttle our plan. It's up to us to
make sure they don't get
away with it.
.....Basically, this plan recognizes that there is a tremendous annual
recharge of water in the Methow
Valley, but most of the water exits the basin during the annual spring runoff.
Also, mankind is only
responsible for using about 2% of the total water budget, hardly enough
to make any significant
difference in the big picture.
The plan also recognizes the tremendous importance unlined irrigation
ditches historically have had in
the valley, and identifies the need to preserve and protect them. Of course
when unlined irrigation
canals are protected, the agricultural base is also protected, and this
was very important to the citizens'
planning unit....
But, clearly, the philosophically (religious?) driven bureaucrats in Olympia
with their Sierra Club, Earth
First!, etc. idealogue allies won't allow this to happen without a
fight.
Stay tuned for further developments
Send us your opinion and/or additional
information on this vital subject