WAHKIAKUM COUNTY RESISTANCE FORUM

Environmentlists losing Clout

2009-12-31T15:01:00.000-08:00

Death of environmentalists is near not the actual taking care of nature but the form of those greedy power hungry liars in Non Governmental Organizations such as Columbia Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited, CREST, Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group, and Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board these are just a few that are plaguing our country here in the Pacific Northwest. These groups have been terrorizing the elderly, the widowed, and every land owner in their wake. These groups have destroyed homes and farmlands and have never made nor offered restitution. These groups have left the eco-system in shambles.

Its harbinger is not a conservative onslaught, nor a new Contract with America. Its demise is being signaled by activities conducted in a small rural community known as Grays River, Washington. Grays River/Rosburg is an unincorporated rural village in Wahkiakum County, Washington, United States. Grays River stands on the north bank of the lower Grays River, which flows into the Columbia River estuary. The National Register of Historic Places-listed Grays River Covered Bridge crosses the Grays River in the community. It is the only such bridge still in use in Washington.

Grays River and Rosburg Washington sit side by side they are areas rich in history and culture. These areas were natural wonderlands rich in scenic beauty, organic farming, and wonderful people. These organizations have been buying up land, making willing sellers by flooding people repeatedly since 2004 without funds for lawyer fees ancestral homes are bought up for pennies on the dollar. Rivers and waterways have been rerouted causing scouring of property, private property that has been farmed for over one-hundred years is now marsh, fish are being swooshed onto hay fields where they become fowl and coyote bait, several historic sites have been bulldozed and ruined, and people’s homes have been destroyed. These NGO’s actually state they are restoring, restoring what we ask? In actuality they are destroying a way of life and the eco-system.

Grays River and Rosburg Washington, home to many people who believe do as you will but harm none. This philosophy has served well over the years until the outside city slicker environmentalists learned that big money could be had a all that needed to be said is salmon recovery. One did not have to actually recover salmon they just had to put the words into a grant and behold millions fill their pockets.

In the United States today, the organized environmental movement is represented by a wide range of organizations sometimes called non-governmental organizations or NGOs. These organizations exist on local, national, and international scales. Environmental NGOs vary widely in political views and in the amount they seek to influence the environmental policy of the United States and other governments. The environmental movement today consists of both large national groups and also many smaller local groups with pretending to have local concerns. Some resemble the old U.S. conservation movement - whose modern expression is the Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society and National Geographic Society - American organizations with a worldwide influence.

Links for Other Sources of Salmon Recovery Information

The Alliance for America is a national coalition of grassroots organizations; its website brings ... gbstripe.gif (1558 bytes). Return to The Great Salmon Hoax.
www.buchal.com/links/links.htm

Fishery agency mismanagement, coupled with natural trends working against salmon, has brought northwest salmon runs to historic lows. Charged by law to protect salmon, yet promote salmon harvest, fishery agencies do not even count how many Columbia Basin salmon are caught and killed for consumption, or measure the cost-effectiveness of salmon hatcheries. Fish and Wild life place weirs (traps) in rivers and kill all salmon before the salmon can lay eggs and hatch more salmon. The only reason I can think of is salmon recovery is big bucks not salmon recovery.

The most basic biological facts about salmon are politicized, as fishery officials misrepresent the effects of dams on salmon to extract federal funding from the Bonneville Power Administration. The result? A $3 billion program focused on fine-tuning fish passage at mainstem Columbia and Snake River dams that fails to recover salmon, because there is no evidence that those dams are a limiting factor in salmon recovery

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." John Davis

History of Environmentalism

May 31, 2008 ... Environmental History Timeline. Radford University. 20 Apr. 2003. runet.edu/~wkovarik/hist1/timeline.new.html> ...
www.mtmultipleuse.org/ENDANGERED/esahistory.htm

Environmentalism initially manifested itself with the emergence of claiming people were damaging the environment.

Such exuberance was quickly snuffed out by the harsh realities of the Great Depression, Nazism, the bleak existence most families found themselves in, and the eventual national commitment to a two front war. There was scant time available for dalliances with anything that wasn’t practical and immediate. Concepts and ideas outside of the very real and necessary were left to those in the colleges of America and Europe or to professional philosophers and theorists.

The esoteric took a backseat to the real.

Then, after a relatively brief period of peace, America elected a young Senator from the state of Massachusetts, and environmentalism was once again uncorked. Fermented by years of being bottled up by the necessities imposed by the outside world, environmentalism was unleashed full tilt into a generation excited by the charisma of a core of unfounded, cheep talking politicos who enthralled them. Eager to escape their depression educated parents and their parents’ puritanical concepts in child rearing; this generation accelerated past the standard bearers and never looked back. Chicago 1968.

Based on the reasonable concepts of equal civil rights (although it took Republicans to actually get civil rights legislation passed in the sixties; over objections of many Democrats), women’s rights, taking care of the poor and protecting the weak, liberal thought was embraceable by many who felt blessed in those heady times. The original concepts of egalitarianism were soon consumed by an unstoppable tornado that evolved from the anti-war movement and its associated rebellion against all restraints; parental, moral, and governmental.

The acceleration of environmentalism thought through its lighting fast evolutionary period makes expansion of our universe look like a pedal car at a NASCAR race, and since it has raced along for fifty years at maximum rpm and it will soon burn out like a piston in a lean running engine.

Environmentalism is now best defined by its extremists. Much like Spinal Tap, environmentalists are not content to have the volume up to 10; they have a need to continually go to 11, and beyond. No idea is off the table. No idea is too extreme. Just keep turning the volume knob to the right, 12, 13, maybe. Bose eat your heart out.

Which brings us back to Grays River and Rosburg Washington.

Grays River and Rosburg Washington are proud of their heritage and dismayed, frightened, and appalled with the frivolous, eccentric behavior, unlawful, and down right evil acts of these NGOs. The residents are equally dismayed that state, federal, and county officials have allowed by taking the hands off approach these NGOs to destroy private properties. Residents find it incredible that they can not get the media to print, show, or distribute an accurate picture of the damages being done to the eco-system and people. It’s hard to understand when one calls EPA and tells them eleven plus people in white protective suits are spraying illegal chemicals to be told Columbia Land Trust is such a stellar organization and says they aren’t when you have the pictures to prove they are.

The real crisis continues, the media has refused to print the truth. Cds have been sent out to 20/20, two on your side; get Jesse just to name a few with no response. All things reach an acme, for thought it was Election 2008. The reality of implementing environmentalist ideas in government in 2009 and beyond comes with the revelation that gaining environmentalist consensus is much more difficult than herding cats and much less likely than taming badgers. Because of the now disparate nature of many core beliefs, environmentalists simply are losing clout and cannot effectively govern and we are starting to get a few prints in the media and people across America are waking up.

Sometimes the brightest star does burn itself out first. With nowhere to go, except past 14, 15, and beyond on the volume knob, environmentalism is quickly replacing its once viable compassionate reason with more volume and diametrically opposing ideas; ideological difficulties which are not easy to overcome with lurking massive deficits and growing taxpayer unrest its hard to stomach billions given to salmon recovery (which is really killing salmon). There is significantly less salmon then before they began and people waking up to the tune of big money grants do not save salmon or the environment, and thus far is destroying people.

The environmentalist movement is quite literally running out of ideological steam after is meteoric run, but now a long period of acrimony and infighting awaits.

I only hope Americans are ready to let the truth prevail!

How Land Trusts Work

2009-11-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

DarrenWeeks.net Freedom News

"In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

Taking American Land and Rights – How It Works

By Nancy Levant

Why the “New World” is so difficult to understand is not as complex as one might guess. While we naturally focus upon local issues and concerns such as community development, forest access, sportsmen’s rights, etc., one does need to understand the “whys” of local political decisions, and the decisions of local commissions and councils. There is rhyme and reason to our loss of rights, land, privacy, and public opinion.

Consider the following:

Every American citizen, no matter where you live, MUST buy your county’s Plat Book. Plat Books are maps that identify the owners of each and every parcel of land in your counties. You cannot know what is going on behind the scenes unless you buy your county Plat Book. Begin there.

You will then discover that most of the land in your counties is now owned by 1) state or federal government, 2) land development companies, 3) land “trusts” or “land funds,” 4) environmental organizations, and 5) large corporations.

If you are lucky enough to have several Plat Books covering a 2, 3, 5, or 10-year period (Plat Books are published annually), you will see a connection between land trusts, land development companies, land funds, and corporations. You will discover that they buy and sell to each other, and that they change the names of their organizations, and also create spin-off organizations, on a very regular basis.

Then, if you go to the websites of these land organizations, you will discover that they are “partnered” with 1) each other, and 2) with larger global corporations, and 3) with local universities and technical colleges, and 3) with “environmental” organizations.

In other words, you will find that the buying and selling of land in your counties is a highly organized business bureaucracy that circulates and perpetuates “profit and control” between revolving door “partnerships.”

But what are “partnerships?” In a word, “business” has changed in the United States. On television commercials, I’m sure you’ve heard the term “partners.” It sounds nice – like cooperative business ventures for the good of the public. However, nothing can be farther from the truth.

Partnerships, stakeholding, and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are America’s (and the world’s) new governmental bureaucracy system. This system is the brainstorm of the United Nations and was defined in a document called Agenda 21, which means Agenda for the 21st Century.

Agenda 21, in a nutshell, mandated that all countries that were U.N. members implement all Agenda 21 requirements into their nations and governmental structures. The U.S. is a member of the United Nations, and therefore we were required to implement Agenda 21.

In the U.S., Agenda 21 is called by different names. We call it “sustainable development,” “sustainable communities,” “Local 21,” “Smart Growth,” and a whole bevy of other names. However, all these governmentally imposed programs and changes that we now see in our communities (and worldwide) are upon the insistence of the U.N. as outlined in the Agenda 21 document.

First and foremost, Agenda 21 mandated that there is to be NO ownership of private property – worldwide. The U.N. believes that all land, watershed systems, and natural resources must be owned and administered by “government.” To American people, this is what we consider to be Communism. We believe that ownership of property is directly tied to freedom.

As the United States set up and is the primary financial supporter of the United Nations, the U.N. had to come up with a plan to make palatable their right to confiscate our privately owned land. But how did they accomplish that plan?

Masterfully, the United Nations, with their partners (the World Bank, the World Trade Organizations, and the International Monetary Fund, and global corporations and groups), began funding “environmental” science organizations and universities with grant dollars. By doing so, they also formed “partnerships” with eco-organizations and scientists, and a master plan evolved.

Under the direction of Agenda 21, a massive funding web of partnerships, stakeholders, and NGOs, a “grant-hired” eco-doomsday scenario was created and served to manipulate American people into 1) giving up their privately owned properties for the good of “sustainable” nature, and 2) to lay the groundwork for the “partnership-stakeholding-NGO bureaucracy. It worked like a charm.

Once you buy your county Plat Books, you will clearly see that there is next to no property left to buy in the United States. It has already been purchased by state and federal government, land development companies, large corporations, land trusts like The Nature Conservancy, and land fund organizations – all of which are “partnered” together in the greatest land and natural resource confiscation scheme in the history of the world.

In a nutshell, we are witnessing bureaucratic nation conquering. Rather than using warfare to collect new countries and landmasses, the partnership bureaucracy is collecting world territory via land grabbing initiatives under the direction of the United Nations and its global partners.

These initiatives are operating in every town, burg, rural, and wilderness area in the United States. Therefore, all state and local politicians, beholding to federal laws and money, were forced to become a part of the Agenda 21 mandate for ending all ownership of private property. These initiatives are operating in all U.N.-member nations.

Equally, the professional sciences of “ecology” and “conservation” were bought by the Agenda 21 system, and are now solely funded by Agenda 21 “partners” in land confiscation.

On the federal level, you will find the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Natural Resources, all three Executive levels, and other governmental departments under the control of the United Nations. All treaties, Memorandums of Understanding, and alliances with the U.N. trump the Constitutional Laws of the United States. This is important, folks – international law “trumps” national law. “Treaties” trump national law. In other words, our politicians, agreeing to be members of the United Nations, and agreeing to implement Agenda 21, suspended our Constitutional rights AND our rights to own private property. This, my friends, is fact of law, and this law, by definition, is called Communitarian Law.

At the state level of government, our state governors, who hope to retain the financial support of the federal government, have also agreed to implement Agenda 21 into each and every one of our 50 states. This includes our state universities.

And now we come to our local levels of government, our local colleges and universities, and our local movers and shakers, which we well know are the affluent people who are our county commissioners, councilmen, and businessmen. All the affluent locals, in efforts to gain dollars from their state governments, and to be privy to the endless money via international, federal, and state grants for “land” ventures, have signed onto the new “partnership-stakeholding-NGO” system of business, because that new bureaucracy is how wealth, power, and money works in the New World. In truth and fact, if you aren’t a part of this new governmental bureaucracy, which includes grant money and non-profit status, you are 1) not going to succeed financially, and 2) you are not going to gain any political or local power.

We are operating under a new form of government. It is the United Nations-defined form of government. Our Constitutional government has been overtaken by international law, and we, the people, are systematically losing not only our private property, but our access rights to our wilderness areas, as well. We are also losing all other freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution.

It’s all dressed up in “love of nature and/or sustainability” language, but the facts remain the same. Private property is to end, and this is why, via your county Plat Books, you will see that there is literally next to no land left for us to buy in our country. This is why you are seeing “access restrictions” being imposed daily and all across our nation. This is why we are being herded into “planned communities” where we do not own the land. Agenda 21 originally defined these planned communities as “human settlements.” How many land development companies are now in your areas? How many deed-restricted communities have been erected?

This is why deer and cattle populations are being purposefully killed off by “reintroduced” wolf and cougar populations, but to name a few of the land confiscation “partnering” webs of deceit. The intent is to get us off our private and public lands.

Our “New World” is a new one-world government. It is composed of European central banks, the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Court, the United Nations, and many other global organizations, groups, people, and corporations. This system was incrementally set into play over the last century, and has now overtaken the United States – thanks to our elected – who agreed to exchange our sovereignty, our way of life, our religion and beliefs, and our Constitutional government and rights for a global hybrid-corporate/Socialism/Communism. We now live under new rules, which have changed everything from our children’s educations to our rights to honest science, our health and privacy, our living and home options, and even our personal and public rights and opinions.

Our New Government is a combination corporate-financial system, with human beings as highly controlled servants to profit. Our New Government has created a techno-society, where we are highly “managed” creatures – much like chipped and reintroduced wolves and “invasive” species. We are also being chipped on a daily basis, and are governmentally and corporately encouraged to do so. We are in tremendous trouble and we are vulnerable to this new techno-society with its non-stop chemtrail spraying, manufactured super-viruses, weather control, spying technologies, and to our elected who are also loyal to the mass human de-population plans and mandates of Agenda 21. Watch and listen for state-mandated initiatives to curb reproduction and birthrights – particularly for poor women.

On a final note, and for all who live in the forested lands of the United States, and particularly the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, keep two concepts in mind – forest fires and global mining interests. I suggest they are systematically linked. Watch for “forest fire research” in your colleges and universities.

Thoughtfully consider why anyone in their right mind, much less entire governmental departments, would agree to implement programs like large carnivore reintroduction – thereby decimating deer and other ungulates, and cattle populations, nationwide. Why? To force farmers and ranchers out of business and to sell their land, and to effectively end hunting and other outdoor wilderness sports. It’s called getting the people off the land, folks – plain and simple. If you buy the eco-sustainability explanations, you still haven’t read Agenda 21.

In bitter truth, our Constitutional governance has ended. The only question remaining is what you intend to do about it. If you are so inclined to do nothing, then welcome to your New World. And while you’re watching global TV, you might make note of the fact that global pharmaceutical corporations are marketing new substances to you 24/7. Keep telling yourselves – global de-population requirements as per Agenda 21.

Rally To Enforce the Laws and Legal Operation of this Nation!
On April 17, 2006 at 1:00 pm EST, victims of legal abuse, legal reformers, Constitutionalists, and freedom-minded people and organizations, who demand legal Constitutional governance, will:
· Join together at the Rayburn Congressional Office Building, the location of the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC, to demand that the Committee hold hearings on legal abuse in America.
· Lawyers and activist organizations are needed to attend and take action/organization plans home to their individual states.
· For information on how to get involved NOW, and to advertise this rally in all 50 states, please contact The Patriot Caucus at www.patriotcaucus.com and the Citizens Justice Institute at www.citizensjustice.com.

It’s time to enforce the laws and legal operation of this, OUR nation! Pass this information onto at least 5 people and/or organizations, and ask them to do the same.

Promoted by The Patriot Caucus and the Citizens Justice Institute

— Posted 3/16/2006 05:20:00 AM

DarrenWeeks.net Home

What is a Land Trust?

2009-11-19T12:51:00.000-08:00

Anatomy of a Land Trust The idea of a private land trust owning specific scenic or wildlife areas sounds appealing on the surface, but almost all land trusts today are highly political organizations run by ideological, anti-development, anti-farming, anti-living in rural America environmentalist they are activists seeking to impose social controls in order to undermine the private economy and the civil rights of property owners. The land trusts are financially backed by a subclass of wealthy owners pursuing preservation in order to gain financial wealth. The trusts use their politically privileged tax–exempt status and government subsidies your tax dollars to promote and lobby for government ownership or control of vast areas of land, and collaborate with government agencies behind the backs of property owners these property owners are not willing sellers they are targeted for acquisition and land use prohibitions. The trusts act as real estate purchasing agents for government agencies, exploiting the mechanisms of the private free–market by buying up land and flipping it into government ownership and removing it from tax role and any access.

When direct political and government action become too controversial the trusts use their vast wealth to gradually eliminate private property owners from a targeted area over time in a strategy of harassment, flooding, and destruction of neighboring properties. While the local sheriff and Prosecuting Attorney sit idle refusing to enforce laws or ordinances.

Land use controls over private property are relentlessly increased to drive out the remaining owners. Exempt from property taxes themselves, the trusts manipulate the tax code for their own political ends by inducing tax-strapped property owners to sell or donate land in exchange for discriminatory tax breaks available only to those giving up land rights to the ‘non–profit’ trusts. ‘Conservation easements’ ostensive intended to hold development rights typically also grants the trusts enormous privileges to interfere in the private management of the land. Land Trusts buy up huge quantities of land in already strapped small counties thereby sending counties into bankruptcy.

Columbia Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited are some of the wealthiest and most politically powerful land trusts in Washington State and Oregon they have ruined the eco-system, homes, private property, stranded salmon, admitted it and refuse to be accountable. Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board funds and directs several satellite trusts claiming to represent local people. CLT and DU boast they have a war chest of funds with more money then GOD, to keep law suits in court for years, to buy up land its backers do not want other people to use, and maintain close connections with government agencies where it influences government land acquisition priorities and regulatory controls. CLT, in collaboration with DU, Fish and Wildlife, and Dean Takko Washington Representative have collaborated and set a precedent at the Julia Butler Game Reserve by sheer wearing down of the diking/flood districts the Cathlament area. The County Planning Office and Wahkiakum County Officials have taken the hands off approach.

The destructive acts these NGOs are commencing upon our county and our nation is abominable. We have the opportunity to affect change will you help save private property or will you sit by and say what a terrible thing this is and do nothing. I hope you will try.

Farmers under seige

2009-11-18T14:32:00.000-08:00

We have been getting some truth in the media as of late. Copied from Wahkiakum Eagle

Although some of the dates are wrong the article covers the situation truthfully.

October 29, 2008

Restoration work puts land owners under siege
by Stevan Morgain

War comes in different forms, some violent, some psychological and quiet. The effect along the Grays River? Property owners are feeling under siege.

“We are trying to save our properties,” said Delvin Fredrickson, chairman of the Grays River Habitat Enhancement District (a diking district) “from non governmental organizations (NGOs) like The Columbia Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited, the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board, and the Columbia River Estuary River Study Taskforce.” Fredrickson points out that the conservation groups invading the Grays River are using fish mitigation dollars from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to change the flow patterns of Grays River and, in the process, destroying property values and the tax base. Fredrickson said his community is fighting for their property rights. He is also frustrated with his US Representative Brian Baird and county Commissioner Dan Cothren for not standing up to the NGO groups.

The problems began in 2006 (should be 2004) when the environmental groups Columbia Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited built their first project on Kandoll Road in Western Wahkiakum.

The Kandoll Road story isn’t new. The project is a quarter of a mile long dike and two 13-foot culverts installed by The Columbia Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited across a county easement in a cow pasture on the old Kandoll Dairy Farm. In the winter floods of 2006, water was trapped behind the dike and 18 properties up and down that section of the Grays suffered significant damage to homes, property and livestock.
“First we want the Kandoll Road dike and culverts removed so the water can flow the way it has for a hundred years,” said Fredrickson.

The Columbia Land Trust has a different take on the work they do. In an interview earlier this year, Columbia Land Trust Stewardship Manager Ian Sinks said, “We do the work of a land trust. We work with landowners according to the goals of the landowner and Columbia Land Trust. ”Sinks said several owners in Grays River offered their land for sale. The land trust also controls about 20,000 acres of land in Wahkiakum County.
“Our goal is not to take land out of production but look at the land and where the land wants to be something else, and allow that to happen,” said Sinks. “This argument has gone nowhere for five years and created a lot of distrust and controversy over groups like The Columbia Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited,” said Wahkiakum County Commissioner Blair Brady, “but in fact the Bechtel engineering map produced for the Kandoll project does show a 'bathtub' effect where water backs up behind the dike.”

The Kandoll Road fiasco was the first shot across the bow of a citizen’s rights battle that continues inflame Grays River residents. In May of this year, the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board (LCFRB) asked the Grays River community for a town meeting to discuss their proposed plan for the Grays River Valley. Presented to the Grays River community as The Habitat Restoration and Project Design Study, the plan looks at 62 sections of the Grays, about 18 miles long, and suggests tidal slough restoration, riparian restoration, dike breaching, channel enhancement, tributary enhancement, side-channel and floodplain restoration, bank sloping and adding log jams and woody plant debris to selected areas of the river. “I was there, and their plan isn’t a commitment for these jobs to be done,” said Brady. “It is basically a guide for anyone who wants to use private funds or public grants to do work in the river.” Under the plan’s Design Needs section, it notes landowner outreach. The question asks potential grant applicants to determine if landowners will let them onto their land to do topographic surveys, hydrologic/hydraulic analysis, sediment evaluation and conduct detailed engineering designs of their land.

With the property damage from the Kandoll Road project still on their minds, Grays River residents attended the meeting organized by the LCFRB. “There were about 50 or 60 people at the meeting in Grays River and they were all very upset because the LCFRB plan involved breaching dikes and flooding private properties of people who hadn’t even been consulted,” said Brady. Fredrickson said the plan presented at the meeting would effectively drive most of the Grays River’s lowlanders from their homes along the river. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “we want to stop the flooding here but their proposal will only make things worse."The Grays River Habitat Enhancement District’s research paints a clear picture of why the Grays River floods. It starts with the US Army Corps of Engineers dredging of the ship channel at the mouth of the Grays River. “Their dredging has shifted the strong currents that once flushed the mouth of the Grays, out to the center of the Columbia and into the shipping channel,” said Fredrickson. That one problem causes the mouth of the Grays to clog up and become shallow which then ripples back upriver for about 18 miles. Commissioner Brady agrees with Fredrickson’s assessment that the Grays’ riverbed has raised about 12 feet in the last 90 years. “I have to agree,” said Brady. “If you want to stop the flooding you have to stop the silt and debris from staying in the river and you can’t do that by installing more barriers that will trap even more debris.” Then there is logging. Logging dumps soil and woody debris into an already slower running Grays River. “The logging companies don’t replant, the soil gets loosened and washed into the Grays which adds to the build up,” said Fredrickson.

The situation gets magnified when the conservationists come along. “They want to tear down 100-year old dikes and add gravel, log jams and add new channels to an already overburdened river which will then cause even more water to backup into the Gray's feeder streams and cause yet more flooding,” said Fredrickson.
The LCFRB said the grants it offers are to groups who want to restore the river to its natural flow. Their plan for the Grays River designates the construction of side-channels, ponds and sloping banks. “Our group has surveys,” said Fredrickson, “and legal descriptions and testimonials going back to the 1850’s that show this river was a dynamic flow river, meaning it didn’t have the tributaries talked about in the LCFRB plan.” Fredrickson said that the mouth of Grays River wasn’t silted shut previously and during the freshet season ,the river often raged down through the valley.“That’s what kept the riverbed flushed out for fish and people,” he said. To prove his point Fredrickson produced a photograph of the old Grays River store (now Duffy’s Irish Pub) with about a 60’ scow docked in front of it. “This is how deep and wide the river used to be,” he said.

As wars go the Grays has escalated as the folks living in the area become more aware of the LCFRB’s plans for their community, and more frustrated. After feeling ignored by Wahkiakum County Commissioners over the Kandoll Road issue, in 2006 the Grays River Habitat Enhancement District contacted State Representative Mark Doumit who then wrote to the State Fish and Wildlife Department asking them to help resolve the Kandoll Road problem. In his reply to Representative Doumit, former Fish and Wildlife Director Jeff Koenings said, “No one likes to see people lose their homes.... However, our position is to allow the Grays River to run its natural course. Unfortunately, allowing the river to restore itself will affect landowners." “It doesn’t have a natural course anymore,” said Fredrickson, “but what that letter means is the government doesn’t give a damn about what’s happening to us, so now we have to fight our own government who uses our tax dollars to hire NGOs who in turn are being allowed to destroy our land.”

Fredrickson said the way it works is subtle. People pay their federal taxes and electric bills. Some funds are placed into the Bonneville Power, and the Fish and Wildlife’s fish mitigation funds. These agencies then turn around and hire an organization like the LCFRB to collect conservation grant proposals from tribal governments, state agencies, property owners, private conservation groups, and other Federal agencies.
When returned, the proposals collected from organizations like Ducks Unlimited or the Columbia Land Trust get reviewed and ranked according to areas of importance. The Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board then either approves or rejects the grant applications based on the ranking.

Next, in the case of critical areas, the law governing these areas kicks in, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife gets involved. This places the force of law on the side of the NGO. It also places the burden of proof on those who disagree with the conservationists' efforts to return the land to its natural state, like the folks in Grays River whose only recourse now is through the court system. “If this fight is about anything, it’s about people's rights to decide what happens to their lives and their properties,” said Fredrickson. “We’re not rich but we have constitutionally guaranteed property rights.” Fredrickson said if the state and county governments won’t help mitigate the problems the community is having with the conservation groups coming in and taking over, then they plan to escalate the fight by calling in reinforcements such as the national organization, Citizens Alliance for Property Rights.

Columbia Land Trust’s Glen Lamb has responded with we are not to blame which is his take all along.

2009-11-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

Citizens Alliance for Property Rights

Meets - Wednesday November 11th @ 7pm @ the Grays River Grange meeting follows the monthly meeting of the Grays River Habitat Enhancement District our flood and diking district. Please come and share your thoughts and ideas together we can save our properties.

We have the opportunity to affect CHANGE for the good
So We must try

We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter we have brains and therefore will become informed and save private property from NGOs and Government

2009-10-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

Saving Our Farms

Grays’ River, Washington — Rerouting rivers, sloughs and drainage ditches, turning county roads into dams and making wing dikes, digging trenches through private properties, and stealing timber off these private property’s is the technique used by several “environmental groups that have descended upon the west end of Wahkiakum County. The unethical behavior and destruction of private property by these groups is beginning to raise a few eyebrows and turn a few heads. We have the opportunity to save our land from these groups. We must try or our farms, homes, and land will be nothing but swamp.

Residents of Wahkiakum County need to voice their objections to the county’s lack of support for their constituents. The county’s position on the issue has been a hands off approach. We must show opposition to these agencies being set free in the county. Ordinance 10989 has many provisions to protect private property rights and has been ignored by the county and the agencies. Many residents have voiced concern that the local government needs to stand up to the agencies.

The rights of private property owners and the resident’s way of life need to be taken into consideration. The agencies do not know or care what’s right for our community and has proven these by the several “projects” done that are causing havoc and damage in our community.

Ordinance 10989 states WHEREAS, the Board of County commissioners of

Wahkiakum County, Washington does find and declare that it is necessary for the protection and preservation of

the public peace, health, safety, and general welfare in regard to control of the

floodplain within Wahkiakum County, that certain rules and regulations, laws, and conditions established under the police power of the County, and pursuant to the laws of the United States of America and of the State of Washington.

The ordinance prohibits the intentional flooding to private properties which is what these agencies are doing. Such an ordinance is supposed to serve a valid public purpose and to otherwise serve to promote the prosperity, public health, safety and welfare of the residents of the county.”

Raven Webb, a local farmer and member CAPR, states the county cannot let the agencies under the guise of “environmentalists” overrun our lives and the production of food, destroy our farms, homes, property, and lives. There needs to be concern for the safety of the residents Webb says.

Section 1.4

METHODS OF REDUCING FLOOD LOSSES.

In order to accomplish its purposes, this Ordinance includes methods and provisions for:

(1) Restricting or prohibit uses which are dangerous to health, safety, and property due to

water or erosion hazards, or which result in damaging increases in erosion or in flood heights or velocities;

(2) Requiring that uses vulnerable to floods, including facilities which serve such uses, be

protected against flood damage at the time of initial construction;

(3)Controlling the alteration of natural flood plains, stream channels, and natural protective barriers, which help accommodate or channel flood waters

(4) Controlling filling, grading, dredging, and other development which may increase flood damage; and

(5) Preventing or regulating the construction of flood barriers which will unnaturally

divert flood waters or may increase flood hazards in other areas.

It is unlawful for any person, firm or entity to cause flooding upon other people’s property within the boundaries of Wahkiakum County. Penalties are required to be placed upon any firm or entity convicted of a violation of the ordinance. Parties found in violation would be guilty of a misdemeanor and would be “fined $1,000 per day and/or imprisonment of up to 90 days.

Wahkiakum County Sheriff, DANIEL L. BARDSLEY, Prosecuting Attorney DANIEL BIGLOW, and the Wahkiakum County Commissioners refuse to uphold the County Ordinance, State and Federal laws. Webb states, Property rights need to be defended.

The federal and state governments need to look at what the agencies are doing to people in rural areas; Webb also states that livestock are killed by the enhanced flooding caused by these agencies.

Redirecting, rivers, streams, sloughs, building obstructions in floodways has been allowed to continue since 2004 through present and had caused an uncountable economic hardship to the residents of Wahkiakum County. This is not been about Salmon recovery it about the large amounts of grant dollars given to these agencies our tax dollars. In a time when schools and parks are being closed, lack of funds for health care and elder care this year in Washington State the “environmentalists” were granted an extra 45.6 million to destroy rural America. Farm lands are becoming a thing of the past. Will we import all our food and how safe is that?

Wahkiakum County Commissioners have done nothing to protect their constituents. Wahkiakum County Commissioners have aided and abided and just allowed these agencies to ruin the lives of people trying to live in Wahkiakum County. Wahkiakum County Commissioners refuse to support Ordinance 10989 adopted May 9^th, 1989.

Let your voice be heard contact a commissioner today and every day. Let them know you do not support the taking of private property.

Join CAPR, be a bigger voice. Help yourselves before your property rights are just a memory. Join us to protect your property and ours. Be part of the solution. You have an opportunity to affect change, one must try!

saving private property

2009-10-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Action:

We are forming a new Chapter of

Citizens Alliance for Property Rights !

If you are not satisfied or have concerns with the decline in private property rights come join us for community involvement. Sharing concerns and ideas as to how to make this country better and save our property.

Attend and be added to our growing numbers.

Several Salmon have been swooshed into hay fields on Kandoll Road. Compliments of the alterations made by Columbia land Trust and Ducks Unlimited, without permits.

(This is not salmon recovery)

Several private property owners are suffering the adverse effects in loss of private property from these alterations. Several other private property owners are suffering from other Non Governmental Organizations that receive big bucks from governmental grants (your tax dollars).

Be there Wednesday, October 14^th @ 7pm Grays’ River Grange! This is A New Chapter of Citizens Alliance for Property Rights we will be holding elections.

Ron Ewart putting it in Perspective

2009-08-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

The Awesome Power of the Individual,
Under Freedom!"
By Ron Ewart, President
National Association of Rural Landowners
© Copyright September 6, 2008 - All Rights Reserved

In spite of all of our individual and collective faults, there is a "great good" that exists in a very large number of us. That good is personified in a wide range of human traits and behavior, including private and public achievements, sacrifice, industry, creativity, empathy, generosity, spontaneous volunteerism and our can-do spirit. Unfortunately, due to the "distorted window" through which we view our information, that "great good" in us seems to be eclipsed by an over-zealous emphasis on that which appears to be "bad" within us. That over-zealous emphasis on what is apparently bad within us, is then used against us to tear us down and destroy our individual pride and spirit.

In all of life's creatures, nothing is as awesome as the goodness, beauty, strength, power, creativity, spontaneous generosity and spirit of the human individual, man, woman or child. That beauty, strength, power, creativity, generosity and spirit is manifested best, when they are allowed to flourish under the umbrella of freedom. Sure there is evil, but the goodness in man triumphs over that evil, time and time again.

To see the joy, exuberance and innocence of a little child, or watch the excitement in their eyes when they discover new things, is a wondrous sight to behold indeed. To experience the first love of a man and a woman as they grow into adulthood, that brings with that love, the gift of new life, new excitement, new achievements, new promise and new possibilities, is almost impossible to describe.

But those faces of joy and wonder turn to frowns, despondency and the loss of hope and their bodies shrivel up and become emaciated, when they are subjected to the Hell that is slavery, war, poverty or famine, or worse, a mindless collective.

Individuals, working either individually or collectively with other individuals, have been, are and always will be the movers and molders of a society, for good or evil. They are ultimately the decision makers and the risk takers, whether those decisions and risks be of the small variety covering our daily lives or the ultimately large decisions and risks that set the direction of cultures, countries, or hemispheres. Such individuals can either do so for sound, common sense motives, or for totally self-serving ones.

Most positive human achievement comes as a result of efforts of and by an individual, not a society or a culture. As a matter of fact, societies, cultures, religions and groups have generally stood in the way of most human achievements. Scientific discoveries, improvement in the human condition, or positive advances of government, come about from individuals working either by themselves or with a few others. A collective or a community didn't invent the light bulb. Thomas Edison, an individual, did. It is extremely unusual for large groups to accomplish anything. One only need look at our local, state and federal legislatures to see the truth in this statement.

If we must emulate someone, let us emulate the individual achievers. If we must follow, then let us follow in the footsteps of those that pioneer and forge ahead no matter what the odds or what peril lays in front of them. Intelligent, wise men and woman of vision forged the constitution of the United States. Courageous, individual pioneers settled the West against all odds. Now today, the individual spirit of thousands of entrepreneurs commence new businesses every day, risking their relationships with each other and their personal fortunes, no matter how large or small. They put up with every conceivable obstacle thrown in their path, not only from market forces but also by government regulation and edict.

Nevertheless, individualism is the engine that keeps the wheels of a free economy turning. Sixty to seventy percent of all jobs in the United States are created by individuals running their own businesses. What a country we live in. What a tribute to its resilient peoples. We are people of guts, courage, intellect, enterprise, fortitude and compassion. We are individuals in a sea of individuals and there is no strength on Earth that can match ours, in spite of our perceived troubles. That strength and power is a direct result of individuals and individual expression, living free.

But individual achievement in the United States today is getting a bad rap. As we move towards the collective, we either have to be part of some group to get accepted and our individual beliefs, goals and motives must be subjugated to the needs of that group.

The doomsayers will tell us that we are going to run out of power. We are going to run out of oil. We are going to pollute the environment and destroy the Earth with our cars and our industry. Our automobiles are going to quit running and our airplanes will quit flying and our ships will no longer ply the open seas. They con us into believing that it "takes a village" to raise a child. Poppy cock! These are the words of the quitters, the losers and the fear mongers. These are the words of those who wish to dominate the individual and break his spirit.

Ever since man first burned himself with fire and realized he could use it to his advantage, or transported some object by rolling a log and converted that idea to the wheel, he has been forever driven towards more knowledge, more understanding and a wider, larger, broader world in which he can explore. To do that he simply must go faster and he must develop the machines to achieve the ever-increasing speeds he will need to reach his goals. Man is driven by the one unique human trait that apparently does not exist in other creatures that share this planet with us. He is driven by that all-present, individual, joy of wonder and to go where no man has gone before. We are going to the stars one day and nothing anybody can do will get in our way. No amount of fear of the unknown, or nay saying about financing will stop us. The strength, power, creativity and spirit of the incomparable individual will carry us there.

Some day in the not to distant future, we are going to develop power sources that will literally boggle the mind. Our vision is that each home, each office, each business or building will have its own centralized power unit. And in that unit will have the source of energy to purify our drinking water, destroy our raw sewage and gray water, heat and cool our homes and offices and provide the electrical power for our lights and appliances. All these uses will be provided by one small or large unit within our homes, office buildings, or factories.

Think of it! Those in your twenties, watch how our planet will shrink in your lifetime. In ten to twenty years there will be airplanes or space ships that will leave the United States, rise into the stratosphere or higher, glide at two to five times the speed of sound and land in Russia in a couple of hours. At 3,000 MPH we can go halfway around the world in 4 hours, when a little over 150 years ago, we were limited to one or two horse power.

Personalized transportation will change dramatically. There will be air corridors for small, personal air units, whether they use the principals of helicopters and small aircraft, or some strange new power yet to be discovered. Maybe we will find a way to offset or neutralize gravity.

What an absolutely exciting time we live in.

There is no crisis here. There are just problems to solve and challenges to meet. Challenges are met by enterprising individuals working together with a common purpose, within the framework of sweet liberty.

We, as individuals, have a significant obligation to ourselves and to our children. We have the obligation to defend our freedom and to learn everything we can about everything we can know in our lifetime that we can document and prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and then pass as much of that information on to our offspring. We have an imperative to do no less. We have a responsibility to not abdicate this task to others. We shouldn't let our doctor, our teacher, our lawyer, our priest or clergy, much less our government, make decisions for us. They can be a source of information or counsel, but the ultimate decision maker is us, that is, if we value our freedom as individuals.

What we need to do, more than anything else, is to educate our people in all of the true knowledge we have discovered over the last 5,000 years and to foster unabashed individualism. Knowledge is the great equalizer among men. If all individuals possess the same knowledge, it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to “Lord” over the other, thus muting the necessity of war.

The problem in this country and every other country for that matter and every other people that exist on this earth, is not poverty. It is not the disparity between poverty and wealth. It is not pestilence or flood, famine, earthquake or any of these things. What it is, is the absence of freedom and property rights, pandemic ignorance and by the efforts of a few to break the backs and spirit of the individual. The power of the individual is a dictators worst nightmare.

What we need is a way to get more people motivated to seek that truth and their own "point of reference" and the solid basis of why their particular "point of reference" is relative to them. And we must resist with all of our might, government and special interest group's relentless perversion of the truth for their own ends.

We need to eradicate mysticism, propaganda, lies and distortion and replace them with the truth and universal, provable realities. And then we must teach our children to question even the provable realities and always leave room for a different perspective, a different view, or new information.

There are some real basics here and the hard cold truth of the matter is, we are individuals and no matter what the mechanism for getting here, we come into this world absolutely alone. No other person can live with us inside our bodies. Nobody else can be part of our soul. We are here unequivocally, irreversibly alone. As individuals, we must face all the trials and the joys and the sickness and the sorrow and death absolutely alone. Sure, others can hold our hands and stroke our brow, but nobody will die with us and although we won't say it out loud, most of us know it instinctively. In every sense of the word, we are totally unique individuals and only we occupy our "space" and our "time". But that individuality is the true source of our strength, power and creativity.

The stark reality is that if we destroy our God-given, natural freedom that allows our unique individuality to blossom and be all that we can be, we will descend into the Hell of the collective and it will take a bloody revolution to restore freedom and liberty so that the individual, once again, with all his strength, power, beauty, compassion, spirit and the joy of wonder, will lead man on the never-ending, exciting journey to explore our Universe. The Universe is waiting, if we don’t stumble and get in our own way.

Ron Ewart, President
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
Website: www.narlo.org

Citizen's Alliance Be There!

2009-08-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

Donations to Columbia land Trust and Ducks Unlimited destroy habitat.

2009-08-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

Pictures speak volumes. Beware when you donate to any environmental organization you could be helping destroy what you thought you were saving.

Once Upon a time life in the Grays' River Valley was Bliss. Children learned about how food is grown. They helped their Nanny plant vegetables to share with many.

Life was good, organic vegetables grew, children ate as they wandered among the wonders of growing things.

Gibzyn showing off his Pumpkins before we give them away to others.

Along came Columbia Land Trust partnering with Ducks Unlimited infiltrating the valley. Spewing smoke into the air, burning buildings (old homesteads) with lead and asbestos filling the air with toxins.

CLT and DU bring in the Monsters to destroy more.

This is the company who helps destroy peoples lives, farms, agriculture, habitat, and homes.

Big River Rock destroying hundred year old orchards and building a wing dike without permits to divert water into homes and private property.

This guy after talking with him and telling him no permits exist seemed concerned. He seems to be only trying to make a living. He is being used to destroy.

Another approach to destroy lives is theses culverts placed under a county road.

Columbia Land Trust removed a 36inch tide gate and replaced it with two - 13 foot culverts redirecting the Seal Slough, which increase the velocity and speed of water eroding several private properties. These culverts also flood a county road.

Salmon (fall Chinook endangered fish) are being redirected into hay fields where they are unable to spawn, the fish become coyote and bird food. This salmon is in my hay field. How does this benefit salmon?

This was once a county road that led to the Grays' River, many people in the community enjoyed walking, biking and picking wild berries, territorial apples, and plums along this picturesque tranquil road.

That was before Columbia Land Trust without permits destroyed the road by turning it into a wing dike. The road was built up seven feet, then eleven feet, and now is being built up thirteen feet. This decreases the flood way from several thousand acres into a mere 80 acres causing water from the Grays' River to funnel into private property, destroying farms, agriculture, homes, and lives, the water then floods SR4 closing the state hwy for days.

As you can see the velocity of water is so great that it washes the wing dike out each year. This year Wahkiakum County is using FEMA funds to help Columbia Land Trust raise this road again. Blair Brady a Wahkiakum County Commissioner in this district has sought the removal of Columbia Land Trust's "project" sighting hydrologists reports and CLT's own model which proves the "project" is destroying private property, Dan Cothren one of the other county commissioners is a Ducks Unlimited guy and Lisa Marsyla thinks CLT and DU are just so nice..

Columbia Land Trust's alterations, redirecting of Seal Slough and channeling the Grays' River into my home causes three foot waves to hit house. The house sits seven feet above the driveway water is 13.6 feet deep on the driveway when the water crested there was four feet in the house.

My home is 72 years old, CLT has lied and said this home has always flooded, if that were true the home could not be still standing, in fact the home is in better shape then some. I have a letter from the grandson of the people who built the house saying water was never in the house. My home as have many in this valley suffered greatly since CLT came to destroy our lives.

Six inches of mud is left to shovel after intentional flooding of my home.

1946 Willy's was completely mechanically restored in the loafing shed what was a safe area before CLT. This is just one of the many restored classics destroyed by CLT.

Floating vehicles, the blue is/was a 79 Mercedes Benz. Three foot waves come from CLT's "project".

Agricultural fields lay wasted, gardens are no longer an option, cattle have been removed as they can no longer graze as they had for over a hundred years. Farm animals had to be given away for their safety.

The ecosystem has been compromised that not even snakes dwell as they once did. Coyotes are thriving on salmon diverted into what was once hay fields.

This beautiful valley is under siege without any checks and balances. The officials refuse to come out and look at what has been done. David Martin, Army Corps of Engineers stated on 8-09-09 at 10:20am that these people have a stellar record, how does he know this, he gets his information from the agencies doing the damage. Everyone refuses to see what has been done.

Columbia Land Trust Destroying America by Land acquisitions, Lies, and Greed!

Columbia Land Trust can NOT be trusted.

Rural Genocide

2008-12-29T15:10:00.000-08:00

Do you have common sense or not?

This is the question of the decade. People everywhere are coming to terms with the reality of “Rural Cleansing” and the goals of Agenda 21.

If you have common sense then you are aware or are willing to learn that Government, Non Governmental Organizations, and the UN have joined forces in a plot so obvious, yet so subtle, so seemingly benevolent, in reality NGOs like Columbia Land Trust are fundamentally evil. Some call this movement rural cleansing, I call it Rural Genocide.

Ian Sinks of Columbia Land Trust based on Officers Row in Vancouver, Washington has been procuring the Genocide of Wahkiakum County since 2004. Public statements made by Sinks include “people who live in rural areas are wasting the land; no one should own rural land”. Columbia Land Trust has opened an office in Astoria, Oregon to promote the Genocide in Oregon, headed up by Nadia, a Sinks clone.

These statements are not made lightly; they come from five years of West Wahkiakum County under siege, terrorized by Columbia Land Trust in partnership with Ducks Unlimited and Funded by the Salmon Recovery Board. “Willing Sellers” are made by alterations of waterways, dredging and filling, removal of tide gates, breaching dikes, erection of structures channeling rivers into homes, impoundment of water, and destruction of farm land and homes. This is the effort made by CLT to enact Genocide in Rural Communities. It is not just the people who live here, it is the animals CLT has flooded grazing grounds of countless deer, elk, prairie critters, and has diverted salmon into hay fields where they die. On the CLT web site Ian Sinks notes salmon like to graze and lay eggs in grass, I suppose deer now eat salmon how far we have come in “evolution”, stupidity is more like it.

The efforts of Columbia Land Trust has caused State Infrastructure damage, State Highways have been shut down for up to five days due to CLT “projects”. County Roads have been washed out and gravel embedded in streams, fill dirt and materials placed in navigable waters decreasing depth from 21 feet to a mere 9 feet, that is a fill of 11 feet in navigable waters.

Rural Cleansing – Rural Genocide plain and simple with devastating results to farms, Eco-system, and people. Columbia Land Trust, Ian Sinks and other NGOs are not hesitant in the least to evoke the widespread rape and murder that defines “ethnic cleansing” getting rid of the rural population. Raven Webb an unfortunate neighbor to a Columbia Land Trust “project” states she is not about to dig her own grave and be shot into the grave quietly, she will continue to cause a thunderous movement to stop Rural Genocide.

People are so naive, living in the city, not experiencing the reality of what NGOs are doing to the earth and only hearing the talk of NGOs and how they are “saving the environment” is the lie of the century. If people refuse to wake up, ask questions, get facts, of the true meaning behind NGOs we are all doomed, animals and fish included. The evil perpetuated by Columbia Land Trust has been unstoppable, donations continue, and tax dollars flow into their pockets. Facts would shut them down, people are unwilling to see the truth or stand for what is right; being honest can be a lonely place, it is the only place to be, I know no other.

One could say Columbia Land Trust has not fired a shot or forcibly made Wahkiakum County Residence dig their graves but the result has been the same. Many Residences lives, finances, homes, and retirement benefits lay in ruin due to the efforts and “projects” of Columbia Land Trust. Wahkiakum County is under siege by extremely well financed NGOs. In this small Rural Community there are over 7 NGOs making “willing sellers” Columbia land Trust is the biggest land holder in Wahkiakum County they own 1/3 of the County bought and paid for with your tax dollars.

The Endangered Species Act is the process used to expunge humans from their homes. Using the ESA, Columbia Land Trust is flooding people out of their homes. Older farmers and rural dwellers are easy targets for CLT they are offered buyouts at elevated prices and these struggling farmers after a few years of being flooded by CLT’s alterations become “willing sellers”. The “willing sellers” are lied to and told their land will be preserved; this has never been the case the land has always been altered to cause flooding to more neighbors thus making more “willing sellers”.

It is not about saving the environment. It is about Greed, Power, and Rural Cleansing which is a nice term for what it really is Rural Genocide, which means; Murder of an entire ethnic group (Rural private property owners): the systematic killing (destruction) of all the people from a specific group, (people who love the country) national, ethnic, or religious group, or an attempt to do this.

The environmental vultures insist on gobbling up rural private land. At least real vultures allow their victims to die before they consume them. Our private lands are not near death, they were abundant in wildlife before CLT, however, NGO's are anxious to divest them. If willing buyers are not to be found, they will be made. Many environmental groups and governmental agencies are so anxious to acquire private rural land, the only plausible explanation is to increase their already massive power and control. They have the insatiable appetite to add to their kingdom and further oppress the people and have a fanatic need to exert their influence over everything that moves or does not, or whether or not a problem exists. They will however, manage to create many problems in the process. And, it must be borne in mind that history has shown big brother to very often be a lousy steward of the land. The populace must wake up and recognize the monster, Hitler (NGO's) for what it is Rural Genocide.

Rural Cleansing

2008-12-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

Michael S. Coffman, Ph. D.

For American Land Foundation

Our view of reality and the role of government in our lives greatly influence how we view property rights. Americans no longer have the opportunity to learn the foundations of freedom and to understand what it really means to have the God-given right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Since the 1970s, we are increasingly following another system of governance that is systematically destroying the very principle that has made America the greatest nation in the history of the world.

America is in a war of world views between the principles of freedom laid down by John Locke (1632-1704) in his Two Treatises on Government (1689) and Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Social Contract (1762) and Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754). Government’s purpose, according to Locke, is to join with others to “unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estate, which I call by the general name, property.” According to Locke, the primary reason for government “is the preservation of their property.” (Italics added) This fundamental principle became the cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Rousseau attacked Locke’s model, arguing that individuality and property rights divide man by focusing on self-interest and greed rather than the good of society. He claims that property rights bind the poor thereby giving “new powers to the rich” that destroys “natural liberty” and equality and converts “usurpation into unalterable right.” He argues for the creation of the common good as embodied through an abstract, public will he called the ‘general will’. In his model, the enlightened state determines the general will of the people through the force of law, including how property will be used. Rousseau provided the foundational philosophy that spawned the bloody French Revolution and inspired the writings of Immanuel Kant, Georg W. F. Hegel and Karl Marx and many others, thereby planting the seeds for the European model of socialism and Russian communism.

Rousseau’s model of forced compliance has formed the basis of social and environmental laws in America since the 1970s. This is causing a hemorrhage in individual liberties once taken for granted by all Americans, including property rights. Without private property, individuals are powerless to oppose any infringement on their rights due to government control over the fruits of their labor. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the old Soviet Union, where all property belonged to the state. No one could speak out against the government for fear of their family being evicted, or their job taken away, by the local communist commissar.

Environmentalists claim that private property rights and greed are the root problem of pollution and environmental degradation. Yet, the worst pollution and environmental degradation has been on public land, water, or air – not private land. Since no one “owns” the land, water or air, pride of ownership or sense of responsibility to care for these entities is lost. It is called the Tragedy of the Commons. Again, the worst examples of this phenomenon were the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where there was no private property, yet they had the worst environmental record in the history of mankind.

Locke’s model recognizes and uses the human trait of self-interest to better oneself. Unencumbered private property provides the catalyst to stimulate individuals to be creative and take risk in finding a better way, product, or service to meet a human need – including protecting the environment. In Locke’s approach property owners would be restricted only by laws and regulations that keep them from activities that clearly cause harm to their neighbors or their property. If property is taken for the public good, the public pays just compensation.

Conversely, the Rousseau model places control in the hands of unaccountable, unelected government bureaucrats. Their primary incentive is to make their regulatory jobs easier and more efficient so they can build bigger empires at the people’s expense. Nothing is produced. Unless there is strong oversight of bureaucrats — something politicians rarely do — there is no accountability to keep them from administering laws in a corrupt, arbitrary and capricious manner. While Rousseau socialism does not destroy property rights as effectively as totalitarianism or communism, it nonetheless opens the door to corruption and dampens economic and personal freedom in proportion to the amount of regulation imposed.

In his compelling book The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto accurately identifies private property rights as the key to reducing poverty and producing wealth. Legal title to use property represents equity. This equity can be used as collateral for a loan to create the capital needed to start, expand or buy into a business which then yields income and wealth. If strangling regulations encumber property rights there is little to no equity and therefore little to no capital with which to create wealth. Without wealth, the environment cannot be protected. A family whose primary focus is to put food on the table is not going to be interested in protecting the environment.

The most striking example of how socialism destroys the wealth-building capability of property is found in the developing nations of the world. In these nations the simple act of legally transferring the title to property can take years, even decades in a sea of corruption and regulations. Few people have the time or resources to legally own property and therefore the property has no legal asset value. Hernando de Soto has shown that the total value of property held, but not legally owned, by the poor of the developing nations and former communist countries is at least $9.3 trillion! This is ninety-three times as much as all development assistance to the developing nations from all advanced countries during the past thirty years. There would be no need for foreign aid if these poverty-stricken people could have access to the asset value of their presently dead capital.

The Endangered Species Act, wetlands regulations, the Clean Water Initiative and a host of other environmental laws have one thing in common. State control of property rights based on the Rousseau model which strips or plunders the value of property from rural landowners. It is harming, even destroying the economic foundation of rural communities and counties as tens of billions, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars of property value has been transferred to the government via regulation.

The plundering of rural America has gotten so bad that a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial on July 26, 2001, called it “rural cleansing.” The WSJ claimed that this is the intent of the environmentalists, “The goal of many environmental groups…is no longer to protect nature. It is to expunge humans from the countryside” by suing or lobbying the “government into declaring rural areas off-limits to people who live and work there.” This can be done outright or by having “restrictions placed on the land that either render it unusable or persuade owners to leave of their own accord.”

Contrary to the popular myth that environmentalists work on a shoe-string for the benefit of mankind, the October 20, 1997, Boston Globe estimated the total funding for environmental activism to be around four billion dollars annually! Using top-dollar Madison Avenue packaging, their Rousseau-oriented environmental message finds willing listeners in urban America. While we do need to protect the environment, these slick, but distorted or false messages have easily manipulated the largely uninformed urban voters and politicians into believing all kinds of terrible things are happening that can only be solved with big government control. In response, Congress has created an interlocking web of Rousseau-based laws and regulations that usurp local and state jurisdictions and bestow enormous powers on federal bureaucrats who have little to no accountability to those they govern.

Anti-property rights activists use Rousseau’s “perceived good result” or the “public good” to attack the basis for constitutional property rights. Since the 1970s, activist courts have been systematically ruling that the use of private property and “the rights of the individual” endanger the rights of all the people. Yet, why should the last owners of wetlands, endangered species habitat, beautiful scenery or many other environmental and social benefits, have to shoulder the entire cost of protection or provision when the problem was created by the activities of thousands of other people? Most Americans would say that they shouldn’t. Yet, that is exactly what is happening to tens of thousands of Americans.

Government intrusion into the right to own and use property under the Trojan horse of the “public good” is beginning to cause great harm to American citizens, and is undermining the very foundation that has made America the greatest nation in human history. We can blindly continue to convert to the Jean Jacques Rousseau model of governance by the whim of bureaucrats, or we can return to the model of John Locke where private property is protected by government through law.

It is clear from a myriad of examples that the Rousseau model leads to corruption in government and a decline in the human condition while the Locke model yields freedom, prosperity and environmental protection. Which one would you choose?

_________________________

Dr. Michael Coffman is president of Environmental Perspectives, Inc. and CEO of Sovereignty International Corporation in Bangor, Maine.

American Land Foundation

P.O. Box 1033

Taylor, Texas 76574

It is Official

2008-12-08T22:59:00.000-08:00

It Is Official!

Wahkiakum County Is Lawless

Today is a Heartrending Day for All Americans Who Believed in Truth Justice and the American Way

It was determined that all elected officials are given discretionary privilege as to what laws to enforce, who to or not to protect against assault, and to protect private property or NOT!

It was well noted by several Wahkiakum County Residences who sought Justice Today Against well financed Columbia Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited who have caused personal injuries, trauma, and private property damage to several that the law does not apply to them! Nor do they have to be accountable.

RECKONING

2008-12-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

The Language of LawThe Language of Law

Monday, 1:30pm December 8th, 2008 is a day of reckoning, the settlement of accountability.

Tomorrow is court in Wahkiakum County, Washington where it will be determined if in fact laws must be enforced and adhered to or if Wahkiakum County elected officials will continue to ignore their constituents.

Will Wahkiakum County continue to allow the lawlessness of Columbia Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited, and several other agencies that have caused physical and mental harm, private property damage, county property damage, and eco-system damage go unaccounted for?

This is the question of the day.

Columbia Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited were proven at fault in 2006 and again in 2008 by their own Model shown to Wahkiakum County Stakeholders. Several letters from these entities were presented as evidence to fault. Letters from several legislative branches, Department of Ecology, Department of the Insurance Commissioner, Governor Chris Gregorie, and several others stating these entities were working with their victims to make restitution (which was untrue) were also included as evidence, along with pictures, and a hydrologist report. 33 violations have occurred and are backed with evidence and case law.

Is the truth going to prevail or will the fancy side steps of the attorneys prevail?

This is a case for all, it is not just about Wahkiakum County, it is about how elected officials fail us, it is about how powerful organizations armed with your tax dollars through grants under the guise of “salmon recovery” and ESA can rob, destroy, and cause absolute devastation. Private property rights are what our country was founded on, it is becoming a thing of the past, and it is now shrouded in greed and deceit by entities posing as environmentalists.

Join with us as we demand JUSTICE for all!

The truth shall prevail. As justice, sanity, and common sense is a victory for all.

Raven Webb

Alert

2008-12-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

The Language of Law

Action Alert! Action Alert!

URGENT!!

Dean Takko long time Washington State Representative

Writing legislation to abolish local Flood Control Districts

Takko is prompted by Columbia Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited, and Fish and Wildlife who are the three biggest landowners these entities will be in control of Flood Control

Which is a oxymoron. These entities are known for dike breaching and tide gate removal causing adverse affects to neighboring properties. This is an in for them to remove people from rural areas by inverse condemnation.

THE GREAT NORTHWEST PHONE-IN

CALL to say "NO" to a TAKE OVER

Sick of Congress' supporting and sneaking by legislation that puts power in the hands of a few? Want to stop the ongoing formation of eminent domain and intentional flooding of private property under the guise of salmon recovery? Angry that your elected officials deny the existence of agenda 21? Tired of Congress' and local elected officials failure to protect our nation's independence and sovereignty, to serve the Constitution they were elected to protect? It's time we take more aggressive action.

Join thousands to send joint messages to All states legislators and Capitol Hill!

Mark December 15^th 2008

On that date, honest people of Washington state will call members of Congress to voice opposition to the millions of $s given to Special Interest Groups taking over private property under the guise of “Salmon Recovery”.

Our purpose is to flood Capitol Hill with enough phone calls to shut down the switchboards...

As we demand that our elected representatives:

Stop efforts to replace people with manmade wetlands
Stop granting millions to Non Governmental Organizations
Protect our nation's independence and sovereignty
Serve the Constitution they were elected to protect

Above all - send the message that the American People will not tolerate the abolishment of PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS!

ACTION TO TAKE

On December 15^th 2008 call as many of the Congressional offices - both locally and in Washington as you can
Tell them:

1. You oppose Funding Non Governmental Organizations which propose to take over local special Taxing districts.

2. You oppose Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board and Salmon Recovery Board funding projects in the Grays’ River Valley.

3. You oppose any legislation that gives power over private property rights to Non Governmental Organization

3. Say Thank You and hang up!

4. Make the next call.

Do not engage the congressional staffers in debate or conversation because that will slow you down in making multiple calls.

The key to jamming the phone lines on Capital Hill is to keep up a barrage of calls pouring into congressional offices. Call an office, say your message within 30 seconds, say Thank You and hang up. Then dial the next number. We need a constant influx of calls.

You can make two calls a minute - or 120 calls in an hour. If 10,000 people make the calls that amounts to 9.6 million calls in 8 hours.

Don't be fooled. Your Congressmen and Senators know all about the private property take over by Non Governmental Organizations which congress has been funding much to the demise of America. Demand they stop pandering to Non Governmental corporations and special interests which do not care about the ideals of freedom you and I hold so dear.

Land Rights

2008-12-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 - Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 - Fax: 360-687-2973
E-mail: alra@pacifier.com
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE - Washington, DC 20003

Clinton, Gore, Babbitt Gang Taking Over Obama Natural Resources

Obama prepares to finish Babbitt’s “War on the West.”

Rural America in grave danger!!

Please forward this message as widely as possible—quickly!

-----Draft of Environmental Organization Transition Plan For Obama
Administration Can Be Found At www.landrights.org

Omnibus Bill Report below.

-----Special Note: This plan is the Environmental Group outline for the
next four to eight years of the Obama Administration for the Natural
Resources part of the Government. Interior, Agriculture, Corps of
Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, Council on Environmental Quality
and others.

The change you've been waiting for is just about to arrive. And on Federal
lands and property rights issues, the change looks like a return to the bad
old days of Bill Clinton and Bruce Babbitt's War on the West.

Leading the Obama transition team for the Interior Department are David
Hayes and John Leshy. Hayes was Deputy Secretary of the Interior under
Secretary Babbitt in the Clinton Administration.

Hayes now works for the World Wildlife Fund. Leshy was Solicitor General of
the Interior Department under Babbitt. Leshy has spent his whole career
trying to get natural resource producers, especially small miners, off
Federal lands.

Both Hayes and Leshy have been mentioned as on the list to be Obama's choice
for Interior Secretary. Incredibly, some of the other names being mentioned
are even worse. Most of them served in the Clinton Administration and most
of them have worked for one of the radical preservationist groups.

Think back to what those years--1993 to 2001--were like when Clinton and
Babbitt were waging their War on the West.

Logging stopped in our National Forests.
Grazing permittees harassed and arrested.
Huge areas closed to entry under the General Mining Law.
Trails closed to off-roaders and snow-mobilers.

Thousands of miles of roads closed by the Roadless Rule.

Inholders denied access to their own property.

Hundreds of species listed as endangered under the ESA.

Now, the same people who gave us the Roadless Rule are getting ready to come
back. They didn't get everything locked up and closed down during the eight
Clinton years largely because the Republicans won control of the House and
Senate. But now Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House and Harry Reid is
Senate Majority Leader.

The radical preservationists that staffed Babbitt's Interior Department want
to finish what they started.

Lock it up.

Close it down.

No natural resource production allowed.

Recreation and hunting prohibited on millions of more acres.

Huge new Wilderness Areas.

Hundreds and hundreds more endangered species listings.

Even widespread condemnation of private inholdings is on their agenda.

The 26,000,000 acre National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) is a first
class example of what they are going to try to do nationally.

Here's what you need to do to stop the second War on the West.

Deluge your Senators office (For the New Congress) to urge them not to
approve John Leshy, David Hayes or any other Babbitt Interior Department
Alumni as Secretary of Interior. You do not want to have to fight for
survival in a new Obama War On The West.

Call any Senator at (202) 224-3121.

Ask for their e-mail and/or fax number. Send them a letter opposing the new
War On The West.

You must act quickly.

-----Urgent Action Required --

------You successfully defeated the giant Omnibus Federal Land Grab Bill.
But Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) Senate Majority Leader, promises that it will
be high if not first on his agenda in the new Congress.

-----You must be all over your Senators like a cheap suit by phone, fax and
e-mail to head of this terrible land grab. Call Any Senator at (202)
224-3121.

Chuck Cushman
Executive Director
ccushman@pacifier.com
(360)687-3087

Land Trusts - Defile the word "Conservation"

2008-11-04T20:26:00.000-08:00

The lure of Columbia Land Trust
Beautiful rivers, tranquil scenery, babbling brooks, fish in abundance, and abounding wild life sounds wonderful thoughts of keeping the land in pristine condition away from development, smoke stacks, and pollution giving your property as a gift or just a conservation easement that will reap tax benefits and beauty forever more.

Dream time over WAKE UP!!!

A private land trust like Columbia Land Trust owning specific scenic or wildlife areas sounds appealing on the surface, but almost all land trusts today are highly political organizations run by ideological, anti-development environmentalist activists seeking to impose social controls in order to undermine the private economy and the civil rights of property owners. Columbia Land Trust has shown many property owners just how they are by their actions of “Do as they will and Harm all those who appose them”. If a private property owner refuse to sell Columbia Land Trust just floods and erodes private property year after year until the owner gives up and gives their dream away to Columbia Land Trust.

The land trusts are financially backed by a subclass of wealthy owners pursuing preservation in order to keep other people out of their sight. Wealthy people who want to hide money, get tax breaks, and abuse the system. Trusts use their politically privileged tax–exempt status and government subsidies to promote and lobby for government ownership and control of vast areas of land, and collaborate with government agencies behind the backs of property owners targeted for acquisition and land use prohibitions. The trusts act as real estate purchasing agents for government agencies, exploiting the mechanisms of the private free–market by buying up land and eventualy flipping it into government ownership.

When direct political and government action becomes too controversial the trusts use their vast wealth to gradually eliminate private property owners from a targeted area over time in a strategy of attrition, while land use controls over private property are relentlessly increased to drive out the remaining owners. Exempt from property taxes themselves, the trusts manipulate the tax code for their own political ends by inducing tax-strapped property owners to sell or donate land in exchange for discriminatory tax breaks available only to those giving up land rights to the ‘non–profit’ trusts. ‘Conservation easements’ ostensively intended to hold development rights typically also grants the trusts enormous privileges to interfere in the private management of the land.

The Lower Columbia River has been targeted by many of the wealthiest and most politically powerful land trusts in the Northwest, they fund and direct several satellite trusts claiming to represent local people such as the “Grays’ River Work Group. The agencies involved are Lower Columbia Fish recovery board, Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group. Columbia Land Trust, CREST, Fish and Wildlife, NOAA, funded by you and your tax dollars they boast of a war chest of $90 million to buy up land their backers do not want other people to use, and maintain close connections with government agencies where it influences government land acquisition priorities and regulatory controls. Columbia Land Trust, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, and Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board are carnivorous monsters devouring private property, destroying the very foundation in which this Country was founded on. The new land use planning of projects on the river targets 65 private properties just in the Grays’ River Watershed. This strategic plan promises to take over most of the private property in West Wahkiakum County, which will result in mass condemnations to remove the people, it will provide millions of grant dollars for these agencies. At the same time, they have been collaborating with the Wahkiakum Community Foundation – Karen Bertroch to alert them to any properties such as territorial farm where an elderly widow or widower may reside to use their techniques to “persuade” the owners to donate the property. To solicit the County Assessor to designate, conservation lands behind the backs of the property owners. This area is the gate way to the Pacific Ocean miles of river coast runs through making it a sportsmans paradise, seen as a area rich in estuaries it is “nationally significant”, and being used as an excuse to seize control of people's private property.

We as a community have a voice we spoke loud and clear on Tuesday night making our position clear this is our land, it is not for the taking, and we will not tolerate injustice, lies, or propaganda. We care about our neighbors, our heritage, and our community. We as a community want clean rivers, fish abundance, and to keep our property rights.

Grays’ River Habitat Enhancement District works with landowners to help them protect their property rights. It is a group of community minded people dedicated to preserving the Grays’ River – Rosburg way of life. The commissioners are not paid and do NOT receive financial incentives or gains. There is no hidden agenda. This is the community’s place to bring concerns, suggestions, information and work as a community united to stop the take over of our waterways, private properties and homes there is power in numbers together we can take our property and homes back.

GRHED meets 2nd Wednesday of every month at 6pm at the Grays’ River Grange. Bring thoughts, questions, and concerns. If you need assistance in regards to river issues, private property take over, or just have questions - call GRHED - Delvin Fredrickson 360-465-2960

NGO's get millions for land acquistion

2008-10-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Group received funding under the guise of working with community members and calls themselves “the Grays RIVER Work Group”. Sounds like a good thing in reality the group consists of Columbia Land Trust, Fish and Wildlife, Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group, Karen Bertroch a greedy grant writer without concern for anyone or anything except her huge pockets, and CREST.

As a landowners and community members several of us tried to work with this group as things progressed we found the minutes did not reflect the meetings, concerns voiced by the honest landowners were ignored and when votes were taken on project funding the majority should rule no this was not the case it was stated in the minutes it was an unanimous decision to award CLT funds to purchase crazy Johnson area when the minutes were disputed another vote was taken and again the funding was shot down by the majority it was again ignored and stated it was unanimous.The honest landowners removed themselves from this work group over a year ago by sending letters. This too has been ignored our names are being used to promote this group as working with the community which they are not.

The Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Group is deceptive, I have sent letters to Governor Chris Gregoire giving documentation on illegal use of Government funds but she can not, will not grasp, or does she know she is providing funding for eminent domain? For the last four years I have written to every legislative body and person requesting an investigation into misappropriation of Government Funds and no one will respond.
We have received the Grays River Community Restoration Plan and Project design by this group and the community takes offence to being named in this plan because we do not support this plan.

The plan plans to dig channels through private property taking away our land in the entire Grays River Valley. The plan is not scientific or geologically sound. It is based on assumptions for fish recovery and restoration. It will provide funding for land acquisitions, removing people from ancestral homes that were homesteaded over 130 years ago. The plan is based on wording such as likely, there may have been, and could have been before settlement of people, there may have been a channel here or there when in fact these statements are geologically and scientifically false.

What is clear is that the projects designed will remove people from the area; it will destroy agriculture, farms, and lives. It will cause an imbalance to the ecosystem that will have far reaching adverse effects and it will destroy hunting and fishing grounds. The plan will provide the above Non Governmental Organizations over 20 million just to start provided by your tax dollars paid out in Government Grants. This is huge, it is eminent domain, and it is bad for the country.

Even if the country was not having a financial crisis this is a waste of money, a waste of resources, and an abomination to property rights and the principals on which America was founded on.

A public meeting will be held Tuesday October 28th, 2008 at the Gays River Grange hosted by LCFRB giving a propagandized spiel on the “wonderful” things they plan on doing to us. They will try and convince everyone this is for their own good, as Ian Sinks of CLT says “people who own rural land are wasting it”, and you will be told how this will help with flooding. All of what they say is geared to take away private property and to fill their pockets with your tax dollars under the guise of restoration and fish recovery.
NGO’s think we are stupid they come in with the warm and fuzzy talk of how they are here to help the only thing they are helping is their pocket books. Wake up, stand up for your rights, and your community. The honest community members are signing in under protest.

The meeting materials are posted on the LCFRB website if you would like to review them before the meeting:http://www.lcfrb.gen.wa.us/GRWG%20announcement.htm

Stealing land the guise of "Land Trusts"

2008-10-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

U.S. Set to Take Coloradans Land Without Compensation
By Fred Kelly Grant
At this very hour, Colorado landowners are fighting to prevent the United States federal government from taking their land. Ignored by the mass media, hundreds of farmers and ranchers in southeastern Colorado are facing loss of their property at the hands of the IRS. They are victims of “conservation easements” promoted by federal and state governments, land trust companies, and conservation groups.
As landowners dedicated to preserving the open, agricultural use of their land, lured into the “easements” by both the U.S. and Colorado governments, they have been betrayed by those they trusted.
A “conservation easement” is an easement in name only. It is an agreement by a landowner to give up the right to develop his or her land for residential, commercial or industrial use. He/she agrees to keep the land in agricultural use FOREVER, and in return is rewarded either with cash payment for the development value, or income tax relief to the amount of the appraised value of the development rights.
The federal government and the state of Colorado offered inducements for execution of the “easements” by which the landowners donated their land to various land trusts to be held for agricultural use IN PERPETUITY. They accepted the following offers of income tax relief, conditioned upon execution of the easements: federal income tax deductions, and tax credits from Colorado income tax, or the right to sell such tax credits to third parties or the State itself.

In reliance on commitments from the two governments, the landowners donated their land to various land trusts, mainly for two reasons: they wanted to preserve their land as agricultural land forever, and they faced cash flow problems which could be helped by the tax relief. So, they gave away the value of development rights in exchange for tax relief. In most cases, the development rights were far more valuable, money wise, than the assessed land value. But, the landowners placed their desire for continued agricultural use above the interest in a future much higher profit.
The landowners followed the rules. They engaged consultants to help them put together the donation package. They hired appraisers certified by the state of Colorado as honest, ethical, and competent. They had certified public accountants review the appraisals and their financial situations. They hired lawyers to make sure the law was followed in the transactions.
They asked that all this professional help assure them that the Land Trust company, which would own the easement, was trustworthy.
But, after two to three years, one of the donee Land Trusts invited the IRS to review the easement appraisals. That invitation didn’t worry the landowners because they had obtained professional assistance and had been assured they were following the rules.
But, suddenly the IRS announced disqualifications of “easements,” claiming that the appraisals of development rights were highly over stated. The State of Colorado called into question the licenses of several appraisers (all appraisers who have sought full reinstatement have been successful), and the mass media began to talk of a “scandal,” and “sham” appraisals, and cast the landowners as greedy people looking for windfalls. The media reached its libelous conclusions without reviewing the files and determining the facts. But, what’s new? As Will Rogers said, “If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”
In one case, for example, the appraisal of the development rights was challenged by an IRS employee who claimed that the appraiser did not use any comparable realty values in the vicinity. The statement is either an outright lie, or the grossest negligence in history. Within a quarter-mile of the appraised land is a subdivision of high scale homes, and within a half mile is a subdivision of even a higher scale homes situated on a finely groomed golf course.
The appraised land is within two miles of the city limits and a regional hospital. The landowner has water rights that accompany the appraised land, and the land has available water access, which would serve residential parcels very efficiently. Whether the IRS conclusion is a lie may rest on the fact that the federal employee judging the appraised value is not an appraiser, and has been exposed to land appraisal training for a solid two hours.
The IRS has demanded payment of back taxes, plus penalties and interest. In some cases, the demand is higher than the value of the landowners’ property, now that the “easements” have devalued the property. The third parties who bought state tax credits have demanded return of their money. The state of Colorado has turned its back on the landowners, which it lured into the conservation easements. The Governor’s office turns back requests for assistance with the spurious claim that the matter is a “federal” issue. The Secretary of Agriculture, who lives among the troubled landowners, ignores the problem.
The landowners cannot borrow money to satisfy the “return” demands. The banks will not lend money because of the conservation easements, which devalue the land.
The landowners cannot sell their land, or any portion of their land. Buyers are not willing to take on the restrictions and devaluation of the land resulting from the conservation easements. One of the ranchers had a sale in place for a portion of his property. The sale price would have allowed him to replace at least 75 percent of his imminent loss, but the buyer backed out because of the conservation easement.
As the federal and state governments pursue destruction of these landowners, they continue to promote conservation easements. Land Trust companies and conservation groups continue to promote conservation easements, and the Congress created tax incentives in the new Farm Bill that will lure other landowners into reliance on a government, which has proved unreliable.
Colorado at this moment faces a huge federal take-over of private land, which will remove thousands of acres from the tax rolls of the counties. And, the problem in southeastern Colorado is only the tip of the iceberg. There are over 1,800 of these conservation easements throughout Colorado. In the blink of an eye, Colorado can be victimized by massive federal take-overs.
The problem facing Coloradans and Colorado is the beginning of what can be, and will be, a national crisis resulting from transfer of private ownership of land to the United States Government. Counties will suffer from loss of tax revenue; the landscape will suffer from negligent management by federal agencies; the species in the ecosystems will suffer from negligent management; and the law will suffer from a blatant disregard for the constitutional limits on federal government ownership and requirements that property is not taken without just compensation.
All the horrible results from imposition of conservation easements, which private property organizations including Stewards of the Range and the American Land Foundation have emphasized, have come to fruition in southeastern Colorado. They lay ahead for unsuspecting landowners across the Nation.
What you can do to help:

As the governments and Land Trusts turn their backs on the landowners, all individuals in the nation can help. You can call, fax and email your Representatives and Senators who are seeking re-election. You can ask them what they are doing, or will do, to protect private landowners as they protected big business in the massive “bail out” of Wall Street. You can tell them that your vote depends on their willingness to help. You can demand of incumbents that there will be field hearings to determine the truth as to the inadequacy of the IRS reviews. You can demand that they hold field hearings to inquire into, and “fix”, the fraud that is evident on the part of the promoters of the conservation easements.
If you live in Colorado, you can call, fax and email the Secretary of Agriculture and the Governor, demanding that they “fix” the problem caused by fraud perpetrated on the landowners. And, you can write letters to the local and regional newspapers and television stations demanding that they determine the facts, rather than relying on press statements by leaders of the Land Trusts who are complicit in the threat to the landowners. The landowners are ready and willing to show the press the facts as they did to me.

Fred Kelly Grant serves as president of Stewards of the Range and has practiced law for over 50 years. He, along with Stewards of the Range and American Land Foundation are assisting landowners nationwide on property rights issues.

To post your comments go to http://stewards.wordpress.com

This article was distributed by Liberty Matters, Stewards of the Range and the American Land Foundation.

American Land Foundation
PO Box 1033
Taylor, Texas 76574
512-365-2699

Stewards of the Range
PO Box 1190
Taylor, Texas 76574
512-365-8038
www.stewards.us

Destroying our pivate property killing salmon w/ tax dollars

2008-09-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

This is a reprint from an email I received. This is how Columbia Land Trust makes "willing seller" they destroy your property in the name of "salmon recovery" and force you out. Fish and Wildlife needs to keep killing salmon so the salmon will stay on the endangered species list thus generating more funds to Non governmental organizations that want your land. As Ian Sinks of CLT stated people who own land are wasting it. If they get their way there will be no crops to harvest, hunger will be the norm more then it is now, people will kill for an apple if they even remember what an apple is. We won't know the joy of a country walk Columbia Land Trust has already altered some of this once beautiful valley into an ugly rock monstrosity removing the joy of walking with nature. Wake up people salmon recovery is not for the salmon it is not for you, the rivers, or the environment it is for filling the pockets of these idiots who seek to destroy. There is a record Chinook salmon run and as Poul buts it their will be a record salmon kill by fish and wildlife and NGO's like CLT.

To all interested and concerned!
It's 3:30 am and I can't sleep because I am angry thinking about what the Columbia Land Trust and the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife is doing to our rivers and farms. Between the two there is more damage being done to our way of life than I ever imagined possible. C.L.T. wants to save the salmon, the W.D.F.W. wants to kill the salmon.
Yesterday I was on our dock (in Seal River, off Grays River) trying to catch one of the many salmon jumping and rolling all over. Never in my 12 years here have I seen so many here. Seems that would be a good thing? Except the Seal river goes to two 13ft culverts and into a converted farm to where the fish may or may not get stranded at low tide. The other option for the fish is to find their way back to the Grays River where they belong, only finding their way blocked by the weir put in by WDFW and eager killers of the same name.
To add even more absurdity to this, WDFW agent Brightbill was at the weir checking to see if the boys fishing were getting too close to the State killing setup. Are they afraid they will not get enough fish to kill?
Now back to the Seal River and our dike: The current created by the CLT Kendoll farm project and their two 13ft culverts replacing the former tidegate, is creating so much current that it is scouring our dike. I have brought this up before when I discovered 3ft plus washed away under the dock. Now, because the base silt has been washed away, the dike bank is starting to break off into the river.
Considering the relative short time the CLT project has been in place, and the amount of washout already done, it seems to me it will not be many years before the dike will be washed away and collapse.
If the dike goes, so goes 7 of the 8 acres we own. It would make it so we could only make it to the road at low tide. It would have water over State Highway 4 at every high tide.
Once again I ask that all interested parties, officials and people consider what is going on here. There are other issues connected with this, not least Ravens, Amalas, Blaines and my own property.
I ask that all responsible for this and our keepers of land and laws hold up their responsibility to cause no harm to others.
Sincerely;
Poul K. Toftemark
Seal River

Government is drowing out the people's voice

2008-09-25T22:01:00.001-07:00

To The Eagle;
This is an example of how our government work; There was a "hearing" to see what people thought of the plans to kill the salmon in the Grays River, our river.
We he public overwhelmingly disagreed with the plan to once again kill the salmon to reduce the river to chum, yet here they are, disregarding public voice and blatantly damaging the river against river law! How much insanity must we put up with from the people spending our tax money?
Instead o feeding the river with carcasses they will be otherwise disposed of. I strongly urge all to come and view and protest the kill at the Covered Bridge on the Grays River please and come and see it yourself, bring your voices and experience the power of our government over the people's voice. It is very demoralizing when you find out that this isn't as democratic as you think.

Poul K. Toftemark
Rosburg

Flood Laws and Private Property Rights

2008-09-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

Wahkiakum County Eagle
September 25, 2008

Judge Hears Flood Law Pleas
By Rick Nelson

Wahkiakum County Superior Court Judge Michael Sullivan may rule next week on Rosburg resident Raven Webb’s suit to force Sheriff Dan Bardsley to enforce the county’s flood plain ordinance.
Webb claims non profit organizations have altered the Grays River flood plain, causing an increase in flood flow that has repeatedly flooded her residence. The county’s flood zone ordinance bars actions which increase the flood flow, she said in her pleadings, and she asked the court to order Bardsley to enforce the law.
Representing Bardsley, Prosecuting Attorney Dan Bigelow has responded that the ordinance does not specifically put enforcement duties on the office of the sheriff. He asked that the action be dismissed, and Sullivan held a hearing on Monday to consider arguments.
Sullivan said he had read the file and wondered why Webb hadn’t sued Columbia Land Trust, whom she blames for the flooding. He added that long established precedents in Washington, you can’t force elected officials to do something.
Webb responded that she has no other responded that she has no other remedy with out public officials upholding the ordinance, she and other residents in the area will be harmed, she said, she once hired an attorney, but negotiations went nowhere, she said.
Why don’t you take the extra step and include Columbia Land Trust” Sullivan asked. She could ask for an injunction to stop Columbia Land Trust activities until the case was settled.
The US. Constitution state constitution and Revised Code of Wahkiakum County spell out the duties of officials to enforce laws, she replied.
When asked for his comments, Bigelow replied they were contained in the file, but briefly the sheriff has neither the duty nor the authority to enforce the ordinance.
Who does? Sullivan asked, and Bigelow explained that the ordinance dealt with licensing and permitting issues that would be county departments, and that the prosecutor also could take action on violations. Bigelow added that he has toured the area as part of an investigation.
I’ll consider your argument that the sheriff has a mandatory duty to enforce an ordinance even if he’s not specifically listed,” Sullivan said to Webb.
“It’s an interesting point; I’ve never seen that argument before”. Sullivan said he would allow both parties to file additional arguments up till 3pm Friday. The court clerk would then send the files to him and he would rule after that.

WHO IS FEMA

2008-09-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President - Congress cannot review the action for six months.A complete explanation is here: http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon6.html

2008-09-19T08:03:00.003-07:00

REFUTING MYTHS/RANGE MAGAZINE EXPOSES JUNK SCIENCE
RANGE MAGAZINE

BEHIND THE GREEN CURTAIN VIDEO
Modern Environmentalism illegal land grabbing

2008-09-19T08:03:00.002-07:00

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACThttp://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/ch35.html

2008-09-19T08:03:00.001-07:00

GOOD NEIGHBOR Blog Site
http://www.goodneighborlaw.com/GoodNeighborLaw.htmIndepth analysis of globalism and the sovereignty of the United States.

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Protect Your Property

2008-09-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

ALLODIAL LAND TITLE
"An allodial title was bestowed, by law, upon the land with unalienability forever. No government, agency, bank or other sovereign power could place any lien, attachment or encumbrance on land held in an allodial state. An allodial title is derived from the original, federal land patent. "Land Patents" are still today the highest evidence of title and have never been refuted by any court of competent jurisdiction."http://www.suijuris.net/forum/land-ownership/160-allodial-title-land-patents-ownerships-highest-proof-i.html

Interview with Michael Shaw

2008-09-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

Michael Shaw, an attorney and accountant, is a founding member of Freedom Advocates (www.freedomadvocates.org and www.libertygarden.com), formerly known as Freedom 21 Santa Cruz, www.Freedom21SantaCruz.net). Freedom Advocates works to help local, grass-roots groups defend their unalienable rights, including private property rights, from federal and local programs associated with U.N. Agenda 21, Sustainable Development, and Smart Growth. Shaw has been dealing with these issues since the mid-1990’s, when he was active with the Santa Cruz County Planning Board. Santa Cruz County was one of the first counties in America to be targeted to implement Agenda 21 policies. Shaw’s recent articles include: “Sustainable Trouble: The Attempt to Transform the Vision of America”

(www.newswithviews.com/guest_opinion/guest66.htm) and “Liberty or Sustainable Development?” (www.newswithviews.com/Shaw/michael13.htm).
Agenda 21 is the United Nations’ Agenda for the 21st century that was unveiled at the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro- the so-called “Rio Earth Summit.” 179 nations have agreed to implement Agenda 21 policies, so the policies are now being implemented worldwide. In America, it is being implemented by all federal agencies and in every county. Shaw asserts that Agenda 21 is a global/local program intended to wrest sovereignty from individuals and existing political structures and invest power and control in the United Nations.

Joan Veon (In Prince Charles: The “Sustainable Prince”), paraphrases Agenda 21/Sustainable Development as follows: “The world has too many people, and if we do not reduce the number of people on planet earth they will use up all of the earth’s resources so that future generations will be left without any resources. The United Nations is the best global body to monitor, manage, and preserve the resources of the planet.”

In practice, Agenda 21/Sustainable Development goals are advanced by “Public-Private Partnerships” – an alliance between government, big business, and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) that are allied with big business. The common name for political systems controlled by corporate government, of course, is “fascism.” A current example of a state/region now completely under corporate rule is Queensland, Australia, which is now under the authority of the Brigalow Corporation (http://www.nickmaine.info/Documents/update_re_brigalow_corp.htm). Shaw refers to this corporate take-over of entire states and regions as “a thousand points of darkness.”

The sponsors of Agenda 21 utilize programs such the Wildlands Project, World Heritage Sites, National Heritage Areas, roadless programs, and wolf re-introduction programs, to move towards their stated goal of making at least 50% of America off-limits to the American people. They advocate re-apportioning the country into “core reserves” (which are completely off limits to people), corridors, and buffer zones (where only public-private partnerships could operate). People would be herded into “Smart Growth” zones or “human settlements,” where they would be confined to high-rise buildings. Individual rights, including private property rights, would be stripped away. Agenda 21/Sustainable Development documents call for reduction of the human population from the present 6.6 billion down to about 1 billion people, that is, by 85%.

Who would benefit from such a system? Shaw says we need to understand that “funny money” is made out of thin air by a small ruling elite- and that this tiny ruling elite is the driving force behind Agenda 21. Today, both Republicans and Democrats are completely committed to implementing Agenda 21. Whereas Republicans have joined forces with political parties from numerous other nations in the International Democratic Union (IDU), Democrats have signed on with another international coalition, the Democratic Leadership Council, which is the brainchild of Britain’s Tony Blair. Both of these internationalist groups advocate the adoption of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

What’s wrong with that? In contrast to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that individual rights and civil liberties, including private property rights, are unalienable rights given to us by God, the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (Article 29, Section 3) states that our “rights” are subject to U.N. policies and dictates. In other words, our rights are what the U.N. tells us they are. In this kind of system, all people can become serfs and slaves of the tiny ruling elite.

Shaw notes that Agenda 21 is an attempt to implement “fascist Communism” or “communist Fascism”- or a political system where “the social policies are communist and the economic policies are fascist.” The program is entirely Fabian socialist (or communism in slow motion). In order to obtain their New World Order by stealth and slow, imperceptible changes, Fabian socialists have adopted motto is “Two steps forward and one step back.” But once this kind of feudal “collectivism” is implemented, human life will be completely altered, much as in George Orwell’s 1984..

How are Agenda 21 policies being implemented in America today? When local governments accept the carrot of federal grant monies and begin to utilize the standard “consensus process” (manipulated by trained “change agents”), communities begin creating their own “visionary plans.” However, somehow each community’s “consensus process” typically leads to the implementation of identical “Local Agenda 21,” “Smart Growth,” and “Sustainable Development” initiatives. And invariably, these initiatives strip citizens of their private property rights, etc. Invariably, the changes also lead to “regionalization” of governments and weakening of democratic structures or eradication of democracy altogether.

Our “globalist manipulators” get people to buy into these programs with the innocuous-sounding phrases like the “Three E’s:” equity, economy, and environment.” However, if we look carefully, we see the meanings of these words have been distorted in Orwellian fashion, such that each term means something completely different from what we thought it did.

Today, federal and state governments are completely on board U.N. Agenda 21 and each federal agency submits an annual progress report demonstrating their progress toward implementing Agenda 21 programs. The Dept. of Interior, for instance, now defines humans as “biological resources.”

According to Sun Tzu, the Chinese expert on warfare, we need to understand our enemy and ourselves. Shaw observes that the American education system, which has been transformed by Dewey and others into a system for “robotizing” America’s youth. Another area of concern is that local groups are typically heavily infiltrated. Thus, we can expect to be lead down paths that are dead ends. Think tanks are particularly affected. The primary m.o. of our globalist manipulators is to “divide and conquer.” Another goal of our globalist manipulators is to create (artificial) resource shortages; which they can use to justify and implement population reductions. By re-designating large areas as wildlands, for example, government can create water, oil, or food shortages. And of course, another common practice is to sell off public assets to private companies in a process known as “privatization.”

Agenda 21 policies directly attack rural America in order to gain control of resources in rural areas. Thus, those who own a ranches or a farms are under intense economic pressure. Shaw believes that if America’s rural landowners lose this battle, all Americans lose.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should really be called “extra-governmental organizations” because they serve corporate interests rather than those of citizens. Shaw asserts that the Sierra Club, for example is an NGO that, like the other approximately 2000 NGO’s, has been accredited by the U.N. under the condition that they will help implement Agenda 21. He notes that the Sierra Club currently sits on many water boards throughout the West. Again, their goal is to control water resources in order to create artificial water shortages. Shaw notes that, whereas, Americans today use an average 140 gallons of water per day, the World Bank is calling for a reduction of global per capita water to only 10 gallons per day. So get used to not taking showers.

The good news? Our globalist manipulators are behind schedule in their drive to global tyranny. Their “consensus councils” are not working at the local level. Citizens are waking up and resisting intelligently. And there may be divisions within the ruling elite themselves. For example, the forces led by Prince Charles are not necessarily compatible with those lead by Gorbachev. And some of our politicians are waking up too. Representative Ron Paul, for example, has recently raised the issue of “honest money.”

Freedom 21 (Freedom Advocates) convened their 9th Annual Freedom21 National Conference in Dallas, Texas in July, 2008. The theme was connecting the dots between such policies as the Real ID Act, the Animal Registration Act, regional water policies, the Trans-Texas Corridor, and the North American Union.
We need to realize that the battle is in our counties, where Local Agenda 21 is being implemented. In order to fight more effectively at the local level, we need to understand the global dynamics of Agenda 21/Sustainable Development.

Co-host interviewer Dr. Eric Karlstrom recommended that those interested in learning more about Agenda 21 read his recent summary article: “Global Green Dictatorship: Regional Governance, U.N. Agenda 21, Sustainable Development, and the Wildlands Project” (http://waterwatchalliance.googlepages.com/agenda21).

Destroying Private and County Property

2008-09-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

DONATIONS

2008-09-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is a small showing of what we have endured over the past four years. Wahkiakum County refuses to up hold the laws of the United States, Washington State, and their own county ordinances protecting the residents of Wahkiakum County does not seem to be what they do. Without protection from the county, nor the state we will continue to be taken over and destroyed by Columbia Land Trust and their affiliates our lands will become breeding grounds for the West Nile Virus. After suffering through eleven intentional floods in four-years funds are depleted. We do not have funds to protect ourselves from Columbia Land Trust and their affiliates and we should not have to. Laws have been violated, this will repeat again. Without raising my home, I do not know if it will endure another on slot of flood waters directed at us by Columbia land trust. This is what they do to "unwilling" sellers.

America land of the Free

2008-08-29T21:52:00.001-07:00

America’s founders believed:
“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God…anarchy and tyranny commence.” (John Adams, a Defense of the Constitution of the Government of the United States, 1797.)
The United Nations believes:
“Private land ownership is a principal instrument of accumulating wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice. Public control of land use is therefore indispensable.” (U.N. Conference on Human Settlements) (HABTAT I), 1976.)
See Agenda 21
Wahkiakum County, Washington sits on the Columbia River it is well endowed with natural beauty as well as natural resources. It appears Wahkiakum County has rejected John Adams’ belief and instead, adopted the United Nations belief as reflected in their refusal to uphold the constitution of the United States as well as the Washington State Constitution and to ignore their own county ordinances in favor of Non Governmental Organizations stripping citizens of their constitutional rights.
Section 3 - Personal Rights
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
Residents continue to be deprived of their rights. Wahkiakum County has given Columbia Land Trust, lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board, Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group, CREST, and Salmon Recovery Board to name a few the justification to continue to destroy private property by failing to protect the residents personal rights under the Washington State Constitution.

“Salmon Recovery” is the name given to the result of The Endangered Species Act; it is everything but “Salmon Recovery”. It is a plan to keep Salmon on the endangered list by setting weirs within our rivers to trap spawning Salmon, to execute the Salmon before they can make it up river to lay their eggs. It is a plan to remove tide gates that kept Salmon safe from being swooshed onto fields where they die. It is a plan that ignores the sanctity of private property by taking control of land use away from property owners by redirecting rivers and streams onto private properties destroying the eco-system, agriculture, livestock, family pets, homes and personal property by flooding. It is a plan to build dams and levies in the middle of flood plains to direct flood waters onto private property to destroy it. It is a plan to build swamps which become breeding grounds for the West Nile Virus, malaria, and other deadly diseases. And it is a plan to remove people from rural areas to take away rights of private property placing it in the hands of government i.e. Non Governmental Organizations the new term for government – as prescribed by the United Nations. John Adams was right; the result of government control of land use is nothing short of tyranny.
Item: A woman bought a home with forty acres of land to enjoy the beauty. In the beginning there was peace, serenity and joy. Elk and deer grazed and roamed the fields. Hundreds of ducks and geese rested, grazed and hatched their babies, they were plentiful and a joy to watch. Salmon swam in seal slough; the riparian population was a sight to behold. All was in harmony.

That woman is me. I am an inhabitant of this beautiful area, a care taker of the land, loving the land and its inhabitants. I am at peace and safe, a feeling I have never known before. I am happy, joyous, and surrounded by natural beauty I am truly blessed.

In the late summer of 2004 Columbia Land Trust purchases the elderly neighbor’s property under the guise of preservation. CLT is a Non Governmental Organization that receives the bulk of their funding through grants from what is known as the SRB funding i.e. Salmon Recovery Board, Fish and Wildlife allocates monies to this agency to disperse to NGO’s that say they are “recovering salmon habitat”. NGO’s also receive donations from people like you and me. People who love nature and want to help the earth regain its health and to see salmon flourish are easily persuaded to believe the warm and fuzzy talk of these NGO’s.

Reality comes with a price, a very high price. CLT descends upon this beautiful peaceful valley. Things begin to change. Monsters (heavy equipment) roam the fields day, night, and into the very pale light of pre dawn destroying everything in their path. Trees run down, splintered in the night. Trees bulldozed into rivers, eagles nesting places destroyed. Tall grasses and marsh ran down, ducks and geese left with no place to call home. Fields that were feeding ground for deer and elk no longer lush, the beautiful animals run out. Sediment from moving earth runs into the rivers and water ways making them shallow impassible, warm, and unhealthy for salmon. The land lies waste, it seems sad, what once was a beautiful walking area is now filled with despair, Trees lay shattered on the ground it looks as if it was a war zone, I believe it was. Machine, money, greed and man left the mark of a job “well done”. It is unbelievable, sickening and wakes one up to the realities, one I hope none of you will ever have to experience.

Item: A man owned acreage along the Seal River, it is a beautiful sanctuary. The owner wanted to build a dock on the river it took the five years to obtain the permits the dock was built and it was a wonderful place that friends enjoyed. The “project” down river on what was the Kandoll Farm has caused damage to his dock, eroded his property and caused the river to run so swift that it could be dangerous. His land his being taken away by the erosion caused by the “project”. The county refuses to comply with his constitutional rights even though Columbia Land Trust admitted to causing the problem the county continues to allow them to destroy private property.
Item: A couple has a 25 acre field where they produce timothy hay for their livestock. As the man lie in the hospital recovering form a heart transplant this NGO alters the land and the waterways, the alterations destroy their field leaving them no alternative except to buy hay. With all the added stress it is hard to recover. They are told by Wahkiakum County it is a civil matter.
Item: A Farmer is getting ready to harvest his fields. When he finds locks have been cut and an army of excavators have plowed through his field destroying his crops. The excavators are in the river digging holes for Salmon and routing up whole trees to place in the sides of the banks to make woody debris for fish habitat. The man can do nothing; Wahkiakum county Sheriff says it’s a civil matter. The man can do nothing he must sale his cattle, reduce his business, and try and survive.
Item: Four private land owners are awakened to the rumble of heavy equipment plowing through their property. The operator was stealing their trees and piling them on another property, to be sold to Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group, a thirty foot wide trench was dug through all these properties, And the Sheriff says, it’s a civil issue.
These are but a few of more than sixteen examples of government tyranny that ignores private property rights itemized in letters to the officials of Wahkiakum County, Washington.
Wahkiakum County, Washington boarders the Columbia River, gate way to the Pacific Ocean , the county is sparsely populated people live in the county that is essentially rural farmland, timber, and fishing. Local residents see the harm that has occurred to this area over the last twenty years as more and more Non Governmental Organizations come, they come out of greed, this county has become the cash cow. Many residents fear them. For the past twenty years NGO’s have come to do as they will and harming all who oppose them. Private property rights seem to be a thing of the past.
For the last four years, local property owners have tried to encourage county officials to up hold the laws and to be more diligent in protecting the residents from NGO’s.

In an effort to stop what many see as tyranny of government, property owner Raven Webb filed a Writ of Mandamus to compel the Wahkiakum County Sheriff to up hold the laws of the United States Constitution, Washington State Constitution and the ordinances of Wahkiakum County. It was set for hearing on 08-25-08 at which time the Wahkiakum County, Prosecutor was not prepared it has been reset for 09-22-08. After reviewing dozens of individual cases, and the procedures used by the county, the writ seemed appropriate. The writ lays out a compelling case of multiple violations of both the State and U.S. Constitutions. Legitimate use of private property has been denied/stolen arbitrarily and capriciously, without due process and without just compensation, according to the adverse events that have/are occurred/occurring, with out due process and without any regard for the residents of Wahkiakum County.

Nearly every community in America has been/is being invaded by this same type of so-called Environmental Actions,” Smart Growth” policies, and Sustainable development issues. Proponents of Environmental Actions,” Smart Growth” policies, and Sustainable development issues will lie, steal, and cover up their actions, they would have you believe they are using the “best available science”. These notions have taken over the planning profession and have won seats on local governing bodies. These people claim to “respect” the notion of private property rights, and often include such language in the planning documents, but the actual policies put the lie to these claims. One can no longer be silent we must be diligent, educate ourselves and others to the grave life these people want to inflict upon us. It is a life without freedoms, a life without accessible nature, a life devoid of personal and property rights

What is the source of wisdom that declares that “Salmon Recovery” is more important then peoples lives? The absurdness of this is the Salmon are actually being destroyed so that NGO’s can keep them on the endangered list to obtain more governmental grants for “Salmon Recovery”. What is the source of wisdom that presumes to dictate where, and under what conditions, free people will live? Why is this source of wisdom accepted as better, or more authoritative than the wisdom of free people exercising their right to use their own property as they see fit, in their own “pursuit of happiness?” Why is it okay for NGO’s to destroy private property?

The source of this wisdom is sustainable development, a philosophy of social organization built upon the principle that government must manage the activities of people and the use of resources to insure environmental protection, and social and economic equity, for the current and future generations.
There is no room for America’s founders in this philosophy. There is no room for private property or individual freedom in this philosophy. Wherever this cancerous philosophy spreads, tyranny follows.

If good people to do nothing (the easy way) evil will prevail. These NGO’s are evil; they are without ethics, nor morals. They are all for the green the green filling their pockets that is. Help good people win the war, do not let tyranny prevail pass this on educate yourselves and others. Do it now, tomorrow will be to late.

Raven

WE ARE NOT STUPID!

2008-08-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

Here is another take on ESA more people are wising up to the fact that it is not about protection of salmon, it is about keeping salmon on the endangered list and receiving huge grant monies, it is about the pocket book of NGO's (Non Governmental Organizations) and property rights what we do with the information is up to us. There are weirs in almost every river trapping salmon, a petition against the weir needs to be circulated and more people must be educated on what a weir is, weirs are for killing salmon. If the people are ignored a blockade will be in order to stop the weir from being put in. Some media exposure on this would allow more people to become informed that this is not saving the salmon but killing them. I think we may even be able to reach a few city dummies or is it slickers? Who think donating to NGO's is vital to saving the planet when in fact over the past ten years Wahkiakum county (a small county) has been under siege from NGO's like Columbia Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited, Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board, Crest, Salmon Recovery Board,and Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement who in their greed has caused much damage to the salmon habitat, Eco-system, private property, agriculture, livestock, and humans. These NGO's are as unethical as they come.

Raven

Who or what, is driving the environmentalists?

When The Environmentalists Plan…Your Money and Your Freedom Are In Grave Peril
By Ron Ewart Tuesday, August 12, 2008

All across America, Canada and elsewhere, environmentalists are planning. They are planning to save every eco-system, glacier, wetland, mountain, all the oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, dry washes, gullies, prairies deserts and the so-called endangered species that inhabit these places and they are planning to drive you out of the rural areas and plant your sorry little butts in 25-story apartment buildings in large cities where you will be forced to walk, take your bike, or mass transit to work. They don’t care how much their planning costs. And they are planning to get you out of your cars by making sure that the price of gas stays high, not paying for any new roads to handle the increased traffic that comes from having babies and the effects of natural migration, not allowing drilling for new crude oil sources, not allowing power plants and refineries to be built and draining your wallets with very inefficient, but very expensive mass transit, to pander to the myopic city folk that keep them in power.

With their incessant planning and their Made-as-Instructed (MAI), Best-Available-Science (BAS) they have lobbied government for years and have convinced them to buy into their specific “green” agenda to drive man into the dark ages, or drive them insane like rats in a cage in large cities, in the endless pursuit of saving “their” planet.

Name any eco-system, rural area, wetland, glacier, prairie, ocean, sound, river, lake, stream, dry wash, gully, desert or estuary and you will find a group of environmentalists, along with scientists that are environmentally brainwashed and indoctrinated in our liberal colleges, planning its management. They do not think in terms of freedom, liberty, individual and property rights, free markets, free choice, capitalism, or constitutional safeguards like the Fifth Amendment, they only think of the survival and management of the natural system they are planning at the time. As part of their planning, they are planning every aspect of your lives as well, in order to integrate your life with the highest of all priorities, saving the planet from the scourges of mankind. They only see in one color, “green”. But think of their “green” as the color of most slimy slugs. Think of their “green” as the color of stomach bile. Because that will be what is crawling all over and eating away at your freedom, liberty and property rights when their plans are implemented by a sympathetic government.

Now when these all-wise environmental go-gooders get together with their scientist partners in crime, there is no part of your life that is safe. Your money, your land and your freedom are in extreme peril when they sit down at their “green” table and start planning. And they have three very willing accomplices; academia, the print and electronic news media and the biggest and most corrupt of all partners, the government. These environmental planners have infiltrated every level of government, our K-12 public schools and our liberal colleges. On the outside of government, they plan and then turn their plans over to the government, which then willingly rubber stamps them. They sue in liberal courts to get favorable “green” decisions that then have the force of law. Judges, attorneys, juries and environmental experts have all been bought, sold and initiated into the “green” club that color every judicial decree. Violate the rules of the “green’ club and you will be crucified on the bench of these politically correct judges and the attorneys and juries that have absorbed all the “green" dictates like a porous sponge.

You say you don’t believe us! Then we encourage you to take a gander at a couple of these radical environmental planner websites, at the following links. You won’t believe it.

The Puget Sound Partnership:
The Puget Sound Regional Council:

This represents just two agencies in just one geographic area. These planning groups are everywhere, funded with your dollars. The above two don’t include the thousands of other government and non-governmental environmental groups and agencies that are planning everything down to the last detail of where you live, work, play and your mode of transportation. These groups and the government that aides and abets them, are your arch enemy and traitors to liberty.

Environmentalists and radical environmentalism have brought America to its knees. They have stripped us of our national pride, our strength, our ingenuity, our creativity and our generosity. They have sucked away the life blood of our economy by getting government to put any source of energy that produces CO2, or that might harm the environment, off limits. They have turned us into a third-world country in just a few short years, where we have no choice but to bow to our enemies, dictators and despots to obtain the energy that keeps the wheels of our economic engine turning.

Meanwhile, almost every other country on Earth is buying up, or confiscating by force, crude oil, minerals and other raw materials. We are already being held hostage for crude oil. As a result we now pay more for everything, including our gasoline and food. Much more. As the world resources are locked up by other countries, we will pay more for our minerals and raw materials as well. And the direct culprit is the cult of environmentalism and the enforcer of that cult is government, with a gun to your head if you don’t comply.

Environmentalists and their co-conspirators have forced the rural landowners of America to bear almost the entire burden of environmental protection, while the city folk get off virtually scot-free. The city folk elect the legislators and lawmakers that continue the destruction of a free America with socialism and environmental extremism because they have been sold “green” as Motherhood, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.

While we sit on our hands, the environmentalists and their willing partners plan. While we try to fight one of their environmental insanities, they are planning another insanity for us to fight just around the corner. They have divided us so that we are working against each other. They use MAI-BAS propaganda, lies and distortions to snow us. They use the law to enslave us. They use international pressure from Europe and the United Nations to break us down and corrupt our laws. They use our emotion against us. They pit naive, brainwashed city dwellers against independent thinking rural landowners. Since there are more city dwellers, the rural landowners take it in the shorts every time.

Never have so many been so duped by a dirty little evil that transcends anything that mother nature can throw at us. Never have so many been conned by an ideology that is camouflaged in gentle sounding names and wrapped in religious phrases that "touch" our hearts, but leave our minds numb and unthinking and our wallets empty.

All of this would be reasonably understandable for a backward culture steeped in tribalism. If this grand scheme to enslave an entire country occurred 2,000 years ago, when the average individual’s point of reference included a hut and just enough food on the table to maintain survival, albeit a poor one, it might be excused. But for an educated civilization that exists in America today, or any advanced and educated country, it is totally mystifying and without precedent. We have to ask: are people really this dumb?

As the “green” chains lock forever around your wrists, ankles and necks and you find yourself back in the land of serfdom, you may well ask, how did this happen? If you do not know how it happened, you are the problem. If you value freedom and liberty so little and security so much, you were the ones that closed the lock on the chains and threw the key away. You did it to yourselves and you only have you to blame.

So when you hear of environmentalists planning and scientists being invited to the sessions and conferences, you had better hide your wallet and put a moat around your land. Both are in grave peril. If the environmentalists get their way and they are, both will cease to exist.

One very big question comes to mind, however. Who or what, is driving the environmentalists?

And speaking of conferences, don’t forget the FREE and exciting Freedom 21 Southeast Arizona Conference on Civil Liberties, Rights and Freedoms, Saturday, August 23, 2008. For information and reservations to this FREE conference, log onto narlo.org/F21agenda1.html.

RAVEN EXPLAINS FISH WEIRS

2008-08-20T09:24:00.001-07:00

Bruce:
I know it goes on and on so much to know. It seems the more I know the more I do not know.

A weir is a trap that is placed across the river in an area where there is an abundant return of salmon that are trying to get to the spawning area. The fish are trapped in the weir, the roe IE eggs is harvested sometimes and sold to the Asian population and a fortune can be made in egg sales. The rest of the fish are killed and deposed of. So in essence they are trapping the salmon on the way to spawning and destroying any chance of salmon recovery. I am going to try and get my grandson to do a piece on the life of the salmon what these fish go through the predators they avoid to get to spawning grounds only to be trapped by fish and wild life and killed.

A clipped fish is a hatchery fish they are drudged when they are (baby fish) the fin is clipped to mark them as hatchery fish. However, once a fish spawns and the eggs hatch in gravel which is the normal spawning ground these hatched fish are now wild fish. By killing all of the hatchery fish and some of the wild ones it keeps the fish from spawning thus keeps the salmon on the endangered list. It is not about salmon recovery it is about grants for salmon recovery people are unaware that these fish are being killed by the millions by fish and wildlife and NGO's it is insanity as Poul said. I am sure if you have salmon or any endangered fish in your area you also have weirs. There is one on every river the one on the Naselle keeps getting removed by "someone" the one they are setting on the Grays will have a 24 hour patrol officer to assure the trapping and killing of spawning salmon is accomplished. That is your tax dollars at work keeping salmon on the endangered list is one of the ways NGO's receive huge grants it is also how property rights are being taken.

We care about what happens to fish, the eco-system, the rivers, and the land. This is why we want these environmental do-good exposed as to who and what they are and are really doing and it is far from good. The truth is they are not caring for the earth but destroying it.

Raven

FISH AND RIVER PROTECTOR: FISH WEIR

2008-08-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

To Everyone concerned

Next month the Fish and game is planning to install a weir in the Grays River, by the covered bridge, to capture and kill salmon. Right now they are capturing leaving smolt and killing them to study what they eat???
This insanity must be stopped!
I encourage all to do their part in stopping this action by those who would be God. There has been fish kills before with disastrous results. We cannot and will not allow this. We have the right and duty to protect our river and its fish.
If it is because of wild and raised fish, I ask: If one "clipped" fish has passed by and spawned naturally is it then spawning "unclipped" fish, thus becoming wild smolt? How many clipped fish have spawned naturally?
It is time we take controll of our "back yard" from the 'Bullies." ($)

Sincerely; Poul K Toftemark
River and Fish Protector