-Caveat Lector-
Crisis in the wilderness
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_lamb/19991015_xchla_crisis_wil.shtml
For links
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
By Henry Lamb
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Constitutional crisis may not be too strong a term to describe the current
struggle between the federal government and the rest of us. Control of the
land and its natural resources is the prize. It is not a new struggle. The
federal government has been tightening its grip on land and its resources
for decades. The Clinton-Gore administration has accelerated the pace
dramatically. This administration is bolder, more aggressive, and perhaps
more arrogant, than any before it.
Individual freedom, private property rights, even state and local
governments, are little more than pesky obstacles to be removed from the
path of the land control juggernaut that now permeates all federal agencies.
No one should think this is a temporary problem that can be cured by the
next election. A good broom throughout the White House would help, but this
problem was not born in Washington. This administration is just facilitating
a global plan detailed exhaustively in the 1140-page Global Biodiversity
Assessment, which is the instruction book for implementing the 18-page
Convention on Biological Diversity. The Clinton-Gore administration is
teeming with former executives of Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs) who, in their
prior life, worked through the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature (IUCN) to create the Convention on Biological Diversity. They now
enjoy positions of power in the federal government and are implementing the
requirements of the treaty even though the Senate chose not to ratify it.
Through the Carter and Nixon years, the administration was content to move
slowly. Ronald Reagan reversed many of the gains made by his predecessors.
Although Mr. Bush refused to sign the Convention on Biological Diversity in
1992, he chose as his EPA Administrator the same William K. Reilly who in
1976, as a delegate to the U.N. Conference on Human Settlements, signed a
document which said, "... public control of land use is indispensable."
Bill Clinton did sign the treaty and immediately appointed to high
administrative positions the very people from the World Resources Institute
who had played such a vital role in its creation. Their aggressive
implementation of the treaty's requirements are now being noticed by enough
people as to create what could become the most severe challenge to the
Constitution since the Civil War.
Elko County, Nev., may become the Fort Sumter of a new war.
The battleground is the South Canyon Road. It was carved out by buffalo and
Indians, used by cowboys, fur traders, and miners long before there was a
Department of Interior. The Wilderness Act of 1964 targeted 113,000 acres,
called "Jarbidge Wilderness Area," which included a portion of the
battleground. Area residents used the road to access the forest. The
"Wilderness" designation denied most uses of the resources within the
designated area. The Forest Service adopted a policy of low maintenance to
discourage motorized access, and in 1970, stopped maintenance altogether.
Local residents maintained the road, despite the Forest Service's efforts to
close it. And in 1986, after removing a blockage from the road installed by
the Forest Service, they held a ceremonial picnic.
The Forest Service closed the road again in 1986, and a new wilderness bill
in 1989 expanded the Jarbidge Wilderness Area, including more of the
battleground. Local residents found inventive ways to continue using the
road. But, heavy rains in 1995 caused flooding that virtually destroyed 1.5
miles of the road. It took two years to get the District Forest Ranger,
David Aicher, to consider repairing the road. But his decision was overruled
by Washington, after Trout Unlimited protested the road repair.
County Commissioner Roberta Skelton, who represented the portion of the
county that is now the battlefield, sent a letter to Trout Unlimited
explaining that South Canyon Road was a county road and the county's
responsibility, not the Forest Service's. A week later, the County
Commission sent a letter to the Forest Service asserting its ownership of
the road.
The Forest Service responded, saying it would be "inappropriate for us to
grant a right-of-way." Herein lies one of the issues that has been
smoldering for years: who owns the roads and right-of-ways that predates the
federal acquisition of the land? The right-of-way policy is governed by an
1878 law known as "Revised Statute 2477," which is supposed to honor all
existing right-of-ways when land is acquired by the federal government. When
the statute was updated in 1976, it stated explicitly that "Nothing in this
sub-chapter shall have the effect of terminating any right-of-way or
right-of-use heretofore issued, granted, or permitted." Federal agencies
appear to be ignoring this language of the law.
The county tried to avoid a confrontation. In 1998, the county officially
requested that the road be assigned to the county. The Forest Service said
the road would not be rebuilt, that it would, instead, be converted to a
"foot and equestrian" trail.
The county then adopted a resolution to rebuild the road, claiming it was
the county's "fiduciary obligation" to repair the road "for the purpose of
securing the health, general welfare and safety for the public. ..."
Trout Unlimited was outraged, and threatened a lawsuit. The Corps of
Engineers sent a letter to the County demanding a work plan pursuant to
Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service conducted
a public hearing to consider listing the Bull Trout as an endangered
species.
Nevertheless, on July 21, 1998, county work crews began reconstruction of
the battleground.
Trout Unlimited wrote to the Fish and Wildlife Service urging an "emergency"
listing of the Bull Trout as "endangered." Within two weeks, the Fish and
Wildlife Service complied.
Trout Unlimited issued a public statement saying, "It is outrageous for the
county to spend its citizens' tax dollars to destroy a stream and a rare
trout resource just to defy the forest service and make some misguided
political point." Such a statement displays utter disregard, if not
contempt, for the legitimate authority of the County Commission, elected by
the citizens affected. Moreover, Trout Unlimited exercised its political
clout with the Fish and Wildlife Service to get the Bull Trout listed as
endangered, when not a shred of scientific evidence had been presented
supporting the allegation that it might be endangered. As is often the case,
an executive of a GAG collaborated with a federal agency to misuse a law to
achieve a political objective which overrode the authority of local
government elected by the people.
The Corps of Engineers called in the Environmental Protection Agency
charging the county with "flagrant violation" of the Clean Water Act, and
issued a "cease and desist" order.
In support of the county, the National Association of Counties listed
Jarbidge as an "endangered community, due to current restrictions on federal
lands that severely strain the community's ability to provide needed
services."
The battle raged throughout the rest of 1998 and 1999, with the county
amassing fines and penalties at the rate of $27,500 per day which now have
surpassed $12 million. Local residents, "sagebrush rebels" as they are
called by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, another batch of GAGs,
decided to open the road. Led by state legislator John Carpenter, more than
500 citizens, armed with picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows, planned to remove
the boulders and other obstacles placed there by the Forest Service.
U.S. District Judge David W. Hagen put a stop to the citizens' action by
issuing a court order. More than 200 people showed up Saturday, Oct. 10, to
protest the stoppage. Local citizens vowed to get the road open one way or
the other.
This time, the warring factions are not wearing blue or gray. They are not
yet carrying rifles. But the two sides are nose-to-nose, and both sides seem
determined to win.
South Canyon Road is but the current battleground. In Catron County, Nev., a
county commissioner climbed on a bulldozer and forced federal officials to
scatter as he opened a road there that had been closed by federal agencies.
That event is still being litigated.
These are the battles that make the news. Throughout the land, thousands of
people are being forced from their land by federal policies that make it
impossible for people to survive. Road closures are a favorite tactic. If
people cannot get to their land, they cannot use it.
Diana Luppi is a typical example. She owns land surrounded by the San Juan
National Forest Reserve. Her land was originally conveyed by land patent
number 723501 pursuant to the 1862 Homestead Act. An access road was on the
land at that time. The land she bought included a segment of the road. She
owns the right-of-way.
The Forest Service demanded that she sign a special use permit and pay a fee
to use her own road, which she refused to do. Then they demanded, a "Forest
Road Easement," which she refused to sign. Now she is charged with criminal
trespass on a road the Forest Service claims, but which is clearly her own
property. To fight the federal government in court will cost thousands of
dollars which no citizen should be required to pay. But these individual
situations are occurring all over the country and ruining the lives of
thousands of people.
The individual cases never make the headlines and individual citizens cannot
fight the tax-funded lawyers of the federal government. Little by little,
the land, and its resources, are being taken from the people by a government
run by non-elected former executives of GAGs.
They are aggressively implementing a plan published in the Global
Biodiversity Assessment which seeks to convert at least half the land area
of the United States to wilderness -- off limits to human beings, and manage
most of the remaining half for "conservation objectives," rather than permit
private landowners to exercise their God-given and
constitutionally-guaranteed property rights. The only power on earth strong
enough to prevent this inevitable take-over of the land by the government is
the will of the American people. While we still have access to the ballot
box, there is a chance that the Clinton-Gore crowd can be removed. Unless
they are removed, South Canyon Road may be the precursor of a constitutional
crisis of Civil War proportions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation
Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.
-
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
