Question:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Cross posting is never OK. Why can’t we be left in peace? Those of us who are interested in discussions about Bush’s environmental policies are more than able to subscribe to rec.backcountry or whatever and join in. But when every morning seems to bring up more anti-Bush posts than anything else, it gets old. Thanks for letting me vent… Douglas- As a long time fence sitter I see Chaka and Tom Beno and Muskie as the only ones willing to counter an anti-environmental attack in They are all the same fuck-nut. Do you think posting crap anonymously and not even reading the follow ups is countering something? You must be fuck-nut number 4. I sleep well knowing that such shut-ins and agoraphobes have no bearing on the real world. —
Agoraphobes … interesting. I’d been thinking xenophobes. Thanks.
Response:
This is pretty funny Wolf, considering you like to prop yourself up on the lifeguard chair and look down on it all from above. You think you’re "above it all", yet in reality you are still in between the fences at the community pool. What a fool. You can blow the whistle, but your still a part of the routine.
On the contrary, my dear Bottom. Nothing could be further from my mind than staying "above it all". As a matter of fact, I dare say that a few over here in r.o.f.f. will recognize my name from my occasional participation in spirited discussions. Moreover, I’m the only person I know of who has gone on record as being a big fan of these cross posted threads for their entertainment value. That I don’t engage the gaggle of twits, gits, poltroons, and buffoons who so selflessly and gleefully and expose their appalling deficiencies more frequently should not be seen as a mark of disapproval, but rather a testament to my inability to add anything substantive to what is already a three ring circus of vacuousness, stunningly inappropriate vanity, and ignorance on a biblical scale. On the other hand, the tenor of the above quoted material and its significance will hardly be lost on the keen student, eh? :) Wolfgang oh, and it warn’t no dream.
Response:
In Outlook Express, Click on Message, then "Block Sender" Works a treat. — Peter Stockfeld Phone 0417 937 962 Fax 03 9682 0070
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I found a neat program that attaches itself to Outlook Express and allows you to block all emails and news group posts from any individual. You never know that they still exist. Wish I could find it to share with the rest of you. Muskie, Bitterroot and Rosco no longer exist!!! This rant brought to you by the DNC Hq. and should be viewed accordingly. LZ http://www.flyrodreel.com/conservation.html Water Wrongs The federal government is giving away our Western rivers By TED WILLIAMS ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2002, in a move that opened the way for irrigators and developers to desiccate trout streams all over the West, the Bush Administration abandoned a reserved federal water right to Colorado’s Gunnison River, one of the best trophy wild trout fisheries in America. Along with the water and fish, Bush and company also abandoned the National Park System, the National Wilderness System and all Americans who love nature, including sportsmen, most of whom supported Bush in the last election. "Sportsmen for Bush," read the bumper stickers. "I never understood [that] and still don’t," comments sportsman Mike Pennington on FR&R’s website bulletin board. But in this case at least, sportsmen have an excuse for being ill informed. The giveaway of the water right held by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was conducted entirely in secret. Because the issue was being debated in Colorado’s Water Court, the National Environmental Policy Act did not kick in. The federal government’s decision required neither public hearings nor public comment. The Bush administration just ordained that a national park established around a river and its canyon "to protect the roar of the river" didn’t need water. The Clinton administration had sought to protect the public’s water rights that the Bush administration is now ceding to Western states. For example, in January 2001, Clinton’s Park Service filed an application for a natural-flow regime (including a base flow of 300 cubic feet per second) through 14-mile- long Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Western water rights are based on seniority, and the park–established in 1933 as a national monument and upgraded in 1999–had plenty of seniority. In 1978 that seniority and right were upheld by Colorado’s Water Court, which found that the purpose of the park "is to conserve and maintain in an unimpaired condition the scenic, aesthetic, natural and historic objects of the monument, as well as the wildlife therein, in order that the monument might provide a source of recreation and enjoyment for all generations of citizens of the United States." With that, the court directed the federal government to apply for the amount of water the park needed "within five years of final decree." But since the court didn’t get around to issuing a final decree, the five-year countdown never started, and the feds didn’t come up with flow figures until President Clinton was about to leave office. The park wanted to approximate the natural conditions that had existed in the river and its canyon before 1965. That was the year the Bureau of Reclamation shut the gates on its enormous Blue Mesa dam, which backs up a million-acre- foot reservoir for irrigation and power–the toilet tank of the three-dam Aspinall Unit, named for the crusty, dam-fixated, anti-environmental US congressman Wayne Aspinall, who funneled pork into the state from 1949 to 1973. The Park Service’s mission, after all, is to protect and recreate natural processes, and, wherever practical, let them "proceed unimpeded." When it is serious about this mission, as it was under the leadership of former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, it takes the long view. And the long view is this: For about 12 million years the Gunnison sliced down through soft volcanic and sedimentary rock. Then, two million years ago, it hit the much harder Precambrian gneiss of the Gunnison Uplift. Trapped in the canyon it had already excavated, the river began eating away this metamorphic layer at the approximate rate of the thickness of one human hair per year or one inch per century until, in places, it was 2,400 feet below the rim. When this ancient process was abruptly and unnaturally curtailed in 1965 bad things began to happen. An unnatural plant community sprang up along the bottom of the canyon, constricting the channel and quickening the flow. In the canyon and far downstream the annual production of large, woody debris, so critical for trout survival, ceased, and in its place came alien plants. Rubble, clay and sand– swept down from the side canyons by the flash floods of summer–began accumulating in the main channel. The spaces under cobbles and boulders– habitat for the salmonflies that comprise a huge part of the diet of Gunnison River trout–were cemented shut. Tubifex worms, which pass whirling disease to trout, proliferated in the sediments. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has just finished an electro-fishing survey of a two-mile stretch of river just below the park. In the late 1980s, before whirling disease showed up, this stretch held 12,000 wild rainbows over six inches, 2,000 of them between 16 and 22 inches. In 2002 it held 87. Browns evolved in Europe with whirling disease, so they can usually tolerate the parasite. But because browns require structure and slower flows than rainbows, they’ve not filled the vacant niche. Dr. Jack Stanford, professor of ecology at the University of Montana, grew up around the Black Canyon and has been studying its ecology since the mid 1970s. "The river hasn’t flushed well in a long time," he told me. "Because peak flows have been so badly curtailed we have large accumulations of organic matter in backwaters. If these backwaters are flushed regularly, groundwater moves up through the gravel bars to produce a real healthy food web and very important rearing areas for trout. The terrestrial vegetation also clogs the river, creating habitat not conducive to trout. And the vegetation narrows the channel so sandbars don’t form. When I was a kid the canyon had huge sandbars. Now they’re gone or covered with plants." The sandbars and backwaters that the Park Service had hoped to restore provided critical spawning and nursery habitat for four endangered fish that evolved with high spring flows–the humpback chub, razorback sucker, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow (the new PC name for squawfish). Under the Endangered Species Act state and federal managers are mandated to protect the habitat of threatened and endangered species, but the Bush administration has decided to ignore its legal responsibilities. AFTER EXTENSIVE RESEARCH, park officials applied for a year-round minimum flow of 300 cubic feet per second (cfs), shoulder flows (an average in wet years) of 800 cfs for 80 days and a one-day scouring flow of between 2,000 and 12,000 cfs, depending on available water. The Colorado Water Conservation Board already had a right to a minimum flow of 300 cfs (except in droughts when it drops to 200 cfs), but that right is inadequate for trout protection because it was established in 1965 and therefore is junior to the right of the Aspinall Unit, which was established in 1956. The Water Conservation Board and Gunnison River trout could get nothing if the current drought continues and Aspinall water is allocated for other uses. Aspinall’s right, however, is junior to the park’s, which Colorado’s Water Court says dates to 1933. So by announcing that it was going to protect Aspinall’s yield, the Bush administration threw away the water right the Park Service had worked for, planned for, and gone to court for–a right owned by the American people. "Fisheries are not built around minimum flows but around favorable flows," remarks David Nickum, director of Colorado Trout Unlimited. "A minimum flow will typically get you a minimum fishery. That’s not what we have today in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Gunnison Gorge [a
... read more »
Response:
POLITICS AGAIN - Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text - \ This rant brought to you by the DNC Hq. and should be viewed accordingly. LZ\ The guy who wrote the article is a staunch Republican. Get your head out of your ass moron. Even conservative outdoors mags are coming down on the Bush administration. Wake the fuck up idiot.
Response:
- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text - Does anyone here read these posts? I do. I don't agree with all the cross-posting. But most of the posts are relevant to rec.backcountry at least. People complain about the large volume of this person's posts. But each post covers a different action taken by the Bush administration to further degrade our backcountry and environment. So the large volume of posts is only a reflection of the large volume of Bush's anti-backcountry actions That in itself should be troubling to any backcountry recreationist. Anyone who supports Bush couldn't possibly care about the backcountry or the environment. It's just plain old NIMBYism. As long as Bush is trying to stick oil wells, increase logging, allow more pollution or roll back environmental protections in someone else's favorite backcountry area it's OK. Why don't you LEARN how to NOT crosspost. This asinine crossposting has screwed up alt.great-lakes. idiots -- WaIIy -- reply to: eIvez<!mindspring<!com
Agreed, if everyone trimmed the headers to only post back to the group they are in, the threads would die out fast except in groups that are interested. Mike 86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's
Response:
"\ POLITICS AGAIN\ No dipshit. It's a fishing article. Get your head out of your ass.
Response:
\ Nope. In the first place, routinely cross posting to half a dozen or more news groups inhabited mainly by fools who are convinced (for no apparent reason) that they have something to say assures that he will never be ignored. Secondly, Muskie is the sort of pathetic sociopath who simply doesn't go away. Wolfgang oh, and think of the consequences if he ever DID.......ya'll would have no one but each other to play with! :)\
This is pretty funny Wolf, considering you like to prop yourself up on the lifeguard chair and look down on it all from above. You think you're "above it all", yet in reality you are still in between the fences at the community pool. What a fool. You can blow the whistle, but your still a part of the routine.
Response:
I found a neat program that attaches itself to Outlook Express and allows you to block all emails and news group posts from any individual. You never know that they still exist. Wish I could find it to share with the rest of you. Muskie, Bitterroot and Rosco no longer exist!!!
- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text - This rant brought to you by the DNC Hq. and should be viewed accordingly. LZ http://www.flyrodreel.com/conservation.html Water Wrongs The federal government is giving away our Western rivers By TED WILLIAMS ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2002, in a move that opened the way for irrigators and developers to desiccate trout streams all over the West, the Bush Administration abandoned a reserved federal water right to Colorado's Gunnison River, one of the best trophy wild trout fisheries in America. Along with the water and fish, Bush and company also abandoned the National Park System, the National Wilderness System and all Americans who love nature, including sportsmen, most of whom supported Bush in the last election. "Sportsmen for Bush," read the bumper stickers. "I never understood [that] and still don’t," comments sportsman Mike Pennington on FR&R’s website bulletin board. But in this case at least, sportsmen have an excuse for being ill informed. The giveaway of the water right held by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was conducted entirely in secret. Because the issue was being debated in Colorado’s Water Court, the National Environmental Policy Act did not kick in. The federal government’s decision required neither public hearings nor public comment. The Bush administration just ordained that a national park established around a river and its canyon "to protect the roar of the river" didn’t need water. The Clinton administration had sought to protect the public’s water rights that the Bush administration is now ceding to Western states. For example, in January 2001, Clinton’s Park Service filed an application for a natural-flow regime (including a base flow of 300 cubic feet per second) through 14-mile- long Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Western water rights are based on seniority, and the park–established in 1933 as a national monument and upgraded in 1999–had plenty of seniority. In 1978 that seniority and right were upheld by Colorado’s Water Court, which found that the purpose of the park "is to conserve and maintain in an unimpaired condition the scenic, aesthetic, natural and historic objects of the monument, as well as the wildlife therein, in order that the monument might provide a source of recreation and enjoyment for all generations of citizens of the United States." With that, the court directed the federal government to apply for the amount of water the park needed "within five years of final decree." But since the court didn’t get around to issuing a final decree, the five-year countdown never started, and the feds didn’t come up with flow figures until President Clinton was about to leave office. The park wanted to approximate the natural conditions that had existed in the river and its canyon before 1965. That was the year the Bureau of Reclamation shut the gates on its enormous Blue Mesa dam, which backs up a million-acre- foot reservoir for irrigation and power–the toilet tank of the three-dam Aspinall Unit, named for the crusty, dam-fixated, anti-environmental US congressman Wayne Aspinall, who funneled pork into the state from 1949 to 1973. The Park Service’s mission, after all, is to protect and recreate natural processes, and, wherever practical, let them "proceed unimpeded." When it is serious about this mission, as it was under the leadership of former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, it takes the long view. And the long view is this: For about 12 million years the Gunnison sliced down through soft volcanic and sedimentary rock. Then, two million years ago, it hit the much harder Precambrian gneiss of the Gunnison Uplift. Trapped in the canyon it had already excavated, the river began eating away this metamorphic layer at the approximate rate of the thickness of one human hair per year or one inch per century until, in places, it was 2,400 feet below the rim. When this ancient process was abruptly and unnaturally curtailed in 1965 bad things began to happen. An unnatural plant community sprang up along the bottom of the canyon, constricting the channel and quickening the flow. In the canyon and far downstream the annual production of large, woody debris, so critical for trout survival, ceased, and in its place came alien plants. Rubble, clay and sand– swept down from the side canyons by the flash floods of summer–began accumulating in the main channel. The spaces under cobbles and boulders– habitat for the salmonflies that comprise a huge part of the diet of Gunnison River trout–were cemented shut. Tubifex worms, which pass whirling disease to trout, proliferated in the sediments. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has just finished an electro-fishing survey of a two-mile stretch of river just below the park. In the late 1980s, before whirling disease showed up, this stretch held 12,000 wild rainbows over six inches, 2,000 of them between 16 and 22 inches. In 2002 it held 87. Browns evolved in Europe with whirling disease, so they can usually tolerate the parasite. But because browns require structure and slower flows than rainbows, they’ve not filled the vacant niche. Dr. Jack Stanford, professor of ecology at the University of Montana, grew up around the Black Canyon and has been studying its ecology since the mid 1970s. "The river hasn’t flushed well in a long time," he told me. "Because peak flows have been so badly curtailed we have large accumulations of organic matter in backwaters. If these backwaters are flushed regularly, groundwater moves up through the gravel bars to produce a real healthy food web and very important rearing areas for trout. The terrestrial vegetation also clogs the river, creating habitat not conducive to trout. And the vegetation narrows the channel so sandbars don’t form. When I was a kid the canyon had huge sandbars. Now they’re gone or covered with plants." The sandbars and backwaters that the Park Service had hoped to restore provided critical spawning and nursery habitat for four endangered fish that evolved with high spring flows–the humpback chub, razorback sucker, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow (the new PC name for squawfish). Under the Endangered Species Act state and federal managers are mandated to protect the habitat of threatened and endangered species, but the Bush administration has decided to ignore its legal responsibilities. AFTER EXTENSIVE RESEARCH, park officials applied for a year-round minimum flow of 300 cubic feet per second (cfs), shoulder flows (an average in wet years) of 800 cfs for 80 days and a one-day scouring flow of between 2,000 and 12,000 cfs, depending on available water. The Colorado Water Conservation Board already had a right to a minimum flow of 300 cfs (except in droughts when it drops to 200 cfs), but that right is inadequate for trout protection because it was established in 1965 and therefore is junior to the right of the Aspinall Unit, which was established in 1956. The Water Conservation Board and Gunnison River trout could get nothing if the current drought continues and Aspinall water is allocated for other uses. Aspinall’s right, however, is junior to the park’s, which Colorado’s Water Court says dates to 1933. So by announcing that it was going to protect Aspinall’s yield, the Bush administration threw away the water right the Park Service had worked for, planned for, and gone to court for–a right owned by the American people. "Fisheries are not built around minimum flows but around favorable flows," remarks David Nickum, director of Colorado Trout Unlimited. "A minimum flow will typically get you a minimum fishery. That’s not what we have today in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Gunnison Gorge [a Bureau of Lands Management wilderness area directly downstream]. I’m very concerned that it may be what we see in the future if steps aren’t taken to protect the resource." Melinda Kassen, who directs TU’s Colorado Water Project, adds this: "If we have 300 cfs year after year, there will be no gold-medal fishery in the Gunnison River. Trout need that base flow but they also need those shoulder flows and peak flows." Because of the drought, the Bureau of Reclamation released only 250 cfs from Aspinall during the winter of 2002-03. The park’s proposal wasn’t perfect. For example, Nickum and Kassen worried that quick drawdowns after the scouring flows might leave
… read more »
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You are the "DipShit" ya hypocrite – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "\ POLITICS AGAIN\ No dipshit. It’s a fishing article. Get your head out of your ass.
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GYRO, why crosspost a meaningless reply to everyone? Especially including the entire original. It’s as bad as the original poster you seem to be complaining about.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – POLITICS AGAIN!
Response:
Cross posting is never OK. Why can’t we be left in peace? Those of us who are interested in discussions about Bush’s environmental policies are more than able to subscribe to rec.backcountry or whatever and join in. But when every morning seems to bring up more anti-Bush posts than anything else, it gets old. Thanks for letting me vent…
Douglas- As a long time fence sitter I see Chaka and Tom Beno and Muskie as the only ones willing to counter an anti-environmental attack in newsgroups that beagan in the late 1990’s… Posts from the likes of Vikki Eggers (a paid employees of the "Share the Trails" pro access group) and the worst of the bunch: mel-anie "sharethewoods" who you can do a quick search on and see what s/he is about. ..these two single handedly invaded the NP, backcountry and numerous other NG’s with the single intention of disirupting any positive or constructive comments and to drive away the borderline poster… If you hate the weed of troll, dig around and include the root, it’s twice as deep and three times as nasty… Elvis
Response:
\ This rant brought to you by the DNC Hq. and should be viewed accordingly. LZ\
The guy who wrote the article is a staunch Republican. Get your head out of your ass moron. Even conservative outdoors mags are coming down on the Bush administration. Wake the fuck up idiot.
Response:
Cross posting is never OK. The OK method is to post seperately to every relevant group. He is a troll who will keep trolling as long as people keep replying to his trash. I keep the troll killfiled, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t quote his bullshit everytime. (Not you Chaka, everyone in general) His posts accomplish nothing and are the root cause of many arguments, ignore him, and he will go away.
This is the root of the problem. There are specific groups this pertains to, such as rec.backcountry, and should be kept to the environmental groups. If, for example, Chaka wants to post something specifically relating to the Great Lakes area (i.e., the Bush administration OKs power boats in the Boundary Waters), that’s on-topic and OK by me (not picking on you in any way, Chaka, BTW). But when that troll Bob Smith/Richard Dent/Esox/whothehellever posts his stuff about drilling in Alaska, or threats to streams in the Appalachians, it’s over the line and needs to be kept in the appropriate groups. I have absolutely no problem with environmental posts. Hell, I’m an environmental scientist working in CWA stuff, have been for the last eight years. But when his posts are about Alaska, or Bush’s approval ratings, all I see is a spammer. And make no mistake: any guy who jumps from free email account to free email account, not responding to anything, using a fake name, is a spammer. No different than the crap about penis enlargement and new credit cards that are overfilling my inbox every single day. I dare say that a number of people subscribing to alt.great-lakes and the flyfishing groups that were sitting on the fence as far as Bush and the environment go are now slanted against environmental protection. Why? Because they’re so pissed off with having it shoved down their throats. I know where the environmental NGs are, and I subscribe to some of them. I DON’T need to see it in alt.great-lakes every day. And I have to say it makes me unhappy that so many environmentalists seem to support this crossposting carpetbombing campaign. On several occasions, people from these satellite groups (for lack of a better term) posted politely to request the crossposting cease, only to be rudely rebuffed by apparent "environmentalists". Why can’t we be left in peace? Those of us who are interested in discussions about Bush’s environmental policies are more than able to subscribe to rec.backcountry or whatever and join in. But when every morning seems to bring up more anti-Bush posts than anything else, it gets old. I’d like as much as anyone else to have an environmentally friendly president in the White House. But to be honest, at this point, I’m as frustrated with the environmental movement as I am with, say, the pro-life movement. I’m just sick of all the in-your-face stuff, and I feel pretty alienated by it all. There are better ways to make a point. Thanks for letting me vent…
Response:
The posts are just DNC bulletins under the environmental smokescreen.
Protecting our backcountry should not be a partisan issue. The greatest conservationist president was undoubtedly Teddy Roosevelt, a republican. I’m an independent. The reason I criticize Bush so much is not because he’s a republican, but because of his total indifference to our wilderness, Parks, Monuments, Forests, wildlife and all things environmental. Fly Rod and Reel is just the latest outdoors magazine that has had enough of Bush’s bullshit. Field and Stream criticized him and Outdoor magazine called Norton Bush’s "stealth weapon" against the backcountry and environment. If Bush got his way the whole country would be a polluted, treeless hellhole like Texas. That’s what he thinks of as the backcountry. Mile after mile after mile of barbed wire fences and oilwells. Yahooo!!!
Response:
This rant brought to you by the DNC Hq. and should be viewed accordingly. LZ – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – http://www.flyrodreel.com/conservation.html Water Wrongs The federal government is giving away our Western rivers By TED WILLIAMS ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2002, in a move that opened the way for irrigators and developers to desiccate trout streams all over the West, the Bush Administration abandoned a reserved federal water right to Colorado’s Gunnison River, one of the best trophy wild trout fisheries in America. Along with the water and fish, Bush and company also abandoned the National Park System, the National Wilderness System and all Americans who love nature, including sportsmen, most of whom supported Bush in the last election. "Sportsmen for Bush," read the bumper stickers. "I never understood [that] and still don’t," comments sportsman Mike Pennington on FR&R’s website bulletin board. But in this case at least, sportsmen have an excuse for being ill informed. The giveaway of the water right held by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was conducted entirely in secret. Because the issue was being debated in Colorado’s Water Court, the National Environmental Policy Act did not kick in. The federal government’s decision required neither public hearings nor public comment. The Bush administration just ordained that a national park established around a river and its canyon "to protect the roar of the river" didn’t need water. The Clinton administration had sought to protect the public’s water rights that the Bush administration is now ceding to Western states. For example, in January 2001, Clinton’s Park Service filed an application for a natural-flow regime (including a base flow of 300 cubic feet per second) through 14-mile- long Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Western water rights are based on seniority, and the park–established in 1933 as a national monument and upgraded in 1999–had plenty of seniority. In 1978 that seniority and right were upheld by Colorado’s Water Court, which found that the purpose of the park "is to conserve and maintain in an unimpaired condition the scenic, aesthetic, natural and historic objects of the monument, as well as the wildlife therein, in order that the monument might provide a source of recreation and enjoyment for all generations of citizens of the United States." With that, the court directed the federal government to apply for the amount of water the park needed "within five years of final decree." But since the court didn’t get around to issuing a final decree, the five-year countdown never started, and the feds didn’t come up with flow figures until President Clinton was about to leave office. The park wanted to approximate the natural conditions that had existed in the river and its canyon before 1965. That was the year the Bureau of Reclamation shut the gates on its enormous Blue Mesa dam, which backs up a million-acre- foot reservoir for irrigation and power–the toilet tank of the three-dam Aspinall Unit, named for the crusty, dam-fixated, anti-environmental US congressman Wayne Aspinall, who funneled pork into the state from 1949 to 1973. The Park Service’s mission, after all, is to protect and recreate natural processes, and, wherever practical, let them "proceed unimpeded." When it is serious about this mission, as it was under the leadership of former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, it takes the long view. And the long view is this: For about 12 million years the Gunnison sliced down through soft volcanic and sedimentary rock. Then, two million years ago, it hit the much harder Precambrian gneiss of the Gunnison Uplift. Trapped in the canyon it had already excavated, the river began eating away this metamorphic layer at the approximate rate of the thickness of one human hair per year or one inch per century until, in places, it was 2,400 feet below the rim. When this ancient process was abruptly and unnaturally curtailed in 1965 bad things began to happen. An unnatural plant community sprang up along the bottom of the canyon, constricting the channel and quickening the flow. In the canyon and far downstream the annual production of large, woody debris, so critical for trout survival, ceased, and in its place came alien plants. Rubble, clay and sand– swept down from the side canyons by the flash floods of summer–began accumulating in the main channel. The spaces under cobbles and boulders– habitat for the salmonflies that comprise a huge part of the diet of Gunnison River trout–were cemented shut. Tubifex worms, which pass whirling disease to trout, proliferated in the sediments. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has just finished an electro-fishing survey of a two-mile stretch of river just below the park. In the late 1980s, before whirling disease showed up, this stretch held 12,000 wild rainbows over six inches, 2,000 of them between 16 and 22 inches. In 2002 it held 87. Browns evolved in Europe with whirling disease, so they can usually tolerate the parasite. But because browns require structure and slower flows than rainbows, they’ve not filled the vacant niche. Dr. Jack Stanford, professor of ecology at the University of Montana, grew up around the Black Canyon and has been studying its ecology since the mid 1970s. "The river hasn’t flushed well in a long time," he told me. "Because peak flows have been so badly curtailed we have large accumulations of organic matter in backwaters. If these backwaters are flushed regularly, groundwater moves up through the gravel bars to produce a real healthy food web and very important rearing areas for trout. The terrestrial vegetation also clogs the river, creating habitat not conducive to trout. And the vegetation narrows the channel so sandbars don’t form. When I was a kid the canyon had huge sandbars. Now they’re gone or covered with plants." The sandbars and backwaters that the Park Service had hoped to restore provided critical spawning and nursery habitat for four endangered fish that evolved with high spring flows–the humpback chub, razorback sucker, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow (the new PC name for squawfish). Under the Endangered Species Act state and federal managers are mandated to protect the habitat of threatened and endangered species, but the Bush administration has decided to ignore its legal responsibilities. AFTER EXTENSIVE RESEARCH, park officials applied for a year-round minimum flow of 300 cubic feet per second (cfs), shoulder flows (an average in wet years) of 800 cfs for 80 days and a one-day scouring flow of between 2,000 and 12,000 cfs, depending on available water. The Colorado Water Conservation Board already had a right to a minimum flow of 300 cfs (except in droughts when it drops to 200 cfs), but that right is inadequate for trout protection because it was established in 1965 and therefore is junior to the right of the Aspinall Unit, which was established in 1956. The Water Conservation Board and Gunnison River trout could get nothing if the current drought continues and Aspinall water is allocated for other uses. Aspinall’s right, however, is junior to the park’s, which Colorado’s Water Court says dates to 1933. So by announcing that it was going to protect Aspinall’s yield, the Bush administration threw away the water right the Park Service had worked for, planned for, and gone to court for–a right owned by the American people. "Fisheries are not built around minimum flows but around favorable flows," remarks David Nickum, director of Colorado Trout Unlimited. "A minimum flow will typically get you a minimum fishery. That’s not what we have today in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Gunnison Gorge [a Bureau of Lands Management wilderness area directly downstream]. I’m very concerned that it may be what we see in the future if steps aren’t taken to protect the resource." Melinda Kassen, who directs TU’s Colorado Water Project, adds this: "If we have 300 cfs year after year, there will be no gold-medal fishery in the Gunnison River. Trout need that base flow but they also need those shoulder flows and peak flows." Because of the drought, the Bureau of Reclamation released only 250 cfs from Aspinall during the winter of 2002-03. The park’s proposal wasn’t perfect. For example, Nickum and Kassen worried that quick drawdowns after the scouring flows might leave trout stranded. But the park had a good attitude and let all hands know it would be happy to work out the kinks. It let the downstream town of Delta know it didn’t want to flood the buildings that had mushroomed in the floodplain since Blue Mesa Dam started holding back spring runoff in 1965. It let upstream hay growers, about half of whom have water rights junior to, and therefore subordinate to, the park’s, know that it had no wish to cut into their profits. After all, the feds had not claimed any of the water that was legally theirs since FDR established the monument in 1933. They expressed a willingness to work with irrigators and to spare them economic hardship. It wouldn’t have been difficult. Still, the state, irrigators and developers threw a hissy
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Response:
POLITICS AGAIN!
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – This rant brought to you by the DNC Hq. and should be viewed accordingly. LZ http://www.flyrodreel.com/conservation.html Water Wrongs The federal government is giving away our Western rivers By TED WILLIAMS ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2002, in a move that opened the way for irrigators and developers to desiccate trout streams all over the West, the Bush Administration abandoned a reserved federal water right to Colorado’s Gunnison River, one of the best trophy wild trout fisheries in America. Along with the water and fish, Bush and company also abandoned the National Park System, the National Wilderness System and all Americans who love nature, including sportsmen, most of whom supported Bush in the last election. "Sportsmen for Bush," read the bumper stickers. "I never understood [that] and still don’t," comments sportsman Mike Pennington on FR&R’s website bulletin board. But in this case at least, sportsmen have an excuse for being ill informed. The giveaway of the water right held by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was conducted entirely in secret. Because the issue was being debated in Colorado’s Water Court, the National Environmental Policy Act did not kick in. The federal government’s decision required neither public hearings nor public comment. The Bush administration just ordained that a national park established around a river and its canyon "to protect the roar of the river" didn’t need water. The Clinton administration had sought to protect the public’s water rights that the Bush administration is now ceding to Western states. For example, in January 2001, Clinton’s Park Service filed an application for a natural-flow regime (including a base flow of 300 cubic feet per second) through 14-mile- long Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Western water rights are based on seniority, and the park–established in 1933 as a national monument and upgraded in 1999–had plenty of seniority. In 1978 that seniority and right were upheld by Colorado’s Water Court, which found that the purpose of the park "is to conserve and maintain in an unimpaired condition the scenic, aesthetic, natural and historic objects of the monument, as well as the wildlife therein, in order that the monument might provide a source of recreation and enjoyment for all generations of citizens of the United States." With that, the court directed the federal government to apply for the amount of water the park needed "within five years of final decree." But since the court didn’t get around to issuing a final decree, the five-year countdown never started, and the feds didn’t come up with flow figures until President Clinton was about to leave office. The park wanted to approximate the natural conditions that had existed in the river and its canyon before 1965. That was the year the Bureau of Reclamation shut the gates on its enormous Blue Mesa dam, which backs up a million-acre- foot reservoir for irrigation and power–the toilet tank of the three-dam Aspinall Unit, named for the crusty, dam-fixated, anti-environmental US congressman Wayne Aspinall, who funneled pork into the state from 1949 to 1973. The Park Service’s mission, after all, is to protect and recreate natural processes, and, wherever practical, let them "proceed unimpeded." When it is serious about this mission, as it was under the leadership of former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, it takes the long view. And the long view is this: For about 12 million years the Gunnison sliced down through soft volcanic and sedimentary rock. Then, two million years ago, it hit the much harder Precambrian gneiss of the Gunnison Uplift. Trapped in the canyon it had already excavated, the river began eating away this metamorphic layer at the approximate rate of the thickness of one human hair per year or one inch per century until, in places, it was 2,400 feet below the rim. When this ancient process was abruptly and unnaturally curtailed in 1965 bad things began to happen. An unnatural plant community sprang up along the bottom of the canyon, constricting the channel and quickening the flow. In the canyon and far downstream the annual production of large, woody debris, so critical for trout survival, ceased, and in its place came alien plants. Rubble, clay and sand– swept down from the side canyons by the flash floods of summer–began accumulating in the main channel. The spaces under cobbles and boulders– habitat for the salmonflies that comprise a huge part of the diet of Gunnison River trout–were cemented shut. Tubifex worms, which pass whirling disease to trout, proliferated in the sediments. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has just finished an electro-fishing survey of a two-mile stretch of river just below the park. In the late 1980s, before whirling disease showed up, this stretch held 12,000 wild rainbows over six inches, 2,000 of them between 16 and 22 inches. In 2002 it held 87. Browns evolved in Europe with whirling disease, so they can usually tolerate the parasite. But because browns require structure and slower flows than rainbows, they’ve not filled the vacant niche. Dr. Jack Stanford, professor of ecology at the University of Montana, grew up around the Black Canyon and has been studying its ecology since the mid 1970s. "The river hasn’t flushed well in a long time," he told me. "Because peak flows have been so badly curtailed we have large accumulations of organic matter in backwaters. If these backwaters are flushed regularly, groundwater moves up through the gravel bars to produce a real healthy food web and very important rearing areas for trout. The terrestrial vegetation also clogs the river, creating habitat not conducive to trout. And the vegetation narrows the channel so sandbars don’t form. When I was a kid the canyon had huge sandbars. Now they’re gone or covered with plants." The sandbars and backwaters that the Park Service had hoped to restore provided critical spawning and nursery habitat for four endangered fish that evolved with high spring flows–the humpback chub, razorback sucker, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow (the new PC name for squawfish). Under the Endangered Species Act state and federal managers are mandated to protect the habitat of threatened and endangered species, but the Bush administration has decided to ignore its legal responsibilities. AFTER EXTENSIVE RESEARCH, park officials applied for a year-round minimum flow of 300 cubic feet per second (cfs), shoulder flows (an average in wet years) of 800 cfs for 80 days and a one-day scouring flow of between 2,000 and 12,000 cfs, depending on available water. The Colorado Water Conservation Board already had a right to a minimum flow of 300 cfs (except in droughts when it drops to 200 cfs), but that right is inadequate for trout protection because it was established in 1965 and therefore is junior to the right of the Aspinall Unit, which was established in 1956. The Water Conservation Board and Gunnison River trout could get nothing if the current drought continues and Aspinall water is allocated for other uses. Aspinall’s right, however, is junior to the park’s, which Colorado’s Water Court says dates to 1933. So by announcing that it was going to protect Aspinall’s yield, the Bush administration threw away the water right the Park Service had worked for, planned for, and gone to court for–a right owned by the American people. "Fisheries are not built around minimum flows but around favorable flows," remarks David Nickum, director of Colorado Trout Unlimited. "A minimum flow will typically get you a minimum fishery. That’s not what we have today in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Gunnison Gorge [a Bureau of Lands Management wilderness area directly downstream]. I’m very concerned that it may be what we see in the future if steps aren’t taken to protect the resource." Melinda Kassen, who directs TU’s Colorado Water Project, adds this: "If we have 300 cfs year after year, there will be no gold-medal fishery in the Gunnison River. Trout need that base flow but they also need those shoulder flows and peak flows." Because of the drought, the Bureau of Reclamation released only 250 cfs from Aspinall during the winter of 2002-03. The park’s proposal wasn’t perfect. For example, Nickum and Kassen worried that quick drawdowns after the scouring flows might leave trout stranded. But the park had a good attitude and let all hands know it would be happy to work out the kinks. It let the downstream town of Delta know it didn’t want to flood the buildings that had mushroomed in the floodplain since
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Response:
The posts are just DNC bulletins under the environmental smokescreen. Strictly for gullible morons who haven’t paid attention to the issues. LZ – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Does anyone here read these posts? I do. I don’t agree with all the cross-posting. But most of the posts are relevant to rec.backcountry at least. People complain about the large volume of this person’s posts. But each post covers a different action taken by the Bush administration to further degrade our backcountry and environment. So the large volume of posts is only a reflection of the large volume of Bush’s anti-backcountry actions That in itself should be troubling to any backcountry recreationist. Anyone who supports Bush couldn’t possibly care about the backcountry or the environment. It’s just plain old NIMBYism. As long as Bush is trying to stick oil wells, increase logging, allow more pollution or roll back environmental protections in someone else’s favorite backcountry area it’s OK.