Olympia calls the $80,000-per-fish plan for Maine a ‘Christmas Gift’
If you do the math on that Atlantic Salmon Plan which the Governor and the Congressional Delegation and the militant environmental groups were raving about last Christmas, you might ask yourself, “Am I living in a state…or a boutique? Is this Maine or Neiman Marcus?” Because if you take the $1.2 King pledged for the project, add the $11.4 of federal money, plus the $3.7 from industry, it adds up to $16.3 million. Divide that by the 200 Atlantic Salmon left in the targeted rivers and you’ll get approximately $80,000 per fish.
At the same time, if water levels get low, industry has just been told it can take a hike as far as being able to river dip for irrigation purposes, because salmon have become a priority. And if this Salmon Plan follows in the footsteps of Oregon’s Salmon Plan, then our woods industry could be in danger. (See reprint of the article from Oregonians in Action newsletter).
Where is common sense in all this?
The Oregon Plan is a salmon restoration plan enacted by the Oregon Legislature to show the federal government that it wasn’t necessary to list the Coho salmon under the Endangered Species Act because the state was serious about doing it itself. It is a nearly-1,300 page document which was promoted as “cooperative” and “incentive” based and which would add no new regulations. The Oregon Legislature appropriated $30 million to implement it and the forest industry offered to tax itself $14 million to help pay for the plan. Only Oregon and Maine have taken this route, so it’s important to watch what’s going on with the Oregon Plan because how that develops may have meaning for Maine.
“It is the feds’ plan anyway.”
The Maine Atlantic Salmon Conservation Plan was developed for the same reason as Oregon’sto avoid listing the salmon under the Endangered Species Act. Already we see the effects. The Bangor Daily News reported in a front page story on March 27th that if “Forced to choose between the irrigation practices of Maine’s large blueberry growers and Maine’s commitment to protect Atlantic salmon, a state panel (the Land & Water Resources Council) decided farmers will take a back seat to the salmon in three Washington County Rivers.” A critic of the plan, Bob Hinton, president of the Denny’s River Sportsman’s Club, whose group had opposed the listing said “The state came up with a conservation plan and submitted it to the federal government. The federal government said this and that needed to be changed. The state has gone along with everything the federal government has said, so literally it is the feds’ plan anyway.” (BDN Dec. 16, 1997)
Maine’s Governor King “pledged $1.2 million to protect the 200 fish which come back to the seven Maine rivers each year.
The Maine troubles began when Restore: The North Woods, an environmental group based in Concord, Massachusetts, petitioned the federal government to get the Atlantic salmon listed under the ESA. Maine’s Governor King “pledged $1.2 million to protect the 200 fish which come back to the seven Maine rivers each yearFederal agencies have pledged an additional $11.4 million to the effort and industry will spend $3.7 million “, according to the BDN, Dec. 16, 1997.
“We thank you for the Christmas gift you have given the state,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe.
The Congressional delegation was thrilled that the feds had endorsed the state plan. “We thank you for the Christmas gift you have given the state”, said Sen. Olympia Snowe. Let’s hope when it’s unwrapped, it doesn’t turn out to be another bureaucratic game of “Mother, May I?”, as it looks like it is turning out to be in Oregon. Do you suppose Senator Snowe would return it for our refund if we don’t like it? Because if all we get for paying $80,000 per fish is more rules to make us miserable and puts our natural resource-based businesses in jeopardy, what kind of “present” is that?
If you think there’s something “fishy” about Maine’s Salmon Plan, maybe you’re right! Is this what’s in store for Maine?
New forest practice rules and a federal proposal would effect all Oregonians
by Bill Moshofsky, President,
Oregonians in Action Legal Center
(reprinted from Looking Forward, March/April 1998)
Proposed new Oregon Forest Practice Rules
Contrary to representations from backers of the Oregon Salmon Plan approved by the 1997 Legislature that it would not result in new regulations on private land, the Oregon Board of Forestry is already under heavy pressure from the National Marine Fisheries Service to adopt much more restrictive regulations on private forest land.
Here are just a few examples of new regulations being proposed:
- New restrictions on harvesting private timber on millions of acres by:
- Widening stream “channels” from annual high water marks to the 100 year flood plain line. This would mean stream widths could vary from yards to miles. Harvesting would likely be off limits for the full width;
- Measuring “Riparian Management Zones” (RMZs) along streams from the flood plain line, and nearly doubling the width of current RMZs. Virtually all timber harvesting would be outlawed in RMZs in perpetuity;
- Establishing new definitions of “streams”, thereby greatly increasing areas where harvesting is prohibited.
- New procedural requirements, such as tripling the area subject to requirements for written plans for forest activities in the vicinity of streams.
- New limits and constraints on temporary and permanent roads on forest lands, including road decommissioning, and burdensome procedural requirements.
- The threat of even more restrictions – the National Marine Fisheries Service recommendations are “interim” pending completion of “watershed analysis.”
Some forest experts estimate the proposed regulations could result in landowners losing 50% of the value of their land to provide stream protection. Even Governor Kitzhaber indicated that the NMFS proposal “would result in a reduction of timber harvests on private forest lands in western Oregon of between 40 and 80 percent, with many landowners being out of business entirely” (emphasis added).
If landowners are lucky, they might be able to recover “compensation” for total taking of the use and value of their land As pointed out by Oregonian editorial writer David Reinhard on February 25th, Oregon taxpayers could end up with huge liabilities for imposing such regulations.
Unfortunately for landowners, the regulation writers may be able to write the regulations in ways to avoid compensation payments, leaving landowners stuck with huge uncompensated losses (emphasis added).
Such drastic measures have other disturbing consequences. More forest products processing plants will shut down or cut back. More people will lose their jobs. Many rural communities will suffer. There will be less tax revenues for schools and other services.
Massive new Federal proposals to protect fish.
More recently, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced a far more sweeping program. It expands “protection” to include 13 populations of salmon and steelhead throughout nearly half the state of Oregon. The program would impose further prohibitions on forest harvesting and management, and, according to a report in the Oregonian February 27th, “would touch the lives of everyone from city dwellers to farmers in Oregon’s most heavily settled and intensely farmed region” as more and more rules would be adopted to tightly control farm practices, limit development, and control water run-off from lawns.
All such rules and regulations are emanating from non-elected public bureaucracies at the state and federal level. Neither the Congress nor the state legislature are involved, other than to grant to the bureaucracies nearly unbridled power to make such rules and regulations – rules and regulations that have the force and effect of laws enacted by elected representatives.
