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Are Salmon in Limbo? by Scott Levy Idaho Mountain Express, December 10, 2004

After reading last Friday's NOAA say Snake Dams Should Stay by Greg Stahl, I began to feel the need to delve deeper into the topic with your readers. My hope is that an informed public will share this important issue with friends and family over the coming holidays.

With the new 2004 Updated Proposed Actions, NOAA Fisheries is seeking to shirk responsibility of the stewardship of Idaho's threatened and endangered salmon.

No longer will NOAA Fisheries be obliged to speak to Congress if our current efforts fail to bring about positive population trends. The continued existence or possible removal of Lower Snake river dams and reservoirs will no longer be NOAA Fisheries responsibility.

Then with whom does the responsibility rest? Presumably with Congress, but nowhere does the Fisheries agency state this. So, is Congress now the responsible party or does responsibility now float in a limbo land where no one is responsible?

Beginning in the 1960s, Congress authorized the Lower Snake River dams and reservoirs, funding their existence. Subsequently, the argument goes that only Congress can authorize their removal.

Key elements of the 2000 Biological Opinion required future communication with Congress if population growth rates did not turn positive. The new Updated Proposed Actions abandon this provision. The supporting argument is two-pronged:

• Over the past three years, adult salmon return rates (excluding Idaho's Sockeye) have been better than returns during the dismal 1990s; and
• There is uncertainty as to what Congress might have to say five or eight years from now.

Related Pages:
NOAA say Snake Dams Should Stay by Greg Stahl, Idaho Mountain Express 12/3/4

The other letter in this edition

America Losing Its Way

Are we adopting communism in America? It appears that we are.

In 1848, Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, outlined steps necessary for a socialized country. Some of these adopted steps include:

• Abolish or control private property through endangered species, wetlands, wilderness areas.
• A heavy graduated income tax.
• Centralization of credit into the hands of the Federal Reserve System and encourage government deficit spending which would destroy the economy.
• Control the means of communication and transportation.
• Start government run businesses that compete unfairly with private businesses and make the people dependent on government for their very survival.
• Free public education controlled by the federal department of education that dictates a socialist curriculum and takes education away from the hand of the parents and state governments.

In addition, communists have pushed hard for the registration of all private firearms, under some pretext, with the goal of confiscating them and leaving the people defenseless against the tyrannical socialist government. Communists use hate by dividing people into hostile groups based on skin color, economic status or gender. They strive for a world government and were the key founders of the Communist controlled United Nations. They are promoting regional government like the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas that can be combined into a world government.

We must get back to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights that made this country free and independent, get out of the United Nations and not join the Free Trade of the Americas.

by Adrian Arp, Twin Falls