The Calaveras –Amador Mokelumne River Authority, a Joint Powers Agreement signed by Calaveras County states: “To preserve the use of Mokelumne River Water for consumers in Amador and Calaveras Counties” and “To preserve and protect water reserved to Amador and Calaveras Counties…” Did the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors violate the spirit of the law or the law itself in their endorsement of the Wild & Scenic designation for the Mokelumne River? Or is the law just a means to persecute those who disagree with you in the manner of Lois Lerner at the IRS and others in power today?
Judging from my experience at the State Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee hearing this past Tuesday the law is merely a script for the charade that passes as democracy. Distortions, half truths and outright lies, such as the priority of water rights on the Mokelumne River, were presented as fact by the pro Wild & Scenic advocates. Our elected and appointed officials were humiliated. As a citizen and activist I was totally disgusted, but not surprised.
There are rumors of unethical dealings by the Foothill Conservancy with land holders along the Mokelumne River. There will probably be more about this in the local media as the tragic story unfolds. Based upon my personal experience with the Foothill Conservancy since the early 1990’s I find this quite believable.
The environmentalists are the robber barons of today. It is not unexpected that Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson (remember him from the infamous bail outs?) also chairs the board of The Nature Conservancy. Goldman Sachs also has agreements with the Rainforest Action Network, Rainforest Alliance, World Resources Institute and Friends of the Earth. They also believe in the total fraud of human caused greenhouse gas global warming. Whose interests do groups like the Foothill Conservancy really serve?
In present day Pitkin County, Colorado (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joQzpWC-gCo) local residents, including the fire chief, confronted the Forest Service about road closures. These closures prevented them from stopping fires that would engulf their town. That confrontation bears an eerie familiarity to a scene in film considered to have a very different political label, John Sayles “Matewan”. In this story about a 1920 West Virginia coal miner’s strike, the mayor and sheriff attempt to exercise their legitimate authority over the coal company thugs and are shot.
What has changed in these almost hundred years? Labels persist with only historic meanings while the power relationships remain unchanged. Back then the “left wing” opposed back room rule and its enforcement. Today the left is in power and the “right wing” opposes back room rule and its enforcement.
I prefer to keep it simple: I believe in transparent government, freedom and our founding documents.
Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett
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