Page 28 - Flathead Beacon // 2.24.16

LIKE I WAS SAYING 30 AMERICAN RURAL 30 DRAWING BOARD 31 Viewpoints
LETTERS
The Downside of Wind Power
In reading the letter to the Flat- head Beacon editor from Tom Darin, American Wind Energy Association (Feb. 10 Beacon: “U.S. Global Leader in Wind Production”), I have no doubt of his organization’s prowess at estab- lishing cheap energy and high paying jobs using wind energy. But, his article leaves out much that needs to be said.
I have been a very outspoken critic of using fossil fuels that put green- house gases like CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere and cause global warming. Shutting down the very concept of the Keystone XL pipeline promoting the use of Canadian tar sands oil, as well as the mining of Montana “dirty” coal in the name of creating a few jobs while wrecking the planet we live on, are top- ics I often write about. So, you would assume I would be all for wind power and solar power as viable alternatives to power derived from coal, oil, and nat- ural gas. However, there is much more to this topic.
I have been doing battle with the American Wind Energy Association over their concealment of the large (impossible to count all on private property) numbers of deaths of eagles from being sucked into the huge, very fast spinning, wind turbine blades on wind farms and being killed. I have no way of obtaining actual numbers as this is not an environmental group but a capitalistic organization seeking busi- ness pro ts for its members. The result of my e orts has seen them angrily cut me o their e-mail list “advertising” and deny me making contact with them anymore. Birds continue to die.
Furthermore, the results of solar energy arrays of photovoltaic cells is the destruction of insects necessary to the bird ecology from the rising, extremely intensive, heat waves emanating from them. Very small birds also perish.
I don’t know what the answer is to this dilemma of business competition of energy resources. I do know that always favoring an energy policy that caters only to business pro t is a disas- ter in the making for wildlife ecosys- tems. Business and politics should not be making these decisions. Science should.
Bill Baum Badrock Canyon
Potential Impact of the CSKT Compact on Irrigators
In a previous letter to the editor, I described what Western Montana would look like under the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Compact. Gary Krueger rebutted my analysis by stating that during a drought we would have more water because we would share the shortage. The compact does give CSKT the authority to lease (sell) water from Hungry Horse reser- voir and a drought or shortage would create a market.
Krueger and other people who sup- port the compact need to read the com- pact instead of repeating opinions. We have not had water calls (irrigation shortages) in the recent past. In the compact, the o -reservation instream water right abstracts on major rivers are made out to the federal government in trust to CSKT, which means that the federal government not the state of Montana owns the o -reservation water rights. Montana does have a few Murphy instream water rights based on sh survival that were put in place years ago by the Montana Legislature, but the compact adds the federal gov- ernment to these water right abstracts to gain control of the water.
Some irrigators in the Flathead believe that they are not impacted because they get water from irrigation wells or from a tributary that feeds into a major river. However, the com- pact states that irrigation wells of more than 100 gpm are subject to call (stop using water) if they are hydraulically connected to surface water. The writ- ers of the compact knew that if the gov- ernment has time immemorial water rights on the main stems (rivers) they can control all of the irrigation.
This shared shortage of water men- tioned by Krueger is not likely going to be created by drought because the pur- pose of water storage is to prevent such a shortage. Storage facilities in the Flat- head and on the CSKT Reservation are lled by high ow during the spring. If water is properly managed there is no shortage. However, the 19 reservoirs on the reservation were not lled last year and irrigation was cut o in August. The Bureau of Indian A airs (Federal Gov- ernment Agency) and the CSKT were managing the water. The Flathead Joint Board of Control (FJBC), which is made up of irrigators who are elected, is in litigation to regain management of the
water as required by the 1908 amend- ment to the Flathead Allotment Act.
Compact proponents think that additional water is needed to make the CSKT productive by providing water to all of the irrigable land on the reserva- tion, but this was achieved by the fed- eral government when it built the mas- sive Flathead irrigation project that contains 128,242 acres. Historically, the project has had su cient water mainly from reservoir storage and the Mission Mountains, but independent studies show the compact cuts the his- toric delivery from 50-70 percent. This will eventually lead to the failure of the 128,242 acre Flathead Irrigation Proj- ect and the agricultural economy of the Mission Valley.
Verdell Jackson Former state senator, Kalispell
GOP Ignores History in Supreme Court Stance
While reading the Associated Press on Feb. 16, I came across a story that quotes the GOP Senate members ordering President Barack Obama, “don’t bother nominating a candidate for the Supreme Court because we will not approve.” All of the GOP presiden- tial candidates have warned Obama to let the newly elected president make the nomination. Obviously, this is a self-serving warning. I also ran across a sound bite and movie of President Ron- ald Reagan addressing Congress. Pres- ident Reagan informed Congress that it’s their duty to ll the open Supreme Court seat immediately. The modern day conservative Republicans are run- ning counter to their conservative icon President Ronald Reagan. They inter- pret the Constitution and conservative doctrine only as it meets their needs. This short letter is a little history lesson for conservatives su ering from politi- cal amnesia. According to the Consti- tution and with the many very import- ant issues before the Supreme Court at this time, Obama must make the nom- ination now to avoid gridlock.
Jerry Reckin Kalispell
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FEBRUARY 24, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
LETTERS
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