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Herald and News

Letter to the Editor

July 3, 2012

If you are wondering why we would blow up four green, clean, paid-for dams in order to build a wood-burning power plant on the doorsteps of Klamath Falls with a cost of millions of dollars to blow up the dams, clean up the mess, build the new plant, buy the trucks and trees and work to cut them up, it’s because you are thinking about “facts on the ground” and not about “money.”

Because doing the logical thing — building fish ladders and fining farmers for runoff — is chicken feed and makes no money. Blowing up dams, etc., will make millions of dollars for those connected and in the right place (politicians, contractors, lawyers). It’s like blowing up high schools.

We should do what Canada does: build the fish ladders when we build the dams. Pass fines so draconian that a farmer caught with his runoff in a reservoir probably cannot survive the cost of fines, so there is no runoff.

The cost in blowing up these dams — in loss of water, in building the wood-burning plant and running all the trucks to haul the wood — to say nothing of air quality, will be a disaster for Klamath Falls.

I would much rather see a debate about blowing up casinos. I don’t mind gambling in Nevada, because if a person has the money to drive to Reno or Las Vegas, and take the time, etc., then he or she is in a position to afford gambling.

The problem with Indian casinos is that they are only a few miles away; they are right where we live. People gamble there who can’t afford to and shouldn’t. I think taxes on casinos should be tripled to pay for fish ladders, and some casinos be closed.

Henry F. Edwards

Klamath Falls

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This information and much more that you need to know about the ESA,
the Klamath River Basin, and private property rights can be found at The
Klamath Bucket Brigade’s web site – http://klamathbucketbrigade.org/index.html –
please visit today.