Proponents of efforts to rewrite the Endangered Species Act may also use the case as ammunition in their arguments that enforcement of the act results in illegal government takings of private property. More than 10,000 people rallied in Klamath Falls on Monday to protest the Bureau of Reclamation's decision to allocate almost all the water in the Klamath Basin Project to protect the endangered sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake, the project's primary reservoir. The water is also being directed to aid threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River, which drains the basin. Buckets representing each of the 50 states were passed from Veteran's Memorial Park, down Main Street to Modoc Field in Klamath Falls, by veterans, farmers, local citizens and elected officials, where the buckets were emptied into a dry irrigation ditch. Farmers want the government to compensate them for the crop losses they will experience due to a shortage of water.
Current law has it backwards.
It is time for a new conservation approach that values wildlife and people and our constitutional liberties. Frontiers of Freedom - People for the USA, was founded in 1995 by Malcolm Wallop to oppose government intervention in private lives. The foundation argues that with careful planning, irrigation need not threaten fish, and points to the Endangered Species Act as the source of misguided government water decisions. Yet the Endangered Species Act through its cumbersome command and control mechanisms requires that fish be protected and that farmers and their families be bankrupted. We must start over and build from scratch a new law that actually protects endangered species and at the same time preserves constitutional rights and the dignity of people.