"And You Think The Indians Lost to the White Man"

What has been going on in the Federal courts for the last 40 years on Indian issues, totally eclipses the humiliating defeat of Custer's Last Stand at the Little Big Horn.  With gaming casinos popping up everywhere, the Boldt decision (1974) and other court decisions on Salmon preservation and so-called treaty rights, Americans are being taken to the proverbial cleaners.  Fleeced, as it were.  The Indians are getting even, big time and it's costing all of us billions of dollars.  Ever since the Puyallup Indians of Western Washington (all 1,200 of them) won a massive $160,000,000+ settlement from the Federal government several years ago (our tax dollars), after clouding the title to thousands of acres in Pierce County, Washington, Indian tribes across the country have sought billions of American dollars in the courts.  We believe that the Puyallup case prompted the Coeur d'Alene Indian tribe to make a federal claim in court that they owned Lake Coeur d'Alene, in North daho.  Now the Coeur d'Alene Indians don't care one wit about owning the lake.  What they are after is federal dollars.  As far as we know, that case has yet to be decided and will probably run through the courts for years.  The Indians are patient.  They can wait for the millions they will receive of our money, by legal blackmail.  The Boldt and Puyallup decisions have embolden the Indian tribes and they are after more and more.  They have found a welcome ally in our Federal courts.
 
Some of you are aware that we have taken on a local issue, having to do with very expensive fish and habitat culverts being installed on creeks, streams and rivulets throughout Western Washington, but more specifically King County rural roads, paid for by rural taxpayers.  Today we learn that the Indians won another Federal court decision that mandates that all culverts on all streams in Western Washington, no matter whether the water course is Salmon bearing or not, must be replaced with these expensive fish and habitat culverts.  Our research has uncovered that these culverts are even being installed on creeks that dry up in the summer, where no fish habitat could exist.  Ludicrous!
 
Below our signature block is the full article from the Seattle Times on the recent court decision that mandates that all culverts in Western Washington be replaced with these fish and habitat culverts.  State and local budgets will be strained to the breaking point and they will come after you, the taxpayer, for the money.  But this isn't the worst of this court decision.  Road culverts are one thing, but the Federal court decision mandates that the entire habitat be restored.  The entire habitat runs over millions of acres of private land.  Guess who will get to pick up the tab for water course restoration on private land?  The private landowner.  Guess whose ox will be gored the most?   Rural landowners, because that is where most of the water courses are located.  Then comes the excessive setback regulations that will be applied to these small water courses on private lands.  Many of those setback regulations have already been passed into law.  Certainly you don't think the court would ever mandate that streams, creeks and rivulets running under city streets would have to be restored, do you?  Once again, the city folks will get off scot free and the rural landowners will take the full brunt of this environmental fish preservation insanity.   What most rural landowners don't know, is that Washington State has already granted legal authority to force rural landowners to restore fish habitat on their land, at their cost.
 
From the article: "Oh boy, this is a celebration day," said Billy Frank Jr., a Nisqually elder and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, formed to implement the Boldt decision.   
 
Frank went on to say:  "But we have to do a better job at what we are doing. We have to have the leadership and the guts to make it happen, and we haven't had the political will for salmon in this state," Frank said. "We need the political will to bring the salmon back and have a home when they get here." 
 
"Political will?  Bring the Salmon back?  A home for Salmon?"  Be serious!!!  Rural landowners are being inundated with the "will" of the government to give into the legal blackmail of the Indian tribes and the wild-eyed, radical environmentalists over salmon preservation, fish and animal habitat and environmental protection of any and all kinds, real or imagined. 
 
Again, we repeat a paragraph from our August 16th article on the same subject:

 
"All across Western America, these kinds of preservation and conservation projects are unnecessarily sucking up taxpayer dollars for a fish that is supposedly endangered.  But not only is it not endangered, it is heavily fished by commercial fisherman out in the ocean and by native Americans who install triple nets across rivers to catch 50% of the northwest spawning salmon.  (The Boldt decision)  If these fish are endangered, then why are we harvesting them in the first place?  Why do native Americans get 50% of the catch?  Why don't we shut off the fishery for four years and quit eating salmon, so that the species will recover?    Why indeed!"

 
NOTE:  We spend hours, and sometimes days, researching this information so that we can educate those on our lists through our e-mails and articles that reach national attention.  NARLO could certainly use your help.   The sad truth is that our calls for financial assistance are met mostly with silence.  We provide a service, just like the plumber, the carpenter, the doctor or dentist, the consultant, the contractor, the worker, the truck driver and all other worthwhile endeavors.  We keep wondering why our efforts are worth so little to the people we are trying to help.  Doesn't your conscience nag you just a little for taking something of value and paying nothing for it?  For those that have helped us, we thank you.
The Sixth Anniversary of 9/11 is just around the corner.  Be sure to visit our tribute to 9/11 on YOUTUBE at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrYkdK6uDCA.
 
 
Ron Ewart, President

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA  98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
Website: www.narlo.org

The National Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) is a non-profit corporation, duly licensed in the State of Washington.  It was formed in response to draconian land use ordinances that were passed by King County in Washington State (Seattle) in the late Fall of 2004, after vociferous opposition from rural landowners.  NARLO's mission is to begin the long process of restoring, preserving and protecting Constitutional property rights and returning this country to a Constitutional Republic.  Government has done a great job of dividing us up into little battle groups where we are essentially impotent at a national level.  We will change all that with the noisy voices and the vast wealth tied up in the land of the American rural landowner.  The land is our power, if we will just use that power, before we lose it.  We welcome donations and volunteers who believe as we do, that government abuses against rural landowners have gone on for far too long and a day of reckoning is at hand.  To learn more, visit our website at www.narlo.org.
 
President Roosevelt, in his 1933 inaugural address said, ".. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".  I maintain that the only thing we have to fear is unbridled government.  The only way unbridled government can exist is if WE THE PEOPLE allow it.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003849269_culvert23m.html

By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times staff reporter

In a landmark decision more than 30 years in the making, a federal judge Wednesday ruled the state can't build or maintain road culverts that hurt fish passage or diminish fish populations because that violates tribal treaty rights to fish.

The case has broad implications to spur the pace and increase the cost of state culvert repairs already under way around Western Washington. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, expected to be appealed, could also lead tribes to seek other habitat protections.

"This could be very big," said Mason Morisset, an attorney representing tribes in the case. "If it stands, you will see tribes assert themselves on a broad range of activities to protect the habitat. Whether it's clearing wetlands or building roads and developments ... , if we can show you are going to have a net loss of habitat, that is a treaty rights violation."

The judge posed no remedy in the decision; that's a step that will begin next week. Fixing more culverts faster is sure to be on the table. And that is going to be expensive.

"I'm not going to use the 'B' word, but it's millions of dollars," said Fronda Woods, assistant attorney general for the state of Washington, the defendant in the case.

The case pertains to fish habitat everywhere north of the Columbia River and west of the Cascade crest, affecting the treaty rights of about 20 tribes that brought the suit.

No state agency faces a bigger potential bill than the Department of Transportation, with about 800 culverts in Western Washington to fix.

"I have great concern from a budget perspective," said Paula Hammond, interim transportation secretary.

The agency has already spent $40 million identifying and fixing problem culverts since 1991 and intends to spend $69 million more over the next 12 years. Now it looks like that won't be enough.

"It's likely hundreds of millions of dollars of corrections that would need to be made," Hammond said. "We don't have those kinds of funds, and you have to weigh this against the costs for maintaining and preserving our existing infrastructure."

The ruling didn't speak to culverts built and maintained by local governments, raising questions about broader implications of the decision.

"What's next?" Hammond asked. "Think about a stream as it crosses a city street and a county road and a state highway as it makes its way to Puget Sound.

"It doesn't solve the problem unless you correct the whole corridor, and if we can't afford it at the state level, the local agencies certainly can't," Hammond said.

For tribes, the ruling was a long-awaited culmination of the original Boldt decision, U.S. vs. Washington. In that case, tribes sought not only affirmation of their treaty right to fish in their usual and accustomed places, but protection of habitat to ensure that fish would always be there to catch.

The first part of the case was decided in 1974, affirming tribes' treaty right to half the catch.

But the habitat questions raised in the case have been wending their way through the courts ever since.

"Oh boy, this is a celebration day," said Billy Frank Jr., a Nisqually elder and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, formed to implement the Boldt decision.

"All of the things we had when we signed the treaty is slowly disappearing," Frank said. "If the fish aren't here, what is the treaty all about? What is the thing we signed in good faith, the peace treaty in 1854? What is the meaning of all that? In our time, and for our children and grandchildren and for their children yet unborn, this is what it means: that we have to have our fish here."

That doesn't mean turning the clock back: "I don't think anyone is saying they are going to close down I-5," Frank said. "In order for us all to live together, we are not turning the lights off.

"But we have to do a better job at what we are doing. We have to have the leadership and the guts to make it happen, and we haven't had the political will for salmon in this state," Frank said. "We need the political will to bring the salmon back and have a home when they get here."