Comments on: Drought Wars: Where did the farm water go?

By: sandra

sandra — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 11:29:26 +0000

Your statement lacks a few facts. Bundy, the rancher you are really talking about stopped paying his lease payments for 20 years. In 1998 Clark County , NV bought those grazing leases and asked the BLM to remove all cattle from it. The remaining ranchers continue to pay their leases, and some were paid for their water rights, removed their cattle and they then could lease a different plot of grazing land. Bundy is a FREELOADER.His family has their ranch in a trust, but BLM land is not part of that. His family has not been farming for 100 years. He was born in AZ his father was born in AZ and his Grandfather is from IL. His Greatgrand mothers family owned the land he is on and his Father came to ranch there in 1954. The land he lives on is not even in his name, but in his father’s who passed on the trust. the Clark County Assessor said his name is not on any of the rolls for attempting to pay Clark Co for grazing rights, as he claimed. As for the ACA, there is nothing in about making you become a vegetarian, go read for yourself and quit repeating garbage you heard. And yes the bill to collect back taxes owed by your parents is in the 2008 farm bill, now who was President in 2008? His name began with a B not an O.

By: jeanmarei missale

jeanmarei missale — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 18:30:58 +0000

This all sounds very familiar to what they are doing to cattle ranchers in Nevada.forbidding them to let their cattle graze on lands they have grazed on more than a 100 years.all this they say because of a tortoise.the govt has a green agenda,about climate change.they say the cattle give off methane gas,and it’s bad for environment.the govt with there agenda are trying to put cattle ranchers out of business.now this morning I hear that IBAMACARE they want Americans to be thinner,and that they want them to eat plant based diet.and the only way to make people healthier is to take supply away.doc in other words they are going to force the people.also will send text messages to tell people they are too far.can’t make this up.also hidden in farm bill the it’s is taking peoples income tax checks for debt their parents owe. My email is mlucky113@gmail.com

By: jim jones

jim jones — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 18:05:55 +0000

Wayne Lusvardi has it backwards. The diversions are FROM the rivers TO the farms not the other way around as anyone with half a brain and not totally taken in by the millionaire and billionaire (think Hollywood producer Steve Resnick who owns 46000 acres of Westlands) welfare farmer propagandists can see. The San Joaquin once supported a run of 100,000 salmon annually. They evolved to come up the river during fall, winter and spring, but dams cut off their passage and diversions dried the river essentially year round. Further, return flows from fields are laden with salts and toxic substances like selenium.

As for the Trinity, until lawsuits forced the Bureau of Rec to reduce (not end) diversions over a mountain pass into the Sacramento River, then flowing hundreds of miles into San Joaquin Valley farms, the river’s previously abundant salmon and steelhead fishery essentially had been destroyed. After Trinity and Lewiston dams were built, the number of steelhead returning to the hatchery to replace the hundreds of miles cut off by the dams went as low as a total of 12 fish.

As for those horrible environmentalists (I can literally see Lusvardi spit the word out as if it were a mouthful of potato salad left out in a hot sun)[…]. Thousands of fishermen and hundreds of businesses rely on on healthy salmon and steelhead runs. Unlike the welfare farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, they don’t get millions of dollars in subsidies annually for crops like cotton, or zero interest loans.

But Lusvardi need not worry too much. His [misstatements and those] of others have have lots of money and political power behind them. Also,the sympathy of many who care about the poor farm workers being used as pawns by the farm owners who exploit and despise them.

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[Editor’s note: Some vituperation was removed from this post, but all the main points remain.]