Kesterson: a Microcosm of Government Corruption [4] by D.A. Tuma

Advice to Porgans: message received loud and clear

In my reading of various authors on diverse subjects, I know there have been and are a lot of people wiser than I. And if some of the people on the CVRWQCB are wiser than I, it may be because they are older, and their greater experience informs them that the best way for children to mature is to let them discover their past immaturity. By extrapolation of our individual learning curve, we can anticipate our future enlightenment and the prospect of looking back on our current stupidity with chagrin.

So perhaps I'm not wise enough to refrain from advising Porgans that if his message has come through loud and clear to me it very likely has been heard by a lot of other people, including the CVRWQCB. As a member of the public, I dispute his claim that "meaningful public involvement" was "preempted" by the CVRWQCB's refusal to let him use public hearing time in excess of 3 minutes.

"Meaningful public involvement": brain-washing

"Meaningful public involvement" occurs in every white-water rafting trip from which recreationalists carry away a passion for wild river protection. A passion that includes fear of losing white-water business access to a portion of a public river that may someday be inundated by a reservoir. A passion that excludes appreciation for a reservoir's quiet reflection and tranquillity, reversal of canyon carving erosion, and storage of flood-water for future beneficial uses. Uses that include irrigation of our rural crops and urban flora, generation of ready and clean power in our electrical service, and flushing of our civilization's drainage to environments with surplus assimilative capacity.

How much does a river rafter learn about Kesterson? Enough to know it is proof of environmental damage by farms that depend on floodwater storage behind white-water drowning dams. Thus "meaningful public involvement" has high-jacked the American River canyon dedicated for Auburn Reservoir, an unfinished CVP flood storage and power generation facility. And high-jacked the San Joaquin Valley's gravity flow outfall planned for San Luis Drain, an unfinished CVP agricultural drainage facility.

The intransigence I've met in the conviction of river rafters that desert farms are an improper beneficial use of water leads me to regard it with the same respect I give to any other religious belief. Our society, compared to many others, has managed to remain relatively free of spiritual tyranny by tolerating diverse faiths and diligently defending against a government established religion-until environmental socialists breached the defense with earth worship.

People fall for cult religions. North Korean brain-washing worked on our prisoners of war. "Meaningful public involvement" must include highly effective programming of river rafters around hypnotic campfires where imaginations of a captive audience are led on fanciful flights into perverted perspectives of what is good and what is not. Into perverted Kesterson morality.

"Meaningful public involvement" occurs in every publication perpetrating or debunking environmental hoaxes. But I've not yet found any other publication debunking the Kesterson hoax. Kesterson morality has spread like a virus through the pages of the usual purveyors of environmental propaganda. The CVRWQCB has no monopoly of public involvement on San Luis Drain/ Kesterson issues. Any limitation it may place on public involvement in its own hearings has hardly impacted the larger context of all San Luis Drain public involvement.

I admire Porgans' persistence, but his angst is disturbing. It could intimidate others to fear stepping into the focus of his wrath.

I fear much of his frustration is self imposed and his opportunities to unimpose it may be involuntarily limited by government prohibition of a historically common herbal treatment to kill the pain of frustration. Thanks to government wars over water and drugs, my effort to listen to the best arguments of competing interests in public water forums risks exposure to Porgans' unpredictable vocal outbursts and possibly worse. He seems to suffer painful dementia, powerless to manage both his environment and his perception of his environment. I feel sorry for him and for those of us who tolerate his rants in silence.

Precedence for rants before the Board

In the course of my federal job assignment to plan new and improved delivery facilities for increased wetlands water supply in Grasslands, I studied property ownership maps to determine who owned what land in order to minimize encroachment on private property. I noticed several different parcels scattered throughout Grasslands labeled with the name "Claus". The pattern was dispersed. Not like properties with the same name on the east side of the valley, which are typically adjacent to each other as if split among the heirs of a once larger family farm. More like recent acquisitions of an opportunistic and speculative developer.

Perhaps an opportunistic developer might also be an educated and articulate person, capable of persuading water regulatory boards to help pressure the federal government into buying his "contaminated" property. How would he do that? Would he wine, rant, and act outraged? And if that behavior worked for Claus in getting State government environmental protection enforcement to demand mitigation from the federal government, including the purchase of his property, why shouldn't such behavior work for others?

Maybe it does. Maybe government is steered by the squeaky wheels in our society. Maybe government enables environmental whining and is co-dependent with environmental socialists addicted to government subsidies.

I am embarrassed by this display of uncivil suffering and a society helpless to come to the aid of those compelled to publicly cry in pain. I find it helpless because it is entranced by a common certainty that a democratic process, majority rule, will bring us the best final solutions. A common certainty that seems to have forgotten the lessons of World War II. The horrors of national socialism and how it rose to power in Germany: a democratic process. And fails to see fascism and communism by any other name in America.

Bashing socialism into the dustbin of historical hysteria

After ten years of politically incorrect comments I've shared with many of the technical professionals involved directly or indirectly with the Kesterson debacle, I should expect dismissive attitudes from people with preconceptions based on my reputation as a basher of environmental socialists and their obsessive compulsion to build wetlands in deserts. I don't mind. It shouldn't matter to anyone who doesn't fear me. And I hope that is true for everyone. If it does matter, I hope they pay attention to the part of the environmental ideology that I'm trying to bash-socialism. And stand back. Because I intend to bash it into the dustbin of historical hysteria. Management fakers: choice for union contract

It's possible, perhaps probable, that the expanse of research findings relevant to Kesterson is as incomprehensible to managers without scientific or engineering training (e.g., former U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Dan Beard, appointed by President Clinton with the recommendation of his former boss, Rep. George Miller) as are the details of management theories to me. If Scott Adams has got the best assessment of management theories in his Dilbert cartoons, then government science and engineering must in general be currently led by management fakers. As soon as one management theory gets debunked, government managers get trained to use something else peddled by the latest hot consultant. If managers fall for management theories so shallow they are only mirages, no wonder they fall for environmental socialism.

It seems like what ever theory works is what managers use. They are pragmatic. So all employees have to do is make sure managers use the policies that employees want to work with. If employees want to depend on the terms of employment being aggreeable, not subject to unilateral management changes, they can get a union contract and honor that contract as they expect it to be honored by their managers.

Some employees unionize and some don't. What is important is that they have a choice to enter into a contract. Government interference with a voluntary choice by an individual robs that person of freedom, whether it's a choice for a union contract to protect against abuse of one's own private labor by management or a choice to protect against abuse of one's own private property by government environmental enforcement.

Thanks to Porgans: illustration of demented Kesterson morality

I understand that it is difficult to appreciate how much one does not know about any field not studied. I understand that it is difficult for many people to appreciate how much they do not know about Kesterson. But everybody knows at least a little bit about something. And by advertising what we individually know with samples of our knowledge, consumers can choose where to look further for truth. I'm offering an alternative to the Kesterson morality in Porgans' petition.

I thank Porgans for presenting the Kesterson morality in his petition, so I can use it to illustrate my accusations of government complicity in perpetuating this demented environmental ideology. This evidence of government corruption supports Libertarian arguments for much smaller and limited government.

Listener interest: consistency

State regulatory boards offer subsidized hearings to those who don't abuse the opportunity and bore their audience. A good advertiser would be sensitive to his or her listeners' interest, and appeal to it. Which why I generally tell each individual a different story based on what I think might appeal to their interest. It is easy. All I have to do is keep the stories consistent.

With respect to protecting individual liberty, I expect to have far better consistency in my stories than in many of the Kesterson references I've read in publications and letters by staff in the Service, GAO, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and even the generally apolitical U.S. Geological Survey.

A check-out clerk pointed out a rotten apple in a five pound bag I bought recently. I've bought many of these transparent bags of apples over the past few years, and my impression is that there is always one or two that go bad before I finish the bag. By inspection, I can guess which ones will go bad if they haven't already when I buy the bag. So when I choose bags, I give the contents a cursory look before I select. I've got other things I'd rather do with my time than sort apples, so I don't worry about it much.

I told the clerk "Seems like there is always one or two bad apples in every bag. Apples are like people."

Government agencies are staffed by people. Some seem to stray from government's prime directive to protect individual liberty, including property rights. And like apples, fellow workers are corrupted by close association. Hence my mantra, evoked whenever I thought of my imminent departure from federal employment "One must be careful in choosing one's company."

Inflated body counts: inflated alarm

I really don't like to see citizens protesting their own futile effort to influence government decision-making. It reminds me that only a couple dozen years before I came into this world, half of our country's population, old enough to have given birth to seven children, were not allowed to vote.

Considering the naturally high mortality from childbirth at that time, I suppose I would have to admit that counting women younger than age 21 as politically disenfranchised would be like counting hatchlings as migratory birds lost to selenium toxicosis. So maybe it was something less than half of the population that couldn't vote. In the same way it was something less than thousands of birds that would have lived to fledge and fly from the naturally high mortality of nestlings had they not perished from the selenium rich diet of the hen from whence they were laid. Something less, possibly none.

Humans Last: humility for slaves

"Right to Life" is a moral argument for saving human embryos. I suspect that the current majority that has won freedom from government intervention to save all human embryos includes many who zealously advocate more government protection of wildlife embryos. It's part of the "Humans Last" humility that is so appealing to our guilt ridden society, an unfortunate residual imprint from Judeo-Christian programming for slaves.

Contrary to many critics of self-esteem training, I believe it has some merit. But in our current state of involuntary servitude-to the extent that half of the fruits of our labor is confiscated by taxes and majority rule democracy is exalted over individual choice-I suspect most self-esteem training advocates haven't got a clue about how much freedom we are missing.

If we had more self-esteem, we might give humanity some preference over wildlife and worry less about ever being tried as a speciesist. We need not fear that ducks will someday round up speciesist hunters and convict them of hate crimes. Although mosquito born encephalitis could be poetic retribution for government wetland imperialism. We might give those aspects of humanity that we treasure a higher priority than servitude to wildlife, wilderness, rock formations, wild rivers, and whatever river concentrations of dissolved minerals (selenium, boron, molybdenum, and ions of a multitude of natural salts) that may be adopted in stupid compliance with statutory law.

Amusing government selenium limits

Watching government use statutory law to sanctify selenium load and concentration limits in desert drainage channels that would often be dry without the drainage from irrigated fields might be as amusing to extra-terrestrial intelligence as a barrel of monkeys is to us. But I live here.

To borrow a theme from Porgans' claim to the Delta, I am fond of my relationship with our market. It is not exclusively my market. It does nothing for me unless others willingly agree to trade with me and I with them. Our market doesn't compel me to directly buy anything I don't want. And I can't compel others to buy what I may want to sell them.

But I'm stuck in this government barrel of monkeys. I'm compelled to pay more for what I want from others who are forced to pay to comply with government enforcement of selenium standards set to safeguard successful waterfowl breeding in all surface water of the State of California. I'm stuck in this common constraint that makes no allowance for property owners to decide the extent of waterfowl breeding they want on their own property, because they have no property in the quality of California water.

Just like people caught in any other communist government, we are compelled to involuntarily serve government central planning. I am an unwilling participant in this common tragic flaw of slavery in human governance. I suffer relative impoverishment collectively with my progeny as long as this government stupidity continues.

Natural law: human treasure

The aspects of humanity that I treasure are those that have evolved in the trust we hold for each other, encoded in common law. I have no formal training in law but I have been reading and listening to what others say about it. In a talk given recently by Roger Pilon, Director of the Cato Center for Constitutional Studies, the fundamentals of common law were said to be simple.

Our founding principles were very simple. You go back to the Declaration of Independence which sets forth the philosophy of the country and you will see that we're rooted in the notion of higher law, natural law, the idea that the positive law is to be judged against the higher law, the natural law of right and wrong. And that is a law that is very simple. Indeed, it's reducible to three simple rules. I'll give them to you. These are the rules of morality.

They are first of all: don't take what doesn't belong to you. That's the whole rule of property. Secondly: keep your promises. That's the whole world of contract and association. Thirdly: if you fail in one or two, give back what you've wrongly taken or wrongly withheld. That's the whole world of legal remedies.

There you've got the common law in three simple rules. You heard it here. That's the whole of the common law which is what the Declaration speaks of when it speaks of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You flesh that out over the common law, apply it to the various factual situations that are presented before courts, and you will see that invariably you will come down to one of those three rules.

There is a fourth rule. It's: try to leave the world a little better than you found it. Do some good. That's an optional rule. Indeed, that's the whole world of virtue, which is not the world properly of government compulsion, because there is no virtue in forced voluntarism.

Selenium control recommendation

My attention to CVRWQCB activities since my retirement has been strictly voluntary. I am trying to do some good. I am trying to leave the world a little better than I find it by sharing my assessment of the CVRWQCB's action and offering alternative choices. In my letter of July 12, 1997 to the CVRWQCB I offered the following recommendation:

My recommendation for proposed government action is to first prepare an assessment of the web of market contracts and private ownership that may be impacted. Then show how alternative government action, including no action (which is missing in the subject program), will affect the whole community, including market contracts and private ownership.

I contend that the choice of human endeavors that will have the greatest integrity, stability, and beauty, ethical values to identify what is right according to Aldo Leopold, will be best realized with a government that saves all contracts between people before it saves the first duck embryo.

With this priority selection criteria, the Board might see fit to abandon the subject program and drop the selenium standards and objectives and work on something more productive, like negotiating with other regulatory agencies for a permit to discharge the Valley's drainage someplace other than to our own water supply systems, evaporation ponds, or mist sprayers.

There are many lessons in human tragedy waiting to be learned from the Kesterson debacle. Continued support of this Board for the subject program serves to perpetuate the human tragedy, postponing opportunities for the public to learn those lessons so it can free itself from bogus burdens and better prepare for real dangers.

Real dangers

As Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up. Porgans is not a figment of my imagination. He is real. Rep. George Miller is real. His CVPIA co-conspirator and presidential hopeful, Bill Bradley is real. Would be pope of a new world order of ecological balance, Al Gore is real. Babbling Bruce Babbitt, demonizing dams and bemoaning federal law that releases mineral property to private ownership, is real.

They all parrot popular perverted paradigms-like doomed desert development of human habitat and lost pristine aquatic habitat by dams for river storage and diversion-penned by Marc Reisner, a real journalist, programmed from 1972 to 1979 by real shyster advocates for deconstruction of civil infrastructure, who collect real contributions from really true believers in the risks they peddle under the deceptive fictitious name "Natural Resources Defense Council".

This masterful deceit is as fraudulent as naming a drain-water holding tank-authorized by congress, purchased and built for the dedicated purpose of managing San Luis Drain effluent-a "National Wildlife Refuge" and then passing this counterfeit sanctity of a refuge off on those of us not privy to the terms of the contract for Service access to the Kesterson property. Thus, we were misled by Service management into believing refuge sanctity had been violated.

Thus, our congressional representation reneged on a congressional promise to renew water delivery contracts at the discretion of CVP client water users, raided a fifth of CVP water for farms, and taxed our groceries with a "restoration fund" surcharge on CVP power and water, much to popular acclaim rather than disgust.

Reisner's deceptions still get published in The Sacramento Bee, a really socialist newspaper. This is a real scam. The fact that no government agency has yet brought these peddlers of fear to justice, exposed this fraud, and relieved us from this bogus burden of communist "public trust" corruption of morality is evidence of government complicity. Government enforced socialism is a real danger.

Part 4