L E T T E R S

Letter to a fine young man with TNC
 
As you know everything I do is out of respect, love and compassion to our American Resource Producers.  Without them, our country faces certain doom. 

Just so I have a better footing with TNC, I need to know first off; does TNC receive money from county, state or federal governments?  If so, what is the cumulative income - from genesis to 2006 - from these sources? How much of that does TNC presently have? How much do you project to receive through 2020?
As taxpayers who give these governments our money, we're sure TNC will agree that we have the right to help decide how the government portion of your income is spent. 

Following are some items we urge The Nature Conservancy to tend to immediately.

Find out exactly how much water and money is diverted away from Colorado and into the Endangered Species Act that wants to fill water pans for three birds that do touch and goes in North Platte Nebraska. Cottage industries (Like SPWRAP) have popped up around this, claiming authority to "collect money and water" to fulfill this ESA expectation. We need to know who they are, and if they have any legal standing. 

Fix potties in our public parks.  

Help stop any more designations of "wild lands, rivers, species and monuments etc." Paying for areas that we're ban from yet told to enjoy, has transcended the law of diminishing return and marched into the law of destructive return.  We cannot afford to take one more acre feet of water, or acre of land out of resource production.
Then there's the matter of grossly trashed barrow pits. Supposedly it's a human rights violation to ask people jailed for illegal actions to clean `em up. But it's OK for old ladies like me to do it?  TNC could help maintain beauty along our public trails...roads...highways.

We saw fields of Leafy Spurge along the Toll Road that are in dire need of eradication. TNC should eradicate such noxious weeds along these public by-ways.

Designated wetlands have become breeding grounds for armies of West Nile bearing Mosquitoes. The at-risk public will be grateful when TNC helps stops designating more wetlands, properly maintains pre-existing wetlands, distributes West Nile vaccine and eliminates the mosquitoes.

Family businesses and private property rights have been crushed under the weight of the misbegotten Endangered Species Act. We want TNC to help us tell congress;  "ESA is hurting us, stop it right now!"

For national security and a myriad of justifiable reasons, it is imperative resource production be rejuvenated and allowed to thrive in America. TNC needs to help remove any roadblock that stops American resource producers from producing.  
Prairie rat villages are destroying habitat for wild and domestic livestock, food production and private property. TNC should invest in the Prairie rat vacuum, then remove all that reside outside their defined villages and deliver them to the people identified in want of them.

If the ill designed horse slaughter bill goes through, thousands of horses will be dumped, starved, and left to die slow, excruciating deaths. TNC needs to get pro-active on this, and prepare some land it already owns for a horse sanctuary.  TNC could work with BLM's in states including NE, WY, UT and CO, to gather all feral horses and move them to this new equine sanctuary, giving them a deserved safe haven.  

We need to insure that TNC uses money received through county, state or federal governments to protect American Resource Producers and not go towards the guillotine that would behead us.  
Thanks again, for all your input.  We appreciate it!
 
Roni Bell Sylvester

COLORADO AGRICULTURE needs you to place an immediate MORATORIUM on the Federally mandated Endangered Species Act.

Is it right to permanently kill Agriculture in Colorado, to save four allegedly endangered species whose main activities are “touch and goes” in Nebraska?

A terrible mistake has been made. The highly speculative and dramatically flawed Endangered Species Act is being frivolously gifted Colorado water that rightful users have put to beneficial use for over a 130 years.

Colorado Agriculture Water is being diverted out of Colorado and into a flawed ESA program. This manmade storm is heading our state into a catastrophic - albeit preventable- loss, that could easily reach Hurricane Katrina levels.

Governor Ritter has said there is nothing he can do about water for agriculture...for the 2007 season. And the legislature has refused to allow a late bill to come to the floor.

Shutting down agriculture in America’s SEVENTH LARGEST AG PRODUCING COUNTY, is already bringing unnecessary physical, mental, and financial harm to our ag producers.

There’s not one good reason for artificially bringing Colorado an economic impact that will devastate its very foundation.

PLEASE PRESIDENT BUSH, use your Executive Powers to issue an Executive Order: “Rightful (First in Time, First in Right) Water users may use their water until such time the ESA is corrected.

Please don’t let our field of dreams die a slow and excruciating death on a cracked bed of dust.

PLEASE PRESIDENT BUSH.... We need your action TODAY!

There’s less than a week left for our farmers to move forward on spring planting.

Please call Governor Ritter now. Tell him you’re going to help Colorado Agriculture by issuing an Executive Order to put ESA on hold... and release Colorado Water to Agriculture.

If we don’t protect our own here at home, we will not be able to protect those afar.

Thank you,
Chuck & Roni Sylvester

Article by Michael Shapiro (Medill News Service) Greeley Tribune 4/27/07 - "State lawmakers push Platte recover funding," needs the following corrections:

1)  Reference to "habitats" of the four alleged endangered species - as "central Nebraska stretch of the Platte:"   Piping Plover's habitat is South Dakota.  Whooping Crane may stop by NE for a day or two to get a drink of water.  There's not enough scientific information to make any decisions what-so-ever regards the so called Pallid Sturgeon.  The  Piping Plover is "near threatened," and is also a fly by.

2)  Rep. Udall's spokesperson Lawrence Pacheco fires a warning shot at ag water users through his comment:
"make it possible for Colorado's water users to comply with the ESA withouth having to seek multiple permits and without facing the threat of litigation." If the federal government is doing this legally and above board, that begs the question "what would precipitate litigation, and who would litigate?"

3)  The House hearing did not have any "rightful water users" testify - yet I see they made room for the "National Wildlife Federation" through Dan Luecke, who "credited the states, their water users and the environmental community for coming together to find a good solution to the tricky issue of water rights."

4)  Water rights are NOT tricky!  First in Time, First in Right is straight forward.  Hydrological engineers handled water application just dandy until the ESA, courts and attorneys charged into the picture and began their broad sweeping interpretations as to the handling of water. 

5)  Four creatures whose meddle hasn't even been proved out, and the individuals who support them, should be held personally accountable for taking water out of agriculture in Colorado, and gifting it to their interests.

The federal government has a duty to protect it's citizens.  It instead now sacrifices the whole of American communities, for the solitary purpose of bestowing un-just power, control and enrichment to a handful of individuals. 
Federal government, you are hurting us.  I ask you politely to stop it.  Right now. 
 
Roni Bell Sylvester

Dear Worldwatch Institute,
 
Your "Local Food Movement" has been braked in Colorado by federal ESA demands.

There are environmental groups everywhere, who have partnered with the federal government to take land and water out of agriculture production.  Why? Their claims are that they may or may not need that land and water because of a possibility that someday a  migrating bird might stop for a drink on his or her way through any given state, or a fish will want to splash around in a field near you, or - well the list goes on.

Please contact every environmental group  that you have reason to believe may be involved in these actions that are counterproductive to your goals, and tell them to stop it right now. 

Tell them how important a local  farmers market is to you,  and that they have no right to deny you of that.

Tell them you do not want imported food that may be tainted. 

Tell them they may not have one more drop of water or one more acre of land from your  local rancher or  farmer, until science absolutely proves beyond a shadow of  doubt that their critter is more important than human, and is in dire need of it.

Let them know that your health and food safety is of high importance to you.

Let's work together on keeping water and land in food production.  Then local food movements can blossom all across America.
 
Thank you,
 
Roni Bell Sylvester

Gorilla in the Hearings

In reading April Washington's article "Senate backs fight to save ranchland" 4/18/07,  I found the claims, "farmers and ranchers have a patriotic duty to sacrifice for the country's security..."  by Sen. John Morse (D Colo Spgs),  to be very disappointing.

Our U.S. government owns millions ofwasteland  acres in Nevada.  If the Army trained there, it wouldn't even disturb the lizards doing pushups. 

Could greed be the motivation behind Sen. Morse's comments - in that Colorado Springs is rich and Morse wants even more dollars in his district? 

All along, the Army has said they don't know what they want.  However, the entity  "The Nature Conservancy," partnering with the Army does know what it wants; more land and water; and at the expense of U.S. Citizens.
In his comments on the Senate floor, it is my understanding that a senior senator- Jack Taylor - brought up the subject of TNC and their possible role in the Pinon Canyon debacle.  

When I testified in the house and in the senate, I too addressed the TNC.  Yet no newspaper will mention them... in spite of the fact they appear to be the gorilla in the middle of the hearings.

What "sacrifices" has TNC given in respect to "patriotic duty?" 

We may not be able to stop the federal government from taking land through eminent domain, but we sure as heck can stop a non governmental organization from doing so.

Don't you find it  odd that there are elected officials at the federal level who are trying to "cap" the war in Iran - while simultaneously gunning for more land to "practice war?"

Is it perhaps, time for rural Colorado to secede from Colorado statehood so they can continue providing needed resources to our country, - and let the front range establish their Ivory Tower for the rich and famous to play their games?

Thank you April.  Your article was good.  Even though the content you had to report wasn't.
 
Chuck Sylvester

Letter to the Editor

The level of reporting on the South Platte irrigation well crisis has deteriorated to obituary status.  Everyone is writing off the poor, desperate, bankrupt farmers across the eastern plains without seriously engaging in the substantive dialog that could salvage a groundwater driven economy that sustains many communities along the river valley. Yes, farm obituaries are news, but not news that any of us can use! Let’s get creative, make sacrifices, take chances, employ new technologies, discuss the hypotheticals, uncover the misapplications and misinterpretations, reveal the weakness, exploit ideas that can work, and discard laws and concepts that have failed. The appropriate questions need to be posed, the necessary research undertaken, and serious decisionmaking accomplished by all of our appointed and elected state leaders. Not next year, TODAY!

Water law and water administration is a complicated issue.  The thirst for water by both agricultural and domestic consumers is not going to be satisfied anytime soon. I challenge the media not to bury this most significant problem in the obituary column, but to make every effort to educate all water users and motivate them to become activists on behalf of our most valuable natural resource.

One day soon the South Platte River may no longer be a live stream east of Brighton.  Wells that no longer pump and ditch systems that no longer divert could render the river little more than a storm drain!

Arnold Good, Fort Morgan
Water Users Defense Committee
agood@kci.net

Our water system is only days away from dying.

To: The Honorable Governor Bill Ritter, President of the Senate Joan Fitz-Gerald, President Pro Tem Peter Groff, Senators Isgar, Schwartz, Brophy, Harvey, Romer, Taylor and Tochtrop (Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources & Energy Committee, Representatives Curry, Gallegos, Fischer, Gardner, Gibbs, Hodge, Looper, McFadyen, McKinley, McNulty, Rose, Solano and Sonnenberg (House Agriculture, Livestock, & Natural Resources Committee)
 
Dear Governor Ritter, Sen. Joan Fitz-Gerald, Sen. Peter Groff, Sen. Jim Isgar, Sen. Gail Schwartz, Sen. Greg Brophy, Sen. Ted Harvey, Sen Chris Romer, Sen. Jack Taylor, Sen. Lois Tochtrop, Rep. Kathleen Curry, Rep. Rafael Gallegos, Rep. Randy Fischer, Rep. Cory Gardner, Rep. Dan Gibbs, Rep. Mary Hodge, Rep. Marsha Looper, Rep. Liane McFadyen, Rep. Wes McKinley, Rep. Frank McNulty, Rep. Raymond Rose, Rep. Judy Solano and Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg,
 
Please study the following "Augmentation Clarification Act," provided by The Water Users Defense Committee. 
 
We pray you will meet with their alliance of beet, corn, onion, sod, greenhouse growers, landscape contractors, nurseries and more, today.  
 
Our water system is only days away from dying. Together you can resuscitate it.
 
 
Thank you.
 
Chuck & Roni Sylvester
 
P.S. It would be greatly appreciated if you would please make sure Sen. Jack Taylor, Rep. Frank McNulty and Rep. Ray Rose get a copy - as they do not have email.  Thank you.

Chuck and Roni,

Thanks for petitioning the Governor and Legislature with this letter. This bill still has a chance if we can just convince the leadership of the gravity of it all. We may give up on a bill sponsor and try the resolution route depending on the vibes John gets from Senator Isgar tomorrow. He is going to try and get several of the lobbyists from several of our supportive ag organization coalition to go to the meeting with him Pressure, pressure, pressure, that seems to be all they understand. Attached is a hypothetical 'what if' list I drafted and we sent out to the leaders of the Ag committies yesterday along with a letter showing our support groups and appealing for an audience. We're trying to hit them from all directions. I submitted the attached Letter to the Editor today to the Denver Post and Greeley Trib.

Arnie Good