On Sun, 21 Feb 1999 19:16:54 -0800 (PST) Dale Goble <gobled at uidaho.edu>
writes:


> Dennis Rockwell made two assertions:
>1. removing the dams would destroy irrigated agriculture on the
columbia plateau and the whole region >would dry up and blow away.

Dale, this is crap and you know it. What I said was that without water
this area's agriculture would dry up and blow away. You twist my words
until they are nearly unrecognizable to me. Are you a lawyer?

> the problem with his argument is that it has no basis in reality: the
four lower snake river dams are not designed >to produce irrigation and
there are no irrigation diversions from the dams.
>please re-read my statement.

I can re-read your statements till hell freezes over and it won't change
the fact that you assert that "there are no irrigation diversions from
the dams" when the truth *is* that water IS taken from behind these dams
for agricultural irrigation.

>slackwater reservoirs.

Talk about nonsense. These reservoirs are not slackwater. With the
exception of the water that is withdrawn for irrigation, the Snake and
the Columbia flow the same volume of water they always have and they have
a noticeable current. Just toss a piece of wood on the water and watch
it head down stream. Sure, the dams have created water deep enough to
permit barge traffic, but they haven't created stagnate pools or stopped
the flow to the ocean. The snake still flows into the Columbia and the
Columbia still flows into the Pacific.

> this might increase the height of pumping requirements.

What do you mean, might? If you breach the dams, you lower the surface
of the water and thus you increase the height of pumping requirements.
It's a fact, like the existance of air.

>> Thus making them economically unfeasible. Every foot you have to
raise that water costs more. You make my point for me.
>you assert but offer only generalities.

The above statement is gibberish to me. What are you accusing me of ?

> if pumping an additional few hundred feet will render the operations
unprofitable i would not be
>opposed to bailing out the corporations involved.

If you'd extend that generous offer also to the individual farmers
affected, not just *corporations* , and if you actually spoke for anyone
besides yourself, you might win a few supporters with that offer. This a
classic rhetorical trick - to pretend that your proposals will only harm
faceless "corporations" when, in fact, it will be real people's lives
which are disrupted and damaged.

> you make wild assertions that some people who have not investigated the
issues might think made sense.
> i said that you made ideologically motivated false statements.

Nothing I have said is wild, ideologically motivated or false and you
saying this won't make it so. My motivations are strictly selfish. I
live here because I love this country and I don't want to be forced to
leave it in order to continue feeding myself and family just because some
people are looking for a simple solution to a complex problem.

> the new and improved habitat that you were touting so loudly did not
replace what had been destroyed.

Here you go with some more of this provocative, vituperative rhetoric
(that was the phrase you used to exaggerate and distort the tone of my
original posting, wasn't it?) - I made one, brief statement, in passing,
that a habitat management unit which I'd birded on Saturday was
"throbbing with life". How is that, " touting so loudly"?

>perhaps you are unaware that moscow is located in northern idaho.

I know exactly where Moscow is located. Just like Seattle and Portland
it is located far enough away from where the harm will be inflicted,
should those Snake river dams be breached, that few if any people in
those communities will suffer any of the economic pain and dislocation
that we will here.

>> >the debate on breaching the dams is not aided by vituperative
rhetoric such as calling those favoring removal >>>salmon worshippers
anymore than it is advanced by calling those opposed to removal
greedheads.

And yet you go ahead and do it.

>> Greedheads. Yep. That's us all right. God damn us all to hell for
trying to feed, clothe and shelter our families >>when what we should
really do is just die and get out of the way so that the really smart
people who know what's >>best for everybody can run things their way.

>such utter nonsense.

It isn't nonsense. If the power to breach those four dams lay in your
hands you would breach them and never give a thought to the human
suffering it would bring about, because you truly believe that you know
better than us what's good for us and you wouldn't hesitate to cram it
down our throats to prove it, if you could.

>> > the recent anti-dam rallies have replaced facts with fear. Mr.
Rockwell sadly contributes to the degradation of >>>discussion with his
hyperbolic nonsense.

>> Golly. I must have forgotten to put the little smilely face - :-)
- behind my salmon worshipper joke. Still, it a pity >>that some people
have themselves wound up so tight over this issue that they can't
recognize humor when they >>read it without having to have it explained
to them.

>> >the issues are subject to reasonable disagreement:

>> Yea, I get it now, you're reasonable and I'm full of hyperbolic
nonsense.


>> >*** without a removal of the dams, the probability of
restoring the upper basin salmon runs is essentially nil.

>> That's one opinion.

>it is the consensus of the scientists.

It is the concensus of the scientists who have herded to your side of the
corral. There are plenty of equally qualified scientists who are
convinced that your scientist's computer models are based on erroneous
and incomplete data. It doesn't matter how often you say it or how
loudly you say it, there still isn't a significant concensus within the
scientific community as a whole that points to those four dams as the
primary cause in the decline of the upper basin salmon runs.


>> >*** removing the dams will result in a loss of approximately
5% of the region's hydroelectric capacity
>> >*** removing the dams will result in the loss of slackwater
shipping from the ports between lewiston and >>>wallula which will mean
increased transportation costs for shipper currently served by those that
replaces >>>barges.

Here you deleted my specific explanation of the actual cost of curtailing
barge traffic between Pasco and Lewiston.
(For anyone out there who actually cares and is still reading this little
cat fight, the information is available from the Corps of Engineers.)

>the recurrent tactic of pitting idaho against washington really makes
little sense: they are not "your" dams, mr. rockwell, anymore than they
are mine. as a us citizen i have an equal share with you in them and in
determining what we ought to do with them.

Darned right you do, but we'd be a lot more impressed if you would also
be sharing equally in the economic pain that would result from the
breaching of those dams. You think they would be minimal. We are
convinced to the contrary.


>i must admit to wondering if mr. rockwell owns stock in a barging
company.

Tell you what, Dale, you publish your full disclosure financial statement
here and I'll publish mine and we'll let the public decide who is the
well-heeled professional and who is the common laborer. Just for the
record, I own common stock in nothing and there are no barging company
stocks in the portfolio of my pitiful little IRA. The entire sum of my
net worth probably wouldn't pay to have a good job done remodeling your
kitchen and I suspect that you have more square foot of closet space than
I have living space.

>dale goble
>moscow
>gobled at uidaho.edu


Very sincerely,


Dennis K Rockwell
Kennewick, Washington
denniskrockwell at juno.com

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