Monthly Archives: September 2015

 “If the Bureau or Land Management or their Supporters say it, it is simply something of a misrepresented fact, or just a lie.  Profound that a government agency is and remains at that level — which includes lack of integrity, unethical behavior, and at times unchecked criminal conduct.”  Anonymous and Witness

Now it is obvious, more than every before, American’s can not trust our government agencies to complete tasks with responsible conduct, ethics, and honesty. Integrity is gone from such government agencies as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and their oversight agency the Department of the Interior.

Exclusion of Cattle Grazing

But rather than editorialize, let’s take a look at a situation, very real, very questionable in ethics and conduct. One can state in a blunt way that BLM can not only no longer be trusted due to their questionable manipulation of science and data gathering, but they are dishonest as well as criminal. Taking the effects of cattle grazing out of technical reports is simply dishonest, and costly to the taxpayer.

What is criminal in nature about this circumstance? Extremely large budgets are completed, and are based on the honesty of Science Data and the Technical Reports to follow. Also, Environmental Assessments, assumed honest data is included; give outright permission for all of types of projects on Public Lands to be conducted. But without complete honesty of data, then we can simply surmise dishonesty in not only fact, but they are conducting fraudulent circumstances to generate projects and roundups of wild horses, under the guise of falsified information.

“GRAZING PUNTED FROM FEDERAL STUDY OF LAND CHANGES IN WEST Scientists Told to Not Consider Grazing Due to Fear of Lawsuits and Data Gaps Posted on Nov 30, 2011  — PEER http://www.peer.org

Washington, DC — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is carrying out an ambitious plan to map ecological trends throughout the Western U.S. but has directed scientists to exclude livestock grazing as a possible factor in changing landscapes, according to a scientific integrity complaint filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  The complaint describes how one of the biggest scientific studies ever undertaken by BLM was fatally skewed from its inception by political pressure. . .

Exclusion of grazing was met with protests from the scientists.  Livestock grazing is permitted on two-thirds of all BLM lands, with 21,000 grazing allotments covering 157 million acres across the West.  As one participating scientist said, as quoted in workshop minutes: “We will be laughed out of the room if we don’t use grazing. If you have the other range of disturbances, you have to include grazing.” In the face of this reaction, BLM initially deferred a decision but ultimately opted to –

• Remove livestock grazing from all Ecoregional assessments, citing insufficient data.  As a result, the assessments do not consider massive grazing impacts even though trivial disturbance factors such as rock hounding are included; and
• Limit consideration of grazing-related information only when combined in an undifferentiated lump with other native and introduced ungulates (such as deer, elk, wild horses and feral donkeys).”

One cannot discuss the effects on streams by grazing livestock without recognizing the interwoven and connected nature of watersheds, riparian zones, streams, and watershed activities. Activities affecting watersheds or riparian zones also affect stream ecosystems directly, indirectly, and cumulatively. So here I will simply peruse the situation from a common sense and well referenced perspective.

Impacts of vegetation removal can be placed into two categories: shifts in the plant community structure and removal of plant growth or biomass. Livestock can do both of these. Major changes in the plant community structure and usually a reduction in the number of species have been reported in the western United States.

When we discuss, for example, wild horses starving on our nations multi-use Public Lands, it is the result – most often – of over-grazing from cattle and sheep on Public Lands. Yes a comparative exists — the Canary in the mines of years past, currently the wild horses on Public Lands, are and remain speaking Loud And Clear:

Public lands are being and continue to be mismanagement by the BLM . . .

Summary of Effects of Vegetation Removal

• Vegetation removal exposes soil to the energy of raindrops, facilitates sheet flow erosion, runoff, and the ability to move sediment, increase in floods, sediment clearing costs very high, et al . . .
• In contrast, vegetation increases stream bank strength to resist erosion.
• Stream channels along heavily vegetated areas are deeper and narrower than along poorly vegetated areas.
• Sediment runoff is higher for heavily grazed watersheds compared to lightly grazed watersheds.

Summary of Temperature Effects

• Removal of streamside vegetation can increase mean temperature and temperature extremes.
• Streams along wooded riparian zones may be cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
• Relatively small changes in stream temperature can shift aquatic communities a 3.6 degree F increase is sufficient to shift from a coldwater to a warm water habitat.
• An increase in stream temperature from 3.6 to 9 degrees F is common when streamside vegetation is removed.

Sedimentation is recognized as the most prevalent and damaging pollution in streams in North America (Waters, 1995). Livestock grazing can increase sediment load from the watershed, increase in stream trampling, increase disturbance and erosion from overgrazed stream banks, reduced sediment trapping by riparian and in stream vegetation, decreased bank stability and increased peak flows from compaction. In streams assessed in 2000, the most common agricultural pollutant was silt, which was a contributing factor for 31% of streams considered impaired (USEPA, 2000).

Summary of Effects Due to Channel Morphology

• Unstable stream channels and the loss of fish and invertebrate habitat are often attributed to cattle grazing practices in riparian areas.
• Stream channels along heavily vegetated areas are deeper and narrower than along poorly vegetated areas.
• Livestock management often causes local changes in habitat, thereby impacting fish, large mammals (vertebrates), birds, insects, invertebrates, and simply much wildlife that makes an Ecosystem or entire environment healthy.
• Changes are much more pronounced in small streams than large ones; impacts on lakes are under-studied but appear to be mineralized or disturbed (Klamath Lake, Or. For example.
• The natural variance among stream channels, lakes, and wetlands makes generic conclusions very difficult. Most impacts and most Best Management Practices will be site-specific. Site-specific BMPs depend on stream morphology.

Summary of Nutrient Effects

• Excess nutrients in streams cause eutrophication to increase. Eutrophication is the process where aquatic vegetation grows quickly and decomposes, consuming oxygen from the stream.
• Nutrient concentrations (various forms of N and P) in runoff increase with increasing grazing duration.
• Retiring areas from grazing but maintaining grass vegetation reduces nutrient delivery, but dissolved N may be reduced differentially in relation to dissolved P.

Conclusion

Here I have merely touched upon things that are severe and directly related to Cattle Grazing on our Public Lands. It appears overwhelmingly foolish to take cattle and their effects on our Public Lands out of any investigation or technical report – or blocked from collecting data on cattle or sheep grazing on our Public Lands.

“The current environmental focus on controlling nonpoint pollution to protect our surface water has led to the discussion of management of our Public lands. The Environmental Protection Agency states that agriculture has a greater impact on stream and river contamination than any other nonpoint source. Grazing, particularly improper grazing or overabundant grazing of public lands areas can contribute to many nonpoint source pollution. Negative impacts downstream include the contamination, for example, of drinking water supplies and watersheds alike (55% of drinking water comes from surface water” (Brown, 1994) . . .

It is time American’s start asking, well no, demanding honesty, integrity, and responsible conduct from the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of the Interior. Then demand they stop lying to the American Public, manipulating science to their political agendas, and lie to the taxpaying public about constantly.

So the next time a BLM or DOLI, or BLM supporters discuss such things as Environmental Assessments, Wild Horse Herd Counts by BLM, or much of anything that deals with our Public Lands, it can be considered questionable at best – do your research, question them and then ask for proof, and not their proof, as that is questionable, but proof from independent science or people in knowledgeable of BLM and government misrepresentation and lies. . .

NOTE:  American’s, taxpayer’s, need to WAKE UP – this is ongoing and happening right before our eyes, and most people say nothing, and accuse the wrong people of spending taxpayer money irresponsibly!  Taxpayer’s have indeed paid BLM and their contractors nearly $410 million dollars, in the past 6 years, for the saving of dead-horses (ironic at its best), which they either killed on the range during roundups, or have killed or sent to slaughter — this is in accord with their own inventory and payment vouchers.  A good example of their misconduct and ripping taxpayers off — actually it is criminal as well, but no one of authority will investigate.

___________________________

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Humanity is at a definitive moment in history. Right now disparity overwhelms our nation domestically, where poverty far worse than in previous years, and ironically ridiculed often; hunger in the streets ignored while homelessness made illegal as a remedy; ill health and illiteracy dominates our country domestically, where remedies for both are more commercial than social and qualification exists for legitimate assistance. Yes, hate and greed prevail in our nation of today.

Those awkward people in power today oddly ignores health and illiteracy; then onward to the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being, mostly for short-term profits; all the while supporting antiquated laws and policies that simply neglect today’s commercial as well as today’s environmental problems – in order for less than 1% to achieve superior profits, sacrificing our environment, our wildlife, and ecosystems throughout our country.

It’s time to be concerned. Integration of our surrounding environment and development concerns, cohabitation and sustainability, and greater attention to them can develop into a basic-needs necessity for our survival on this planet. It can essentially improve living standards for all, while developing better protected and managed ecosystems. This is a basis for change, for a prosperous future, when compared to the bleakness we currently have within our country today. It is a non-sustainable situation we live within, and our government apparently confused, and at times even ignores the problems so prolific and obvious to many . . .

There is a necessity today, an acceptance of the need to take a balanced and integrated approach to environment and development questions. Neglecting this will lead to harsh results. Fearing such terms as Humane, Compatibility, Cohabitation, and Sustainability is simply nonsense of the worst type, and very ignorant indeed. This ignorance leads to Eminent Destruction and the Fall of America. It needs to Stop!

Cohabitation and Sustainability

It is important to overcome confrontation and to foster a climate of genuine cooperation and solidarity. It is equally important to strengthen our bonds with our environment and diverse ecological systems. This diversity creates a sound and livable habitat and includes wildlife, vegetation, living within our mountains, our deserts, our oceanic biospheres and along our natural water resources within a cohabitate-methodology, or coexistence. We need, as humans to understand humane methods and ideas as a life-giving situation to promote sustainability, then to adapt to these realities. The best example here is to rid ourselves of the management-paradigms that are and have been quite irrational over time. The existence of such has led to destruction of our environment and our ecological systems that indeed support life on our planet currently.

Such situations as managing wildlife within a kill-paradigm as a conservation ideology is and remains ridiculous and ignorant, as well as totally non-useful today; the ideologies from the 1920’s onward in agricultural laws and policies that currently dominate our Public Lands, is not useful what so ever toward sustainability or our very life on this planet, as it leads to monetary short term profits only, and for very few.

Frankly, it leaves the majority of people in an unsustainable environmental complex of problems, with little to no support from the destroyed regional ecological systems that, in reality, support life. Is there a problem today? Absolutely, and it is quite ignorantly being ignored in total.

A Starting Point for Change

A first step towards improving the scientific basis for these strategies is a better understanding of land, oceans, atmosphere and their interlocking water, nutrient and biogeochemical cycles and energy flows which all form part of the Earth system. This is essential if a more accurate estimate is to be provided of the carrying capacity of the planet Earth and of its resilience under the many stresses placed upon it by human activities.

The sciences should continue to play an increasing role in providing for an improvement in the efficiency of resource utilization and in finding new development practices, resources, and alternatives.

Scientific knowledge should be applied to articulate and support the goals of sustainable development, through truthful assessments of current conditions and future prospects for the Earth system, which should be used in the decision-making process and in the interactive processes between the sciences and policymaking. Truth, not subjective reasoning here, is the objective – subjective reasoning got us to this point in history, which is unsustainable and destructive.

There needs to be an increased output from the sciences in order to enhance understanding and facilitate interaction between science and society. An increase in the scientific capacity and capability to achieve these goals will also be required.

The fact is sustainable development requires taking longer-term perspectives, integrating local and regional effects of global change into the development process, and using the best scientific and traditional knowledge available. Cohabitation ideology simply creates a truth, as living with the direct circumstances or results of negative actions would be corrected much sooner than later, especially when life-support or comfort remains involved within the cohabitate environment – which leads to an entirely other discussion of importance for later.

The development process should be constantly reevaluated, in light of the findings of scientific research, to ensure that resource utilization has reduced impacts on the Earth system. Even so, the future is uncertain, and there will be surprises. Good environmental and developmental management policies must therefore be scientifically robust, seeking to keep open a range of options to ensure flexibility of response.

The precautionary approach is important. Often, there is a communication gap among scientists, policy makers, and the public at large, whose interests are articulated by both governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Truth is the Road to Humane Ideologies

Why would I include something about Truth here, and why care? Well, one of the reasons we respect it is because of the extraordinarily high signal-to-noise ratio that we have here on our planet. Much or our conversation daily is about things that do not exist in the material plane, because they’re in the past or they’re in the future. When you think about it, a lot of our conversation simply does not have to do with the here and now. Truth is about accurate information, about the here and now –

The rise of the electronic communication infrastructure has not done anything to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. It has merely amplified and enhanced it. Instead or ordinary bullshit, you can now have flaming digital bullshit bounced off a satellite for your viewing and listening enjoyment.

When I sit in the middle of the Cascades, the Universe is the truth – all that surrounds me is the truth, true to itself and true to what I see, with no pretense of reality or perspective or existence – it is what it is. The Universe, or Creator, is love and shows us this quite often in all natural environments and surroundings. Just sit and watch, and ironically it gives you a break from the signal-to-noise ratio – quite extraordinary to say the least.

But there is a funny thing about truth. If your gitty-up and go moves forward, and you start telling the truth about things, there is inevitably going to be some resistance. Yes, there is going to be somebody around who’s got there hand in the till or a skeleton in their closet or an ace up their sleeve or some extra ego in their back pocket, who is not going to want you or I to talk. There are various ways they’ll keep you from talking, and you have to pay attention to them. If you start to say something that is true, insist on saying it until you’re finished saying it. Don’t let yourself be interrupted when you’re speaking the truth, as it cheapens the truth to let yourself be interrupted.

And of course, there is the situation that it is also possible to be a pain in the rear about truth, or anything else. There is an old yogic saying, “Truth is good, but it also needs to be helpful, necessary, and kind.”

There does not have to be a conclusion here at all. As this discussion must go forward, as it is reality. One can safely say our life and many lives within the future are banking on our honesty right now, and the ability to articulate and even defend the Truth and the spirit of Truth right now. One truth leads to another truth, then to another, and finally we can make those proper and truthful decisions that need to be made —