In A Big World Some Things Matter More

[DonAndersen]

Folks,

 

I've enjoyed watching the champions of this or that worry about fish.

The last tussle was throat pumps.

 

But there are larger issues! Anybody visit Cochrane lately and looked @ the Bow. God what a mess. Brought to you by your local electrical generation company. Do you think there may be any trout habitat left?

And what happens to river below gen. dams is illegal in other places.

But this is Alberta.

So rather than worry about on or two trout, maybe we should worry about a whole river. Just to make you fell better, the same "kill the river by generation" goes on in the N. Sask. and Brazeau.

 

And this is just one example of destruction. TU's fish rescue every year points to game fish being flushed down irrigation dams to die. Other than the effort of fish rescue, what has been done to stop the killing of game fish.

Nothing - this is Alberta.

 

And for the last example we had Rock Snot, Mud snails and other invasives. These destroy rivers. Other govts all over the globe are doing something about the issue.

What is Alberta doing? You guessed it - nothing although when I asked the Director of Fisheries what SRD was prepared to do, he offered a committee whose meetings I'm sure would be canceled due to lack of interest.

 

 

So rather than getting excited about a trout or two, maybe we should turn out attention of what kills whole rivers.

 

regards,

 

 

Don

 

 

 

 

[dekkard2019]

I live close to Cochrane and I am in town everyday. You should see the bridge on River Avenue. Crazy. I used to go down and have lunch under the hwy 22 bridge...not anymore the whole parking lot is coverd in ice. The walking paths are all shut down because it is too dangerous. It will be interesting to see when everything melts if there are any dead fishes on the shore. Things are warming up too and you can actually see flow now. Griffin's Bend is also a mess.

[dryfly]

Don

 

Don't know answer. It is about money and attitude and I think pressures of health care, eduction and social services simply overwhelms the other things.

 

Our gov't seems to not want to offend people by charging for some services, the money from which could toward environmental protection. We all know what an extra five bucks from fishing licenses could do for F&W enforcement. Maybe we should have a 3 percent sales tax IF (IF IF IF...) the money went to designated areas such as environmental protection.

 

There is a large component of "attitude" with the current gov't. Every letter I've written to ministers about raising license fees all get the same reply, "...we don't want to raise fishing license fees because was want all to enjoy the [once] great outdoors." Fluff.

 

What is the answer? No matter which political party gets in there will be reasons why the rivers of which you spoke and many other environmental things will be ignored. Despite the promises of "enviro protection" by the NDs you can bet that they spend so much on social services that they'd spend us into oblivion. The "left" has never had any sense of practical and economic realities. (The first huge cuts to occur in California two years ago was Arnold's pet enviro projects...) The Conservatives ignored things like rivers and public lands even when they had money...near as I could tell they did not want to piss off the rural vote (by say charging more for licenses and charging for random camping) and the city vote largely could not give a *hit about rivers and fish.

 

We spent some time in February in Sedona Arizona. Large parts of the region is Red Rock "forestry reserve" and in that reserve you cannot park in public parking areas or on the side of the road without a "pass." Not even park for a few minute unless you have a pass. I think the fee was $5/day or a mere $20 for the entire year. A nice concept and similar to one we have asked for in the forestry reserve on the Eastern Slopes....politicians won't consider such a fee for service for fear to pissing off people. Yet they don't have resources to protect F&W and lands in the forestry areas. They will do nothing about the abuse of public lands by squatters who set up camps for 4 months all along the Eastern Slopes....even tough the regs once said "Max 14-day stay."

 

Why not a similar system in Alberta as in Arizona and the money goes to environmental protection? (The Red Rock Reserve pass money went to protecting the very area..) How about an annual vehicle pass for the forestry area of $50 per vehicle and (what?) $100 to $200 per vehicle if staying overnight...with max stay of 14 days. But the gov't is scared of charging these fees. Bullshit. (Fifty bucks is just a bit of gas money these days.)

 

Dunno Don ... it is complex. And as our population grows to 5 million ... well, it won't get better under any political regime unless there is a wholesale by in for increased fees and taxes. (Where else is the money to come from??) We have to start charging more somewhere, BUT also have to support enviro protection budgets and not have increased fees eaten up by hospitals and schools...obviously critically important.

 

Probably time for a sales tax in Alberta. (Can't wait for the feedback on this... )

 

Happy daylight savings time.

 

Clive

[osbornes]

I agree with DF. We in Alberta actually live in the land of milk and honey. I would fully support a sales tax in this province IF a portion of it was earmarked for the environment. For too long, Albertans (myself included) have taken advantage of the wonderful outdoor playgrounds available to us, assuming they will always be there for us for free. Our population is going to continue to rise as long as we are digging oil out of the ground, and with that, higher usage of our environmental and natural resources.

 

I am very saddened to hear about what is happening on the Bow in Cochrane. I grew up in Ranchlands and Silver Springs, and weekend trips to the Bow just east of Cochrane were a regular occurance. I haven't been there in over 20 years...

[Ricinus]

Good post Clive, most of what you have said makes good sense. Mind you, the current Conservative Govt meant has done a good job of pizzin' away a lot of money. It's hard to imagine anyone one could do any worse, not that it's likely to happen.

 

Regards Mike