Meramac Regional Planning Commission's (MRPC) meeting in St. James, Missouri, on 24 June 2002, is an attempt to salvage its Partnership for Stream Management program affecting the Missouri Counties of Crawford, Dent, Gasconade, Maries, Osage, Phelps, and Washington. MRPC's program is billed as a pilot program and model for similar programs which proponents intend to grow to control land and water in every watershed in Missouri. It's the guts of The Natural Streams Act with a friendly new name.

Watershed management programs are a perverted result of the federal Clean Water Act enacted by Congress. The Clean Water Act addresses water bodies. That wasn't coercive enough for the Clinton Administration, so in February 1998 Vice President Al Gore unveiled his Clean Water Action Plan, aptly acronymed "CWAP," containing 111 actions that the Clinton Administration demanded for clean water.

Like so much else during the Clinton Administration, CWAP is an imperial edict, issued in direct violation of federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) law, and is both illegal and un-Constitutional. Whereas the Clean Water Act applies only to bodies of water, CWAP encompasses entire watersheds, placing all land and land use in the United States under federal control and changing almost every activity on both public and private land. Quite a difference from what what Congress authorized, but absolutely consistent with Clinton-era environmental policy.

Lawsuits were filed against CWAP by land users and property rights groups. On 12 June 2002 the Federal District Court Judge in Colorado ruled that CWAP is subject to NEPA, and since the federal government did not do any NEPA compliance prior to issuing their CWAP, the case against CWAP may go forward.

Partnership proponents know they are on shaky ground. There is the requirement that public meetings must be held to discuss proposals before the group can claim "consensus' and "overwhelming support" which is required to implement Partnership recommendations.

But meetings tend to be stacked with environmentalists, conservation and natural resources agencies employees who implement environmental policy but are not authorized to make environmental policy, general control freaks, closet Socialists, and maybe a couple of token property owners who stand to get thousands of dollars of grant money from the project. Land owners might not be invited to meetings, or may have difficulty finding out when and where meetings are held. The claim is made that "consensus" reached by the few people who are present at meetings represents the desire and opinion of all the tens of thousands of people living in the watersheds.

Subjects discussed at public meetings, such as gravel mining, may be deliberately boring and well outside most peoples' interest. However, when the final report is written, boring issues such as gravel mining may be a minor item, buried in a long list of land use recommendations which were not discussed at public meetings but which form the bulk of the final report's recommended actions. The street term for this is "Gotcha!" It's a way to authorize taxpayer funding of government coercion to create "willing sellers" from land owners who like where they live and don't want to sell their land to a land trust or to a government agency in violation of Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

How much of this CWAP must land owners suffer? Exactly as much as they will allow.

Police, bureaucrats, environmentalists and elected officials abuse landowners exactly as much as landowners will tolerate. When land owners are fed up and demand in a loud, unified voice, "We've had our fill of this CWAP. Stop this CWAP immediately. We won't let you dump this CWAP on us any longer," then the perpetrators back down. Until that time, they hit landowners, business people, and everyone else with as much CWAP as they think they can get away with before angry people begin hitting back.

Elections will be here in a few months. Here's your chance to end this CWAP. Do what Americans are supposed to do in a republican form of government. Cast your informed vote based on candidates' voting records.

Don't vote straight party ticket because your parents and grandparents voted that way and it's a family tradition. Vote for conservative candidates who are as fed up with this CWAP as you are and will support and defend private property rights and Constitutional government when they take office. Throw out of office every official from Councilman to Congressman who votes for un-Constitutional laws and regulations to restrict your use of your private property. Demand that natural resources and wildlife agency staffs be cleaned out and brought back under citizen control. If both candidate choices are bad, vote for the lesser evil. Don't NOT VOTE and think you are making an effective protest. Even small gains beat losses.

Right now it's important to attend all watershed Partnership meetings and say in a loud voice that you're tired of all this environmental extremism Socialist CWAP and you demand that the Partnership project be scrapped. Put this in writing and send copies to all your elected representatives.

I've had all the CWAP I can stand. How about you?

William Jud writes from Missouri and is regular columnist for Ether Zone.

William Jud can be reached at williamjud@hotmail.com

Published in the July 2, 2002 issue of  Ether Zone.
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