04/27/05 Bill with flexibility;More study they say

It would give more regulatory certainty for farmers and ranchers on how to deal with pests. That is the comments in an American Farm Bureau Federation press release on a bill introduced in the House by Representative by Butch Otter of Idaho. The measure clarifies farmers and ranchers can legally use pesticides registered by the Environmental Protection Agency without obtaining a federal Clean Water Act permit. But in addition, the bill would give farmers and ranchers protections from citizen lawsuits if they legally apply pesticides. And the Pest Management and Fire Suppression Flexibility Act would also restore longstanding E.P.A. exemptions for specific forestry activities such as pest and fire control. Do wildfires release more dioxins and other harmful gases than say industrial discharges or gas emissions? That is something two Northwest senators want the U.S. Forest Service to study. Oregon's Gordon Smith and Idaho's Larry Craig recently sent Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth a letter calling for more research into the extent of air pollution created by wildfires. The Senator's letter uses the 2002 Biscuit Fire in Southern Oregon as an example, stating that fire released as much as 40 million tons of carbon dioxide. Or put another way, that's as much CO2 released from burning three billion gallons of gasoline or ten per cent of all emissions from coal fired power plants in the U.S. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. ALLEN: Rancher David Creveling of Twisp Washington is fighting the State for his property rights. He became furious when Washington State Fish and Wildlife agents showed up at his ranch in 2003 and proceeded to remove 125 steel head, salmon, cutthroat trout, and brook trout from his irrigation ditches & ditches he grew up fishing that have been in existence since 1889. David has difficulty accepting that someone can waltz on his property and remove what he feels are his fish from water that his family has had the rights to for generations. He has filed a $700 million dollar lawsuit to pay for the fish. The amount is extreme but he feels that it will take an extreme dollar figure to stop officials from treading on the rights of landowners. Imagine someone coming onto to your property and removing the game birds, deer or elk. Obviously the Fish and Wildlife Department doesn't see it his way and cite his actions of diverting water into ditches illegal. It remains to be seen who will prevail, but it does give one cause to pause, and wonder what right we really have, over the property we own. I'm Susan Allen and this is Food Forethought.