Slade's own defense

Sorry about another political post but i got a reply to an e-mail i sent Slade Gorton inquiring about his involvement or lack of effort in removing the Elwah dams. Thought you guys (even though alot of you are from Oregon) might like to hear his response, instead of alot of opinions. You can draw your own from it. Thanks for your .02 and computer expertise R.T.


Thank you for your e-mail regarding Elwha Dam removal. I appreciate
hearing from you, and apologize for the delay in my response.

Like you, I want to do everything possible to restore our salmon runs in
the Pacific Northwest. As you may know, acquisition of the Elwha and
Glines Canyon dams was authorized by Congress in 1992. From 1993 to
1994, a Democratic controlled Congress refused to appropriate funds for
this project. It was not until Republicans took over Congress after the
1994 election that funding was finally made available for the removal of
the dams. In 1995, I took over as chairman of the Senate Interior
Appropriations Subcommittee. I was happy to include a total of $29
million for acquisition of the dams in the FY 1996, 1997 and 1998
appropriations bills. I also included another $22 million for the
removal fund in the FY 2000 Interior Appropriations bill. One of my
main concerns in regards to providing funding for the Elwha Dam removal
has been to protect the City of Port Angeles water supply. In 1999, I
fought to include $5.5 million to design and engineer a new water
filtration system for Port Angeles. The FY 2000 Interior bill also
directed the National Park Service to acquire the Elwha River dams by
February 29, 2000.

I have been urging the Department of the Interior to acquire the dams
since 1997. Instead of utilizing the funding I had already set aside
for this project, Interior Secretary Babbitt insisted that he would not
acquire the dams until the full amount was appropriated to remove the
dams. Since estimated removal costs are around $122 million, it was
impossible to appropriate that amount of funding in one fiscal year.
Babbitt's "groundbreaking" announcement earlier this year was long
overdue. It is unfortunate that this announcement did not come two and
a half years ago. With the support of the local communities, I will
continue to support the removal of the Elwha Dam.

You will be pleased to know that the Senate Interior Appropriations bill
for FY 2001 includes another $15 million to continue removal
preparations, while the House Interior Appropriations bill only has $7.5
million.

Again, thank you for writing. Please feel free to contact me in the
future.

Sincerely,


SLADE GORTON
United States Senator

SG/klv

Hi Corky. How's the OP fishing been since the rain systems started moving in? Were any of you guys up there fishing the Straight yesterday? When we flew over it around 6:00pm the entire western half was completely socked in by a low white cloud bank while the inner half was completely clear. Really looked interesting from over it. - Anyway, computer expertise? I can hear Jen laughing all the way from T-town . I just e-mailed Ro back about how to copy and paste Slade's letter into the BB message boxes to save having to type it. - After reading his letter I would like to ask Washingtonian's, who know this guy a little better, would Slade come out and say he is for removing Elwha Dam just to get more votes from environmentalists, fishermen, and liberals while knowing full well that the $122 million dollars can't be raised to remove it? And maybe alerting his wealthy constiuents discretely about his actual intentions and not to worry about losing any profit potential to pro-environmental causes while he is still breathing? Is it true that you can tell when he is lying (when his lips are moving)? What has his legacy been toward fishing and environmental issues as opposed to his congretional efforts on behalf of big business? Will you fishermen vote for him this election? Just some Q's. No accusations. - RT

[Mike H]

I'm on the Save Our Wild Salmon mailing list and below is part of an email I was sent today. If any of you would like the entire email which includes more info and who to contact about stopping this, feel free to email me.

Mike H

---------------------
WILD SALMON ALERT!

Rider Would Block Snake River Restoration & Prevent Funding for Dam Removal Studies

Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) has announced that he will introduce an amendment (called a rider) that will prohibit federal agencies from spending any money to further study dam removal to save endangered Snake River salmon. The intent of this rider is directly counter to the recently released draft Snake River salmon recovery plan. The plan directs agencies to undertake actions to help the salmon and initiates further engineering
and economic study of dam removal so that this option will be quickly available should other actions fail to restore the salmon.

THE HOUSE AND SENATE WILL NOT HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO VOTE ON THE RIDER!

This rider is especially dangerous because Senator Gorton is sneaking it in the backdoor by attaching it to an appropriations bill in Conference Committee. Congress will not have an opportunity to vote on it.
www.removedams.org

[garyk]

Thanks for the informative post.

Contrary to the propaganda spewed by Gorton's staffers, this sort of backdoor rider technique is typical Slade Gorton.

I can only hope Washingtonians will wake up and vote this bum out come November.

For my part, although I live in Oregon, Gorton's actions have been so damaging to our forests and fisheries that I'll be gladly making a cash contribution to whomever runs against him (I view the money as an investment in restoration).

Thanks for your input guys. Thats some pretty interesting dirt Mike H, something I probably wouldn't have heard of in my political circle. R.T., the fishing is even better in Sekiu, than when you were here,(more hatchery fish). The very minor rain has the fish moving slowly up the strait, but the rivers are still VERY low. I suspect the coho will be in Port Angeles soon. I guess I thought it would be harder to copy and paste the letter since I couldn't paste any art back when the decal designing was going on.