Conference back40::soapbox

    
    and if anyone disagrees, Roberta Achtenberg will sue.

    all this will be a moot point in '96 when the big one hits and 63,491.4
    square miles of kaliph sinks from sight.

    Water pact is just a start

    By Scott Thurm

    Mercury News Staff Writer

    SACRAMENTO -- For all of its importance, Thursday's historic plan to
    better  protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is more a
    beginning than an end.

    In the short run, thousands of farmers and 20 million Californians who
    rely on  delta water have to figure out how to share the pain of
    improving conditions for fish and  wildlife.

    But in the long run, government officials, environmentalists and water
    users  face even more difficult choices in balancing environmental
    needs with growing demand for  water.

    The pact allows more fresh water to flow through the delta, reducing
    somewhat  the supplies for cities and farms but making those supplies
    more reliable than they  are now. Federal and state officials will
    jointly make environmental decisions in the  delta.

    If the authors of Thursday's accord can strengthen their new-found
    mutual trust,  they can shatter political gridlock and promote the
    construction of California's  first new canals and reservoirs in about
    20 years. If they can't, the water wars, lawsuits and  name-calling
    will resume.

    ``This is not the solution to the delta's problems,'' said Steve Hall,
    executive  director of the Association of California Water Agencies and
    a key negotiator. ``This is the  foundation on which a solution can be
    built.''

    That solution -- expected to be developed over the next three years --
    might  require even more extraordinary measures to help the delta's 120
    species of wildlife,  many of which have been ravaged by decades of
    diverting water away from San Francisco  Bay to farms and cities.

    Two species of fish -- the winter-run Chinook salmon on the Sacramento
    River and  the delta smelt -- are listed as endangered. Federal
    wildlife officials Thursday  postponed designating as threatened a
    third species -- the Sacramento split-tail fish --  and some biologists
    think up to a dozen additional species may merit special protection.
    Environmentalists also plan to seek additional water for the San
    Joaquin River,  which has been reduced to little more than a trickle
    for much of the year.

    But having agreed Thursday to cede as much as 30 percent of their water
    supplies  in very dry years, farmers and cities have their own ideas
    for fixing the delta.  One notion includes withdrawing more water from
    California rivers with new dams and canals.

    Such projects have been taboo for about two decades as
    environmentalists  prevented construction of new plumbing projects
    until ecological conditions improved. Now,  there's a plan to help fish
    and wildlife. And in the glow of that agreement, no one  would rule out
    anything.

    ``Everything is on the table when we start those discussions'' over a
    long-range  delta plan, said Wayne White, head of the U.S. Fish and
    Wildlife Service's Sacramento  office.

    Everything? Including new dams and canals? ``Absolutely. . . .
    Facilities are on  the table,'' echoed Barry Nelson of the Save San
    Francisco Bay Association.

    White even floated the two most emotionally charged words in California
    water  politics -- Peripheral Canal -- in discussing ways that fish
    could be helped by  relocating the huge pumps that suck water out of
    the delta. Another project likely to resurface  is a large reservoir
    near Los Ban~os, which would hold water taken from the delta in very 
    wet years, when it presumably would not be missed.

    Despite the challenges ahead, it's difficult to overstate Thursday's 
    achievement. Gov. Pete Wilson shared a very crowded podium in the state
    Capitol with frequent  nemesis Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and
    Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner. Equally as
    stunning, representatives of Central Valley farmers stood  beside Los
    Angeles' water czar and environmentalists who had sued them both.

    Wilson at one point compared the gathering to the Israeli-Palestinian
    peace  accord, and as recently as a year ago, such a broad agreement on
    the delta seemed even more unlikely.

    ``I would say it's astonishing,'' said Felicia Marcus, head of the
    EPA's San  Francisco office.

    The delicately crafted compromise is similar to other, discarded 
    delta-protection plans. Its biggest impact will be to limit the amount
    of water that can be pumped out  of the delta in spring, when fish are
    considered particularly vulnerable.

    This plan succeeded where others failed for three key reasons: First,
    federal  wildlife officials accepted a more flexible regime in which
    pumping from the delta will  be adjusted monthly, rather than once a
    year.

    Second, they were willing to allow more water to be diverted in normal
    and wet  years, in exchange for even tougher pumping limits in dry
    years. Fish and wildlife  suffered acutely in the early years of the
    recent drought, when large-scale pumping continued  even as the amount
    of water moving through the delta declined.

    Third, federal officials agreed that they would not impose stricter
    pumping  limits in the next three years, even if additional fish are
    added to the endangered-species  list.

    ``Basically, what we're saying is a deal's a deal,'' Babbitt said.
    ``We've made  a deal, and if it turns out there are additional
    requirements of any kind, it'll be up to the  United States and the
    federal agencies to find the water.''

    That gave farmers and cities the assurance they needed to accept large
    cuts in  water deliveries. In the southern San Joaquin Valley, where
    the agreement will have  its biggest bite, farmers could lose up to 75
    percent of their water in dry years. In urban  areas, the impact should
    be far less severe -- about 25 percent reductions under the worst
    circumstances.

    Agreement on each of these points, participants said, seemed to create
    an  atmosphere of trust that led to additional agreements. Ultimately,
    that produced Thursday's  historic agreement.

    ``It just kept getting bigger,'' said Marcus, the EPA official.

    WHAT THE PACT DOES

    The California water accord:

    -- Centers on water quality standards for San Francisco Bay and the 
    Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. More fresh water will be allowed to
    flow through the delta,  holding down saltwater intrusion.

    -- Provides more reliable supplies for cities and farms, even though
    they will  get somewhat less water. If more water is needed for newly
    endangered species, it  will be purchased by the federal government
    from water users willing to sell.

    -- Means federal and state officials will jointly make environmental
    decisions  in the delta, with the overall ecology in mind.

    -- Provides for closer coordination of the federal and state waterworks
    that  divert water from the delta.

    -- Calls for greater environmental protections, such as installation of
    fish  screens on water diversion pipes along the Sacramento and San
    Joaquin rivers, without  increasing the costs of water.

Source: Associated Press

Published 12/16/94 in the San Jose Mercury News.

    NEWS ANALYSIS / 
    Good Sense Outweighed Politics in Water Accord / 
    Plan will meet needs of families, farmers, fish 


    Elliot Diringer, Chronicle Staff Writer 

    Sooner or later, someone was going to make the allusion, and when just
    the right  moment presented itself, Governor Wilson could not resist.
    Declaring yesterday to a  roomful of re- porters that ``peace has
    broken out amid the water wars,'' the governor then  turned to
    once-and-future combatants, invited them to sign their historic cease-
    fire,  and quipped, ``We're lacking only Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak
    Rabin.'' 

    Indeed, although California's travails hardly rival those of the 
    Middle East, the sweeping last-minute accord committing new water to
    the  resuscitation of San Francisco Bay may well prove the most
    profound step ever toward ending California's long- running water wars. 

    It secures more water for imperiled fish in the bay and the 
    Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. It assures farmers and cities a
    more  predictable, if somewhat diminished, supply. And it sets the
    stage for new talks aimed at a  lasting solution to the ``delta
    dilemma.'' 

    ``Quite simply, we have a plan that meets the needs of the families, 
    the farmers and the fish,'' declared Environmental Protection Agency
    chief Carol Browner, who flew out from Washington with Interior
    Secretary Bruce Babbitt to  join in the signing. 

    ``What we have here today,'' she said, ``is a triumph of common  sense
    over politics as usual.'' 

    The delta, though a place visited by few Californians, is vital to 
    both the state's economy and its environment because it is the state's
    largest  source of water. 

    A patchwork of islands and levees 50 miles east of San Francisco  where
    the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers converge, the delta captures
    nearly  half the state's total runoff. It supplies farms up and down
    the Central Valley, and  provides some or all of the drinking water for
    two of every three Californians, from the  Bay Area to Los Angeles. 

    For a quarter-century, since the state's huge delta pumps were 
    switched on and the fish began to steadily decline, environmentalists
    have been  fighting to recapture some of the water diverted by cities
    and farms and return it to the  bay and delta. 

    The agreement signed yesterday is, in fact, the latest in a series  of
    measures reallocating California's water back to its original users --
    fish  and other inhabitants of the state's beleaguered rivers, bays and
    wetlands. 

    But unlike other recent moves -- Congress' overhaul two years ago of 
    the Central Valley Project, and a recent ruling earlier this year
    protecting  Mono Lake -- the bay- delta accord is a creature of
    consensus. 

    Faced with a court deadline, and the threat of federal intervention, 
    the three sides -- urban, farm, and environmental interests -- finally
    rolled up  their sleeves and started bargaining in earnest. 

    The marathon negotiations began months ago and ended late Wednesday  in
    a seven-page agreement that thrilled no one but all could live with. 

    Although the agreement sets out the basic framework, it falls to the 
    state Water Resources Control Board to decide who ultimately will have
    to give  up how much water to the bay and delta, a process that will
    begin next year. 

    And it envisions that during the next three years, the parties will 
    keep negotiating and perhaps strike agreement on a lasting solution --
    a way to reconfigure plumbing in the delta so more water can be
    captured for everyone. 

    ``We don't pretend this agreement is the final answer,'' said  Governor
    Wilson. ``There will undoubtedly be some rough sledding ahead.'' 

    But for at least a brief moment yesterday, state, federal and  private
    interests more accustomed to treating one another as adversaries 
    celebrated a virtual love-fest, taking turns crediting one and all for
    their fine  achievement. 

    There were, of course, detractors.  Senator Tom Hayden, who has just
    taken over as chairman of the  Natural Resources and Wildlife
    Committee, said he planned hearings on the ``environmental adequacy''
    of the agreement. 

    ``I cannot support a compromise that puts salmon at the risk of 
    extinction,'' said Hayden, ``while we waste water and recklessly
    overdevelop  Southern California.'' 

    See 77.60 for an editorial with reference to water policy in the west.
    
    DougO

    Outcry Fails to Check Huge Dam Project in Colorado 


    Louis Sahagun 

    Durango, Colo. 

    No matter that critics call it economically unsound, environmentally
    damaging  and a water project with few peers as a blatant example of
    pork-barrel federal  largess. 

    The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which has touted its new environmental 
    sensitivity, is moving ahead with plans to build a dam project known as
    Animas-La Plata, a $687 million reservoir complex near this booming
    high-desert resort community in  southern Colorado. 

    Conceived more than 45 years ago as a means of supplying water to the
    region's dry-land farms, this last big project on the bureau's drawing
    boards will now  largely support commercial and urban growth in
    southern Colorado and secure rights to  water that American Indians
    want to use some day for coal extraction or to sell to  thirsty cities
    in California and Nevada. 

    But at a time of crushing federal budget deficits, government
    investigators say  the costs of building Animas-La Plata outweigh the
    benefits by a 2-to-1 ratio, and even  some federal dam builders say the
    bulk of those benefits may go to ``hobby hay  farmers'' and developers
    wanting to build subdivisions for ``equity exiles'' from California. 

    ``I call it Jurassic Pork,'' said Phil Doe, a Bureau of Reclamation 
    environmental- compliance officer in Denver. ``They say it's for the
    Indians, but it's clearly  a developer's project, and taxpayers are
    going to pay for it.'' 

    Charles Howe, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado at
    Boulder  who has studied the project for years, agreed, saying: ``It's
    a horrible project --  ridiculously expensive and blatantly
    inefficient.'' 

    Only a month ago, some Democratic lawmakers and federal officials had
    hoped to dramatically scale back or even kill the project during
    congressional committee  hearings.

    Those hopes may have been dashed, they concede, because the GOP sweep
    of both houses in Congress has empowered Republicans in Colorado's
    congressional delegation, who are in full support of the project. 

    Now, Bureau of Reclamation Director Dan Beard says he has no choice but
    to  proceed with what he calls the last major dam complex to be built
    in the West. 

    His reason: a 1988 congressional mandate to restore 130-year-old
    American Indian water rights on seven regional rivers. 

    Congress ordered construction of the oft-delayed project to settle a
    legal  dispute with the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain tribes of
    southern Colorado. If the project is  not under construction by the
    year 2000, the tribes can take their case back to  federal court. 

    If the tribes were to prevail in court, which most experts believe is
    likely,  some proponents of the project argue that the entire region's
    water supply could come  under tribal control, possibly drying up
    farmlands and paralyzing growth in a place in  desperate need of more
    housing and higher-paying jobs to accommodate newcomers. 

    ``Congress made a decision to invest money in this project, and whether
    that  investment is returned or not, they felt it was worth those
    funds,'' Beard said. 

    ``Oftentimes, the debates and fights we have over water-resource issues
    seem  illogical,'' he added. ``Welcome to the wacky world of
    water-resource projects.'' 

    Opponents are waging a fierce campaign to derail the project that has
    been in  the works since 1948, when former Representative Wayne
    Aspinall of Colorado, now deceased, swapped his support for the huge
    Central Arizona Project in return for Arizona lawmakers' approval of
    five smaller water projects in his district. Animas-La  Plata is one of
    those projects. 

    Critics say the project will require the equivalent of the electricity
    needed to  power a city of 60,000 people to pump water out of the
    Animas River and up a 500- foot  mountain into a ridge-top basin where
    elk and deer now forage amid clumps of cedar and rabbit  brush. 

    It will also require a vast system of canals and pipelines to deliver
    water to  irrigate 68,000 acres of farmland and provide municipal and
    industrial water for Durango and the  New Mexico cities of Farmington,
    Aztec and Bloomfield. 

    The problem is that the project, which will take an estimated 12 years
    to build,  will be constructed in two phases, only one of which will be
    federally subsidized. 
    
    [From the online edition of the SF Chronicle, Wed 28 Dec 94.]

    EDITORIAL -- A Common-Sense Plan To End Water Shortage


    THE PACIFIC Institute's ``California Water 2020'' report, released this
    week, offers an encouraging, doable blueprint for achieving a goal that
    has eluded the state's various water warriors for decades -- a
    sustainable balance between water supply and demand that satisfies all
    needs: agriculture, urban and industrial users and the environment. It
    is all possible within 25 years, says the report, while leaving an
    average annual 2.2 million acre-foot water surplus, in contrast to the
    major deficit predicted by the state Department of Water Resources.

    There are no magic wands or dowsing rods involved here, just common
    sense. The technology for a sustainable water future comes off today's
    shelf, and the methods and needed shifts in traditional water usage
    have been apparent for some time.

    Many of the recommended conservation steps are already being
    implemented, though the pace could be quickened. Existing technology
    for residential water conservation, such as low-flow showers, sinks and
    toilets, could cut the current 137-gallon per person daily water usage
    by 46 percent. Greater use of reclaimed water in urban areas could save
    another 1.5 million acre- feet a year.

    The greatest gains, however, depend on major changes in agricultural
    practices, which currently account for about three- fourths of total
    state water usage. Today, water-intensive crops like irrigated pasture,
    alfalfa, cotton and rice cover about 40 percent of irrigated cropland
    and consume 54 percent of agricultural water while producing only 17
    percent of agricultural revenue. A gradual and partial shift toward
    lower water-using crops, such as many fruits, vegetables, nuts and
    olives, could significantly lower irrigation demands while actually
    increasing farm income, according to the report.

    The only hitch to this positive vision is that the big pay-off measures
    -- like crop changes -- have been protected behind political brick
    walls. Other essential but politically explosive recommendations
    include ending all federal and state water and crop subsidies to
    farmers, raising water rates to cover the full costs of service for
    both urban and agricultural users, and requiring new urban developments
    to prove that adequate water supplies are available before building
    permits can be granted. This last suggestion has already been twice
    defeated in the state Legislature by powerful development interests.

    It helps to know, though, that a sustainable water future is
    technically possible without slowing California's natural and healthy
    growth. The vision of what's possible should make it easier to muster
    the political will that has so far been lacking.
    
    Published 6/1/95 in San Francisco Chronicle

    In some other topic I was challenged, a while ago, by Diaper Dan to
    produce specific details of science spending and program cuts.  I found
    several articles and provided them as examples.  This article relates
    to one of those examples, and to this topic- just for the curious.
    
    DougO
    -----
Thursday, November 2, 1995 7 Page A13
)1995 San Francisco Chronicle

    Interior Secretary Warns Of Threat to Bay, Delta

    Alex Barnum, Chronicle Staff Writer

    Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt used a canoe trip through a Fremont
    marsh and a visit with fishermen at San Francisco's Pier 45 to warn
    that a Republican assault on environmental laws threatens a historic
    accord to protect the health of San Francisco Bay.

    Winding up a three-day swing through California, Babbitt said the
    attempts to rewrite the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act
    would undermine the Bay-Delta accord, reached last December after a 20-
    year battle between environmentalists, cities and farmers.

    ``From the upper Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, through the Delta
    and into the bay, the watershed is being brought back to health,''
    Babbitt told a gathering of fishermen, environmentalists and local
    officials outside the newly refurbished Pier 45.

    ``Just as we're bringing everyone together, the Congress is on a
    systematic crusade to roll back the laws that have made this
    possible,'' Babbitt said.

    The Bay-Delta agreement would bring more water into the bay, as well as
    to the Sacramento- San Joaquin River Delta. But important elements of
    the agreement have yet to be enacted and might be threatened if
    environmental regulations change.

    Babbitt tried to underscore the importance of the agreement by taking a
    30-minute paddle through marsh grass and past ducks, herons and egrets
    in the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, trailed by a small
    fleet of media and wildlife officials.

    The refuge, the largest urban wildlife refuge in the United States,
    provides a habitat for such endangered species as the clapper rail and
    the salt marsh harvest mouse, and it serves as an educational center.

    Babbitt also attacked Republican attempts to use the budget and
    appropriations process to reshape environmental laws. While
    acknowledging that Democrats have used similar tactics in the past, he
    called the Republican assault far more ``pervasive.''

    The Republican-controlled Congress is negotiating spending bills that
    would, among other things, allow oil and gas development of the Arctic
    National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, increase logging on national
    forests and continue a ban on the listing of endangered species.

    Although a few measures have dropped out -- such as a proposal for a
    national parks closure commission and the repeal of a ban on mining
    --Babbitt reiterated yesterday President Clinton's intention to veto
    the bills.

    In particular, Babbitt said, Clinton will veto the Interior
    appropriations bill until Congress provides more financing for the
    year-old, 1.5 million-acre Mojave National Preserve. Congress has said
    it will provide only $1 for the preserve.

    In San Marino on Tuesday, Babbitt said he is convinced that there is
    enough money in his department's $7 billion budget to fund the
    preserve. He said he is willing to make across-the-board reductions to
    finance it.

    Babbitt's California trip, which began in San Diego and ended yesterday
    at Pier 45, is the 10th such tour around the country that Babbitt has
    taken since April to call attention to Republican assaults on
    environmental laws.

    
    Just to open and close an old issue....

    DougO, the articles that you provided did not provide enough
    information to determine if it was an actual budgetary cut or not.  I
    became tired of arguing pointlessly with you, and I still am.  You are
    incapable of accepting that reforming the environmental laws is not
    necessarily a bad thing.  Great, believe what you like, but I've lost
    interest in arguing with a fool.  Have a life.

    > DougO, the articles that you provided did not provide enough 
    > information to determine if it was an actual budgetary cut or not. 
    
    Insufficient for some, sufficient for others.  The article posted in
    .9 should make it clear even to you that the GOP legislation is cuts
    in appropriations and sidesteps (evades the necessity for) clear policy 
    guidance.  Run the Mojave Desert Wilderness with $1?  Good luck,
    Interior, which other laws regarding preserving designated wilderness
    shall we break due to lack of funding, GOP?
    
    > I became tired of arguing pointlessly with you, and I still am.
    
    You should quit while you're behind.
    
    > You are incapable of accepting that reforming the environmental laws 
    > is not necessarily a bad thing.  
    
    You are again incorrect.  As I said in the discussion several months
    ago, the criteria by which the cuts are made is critical to determining
    whether they are good/bad responsible/useless.  I quoted an unnamed
    house staffer who said the cuts were being made WITHOUT evaluating the
    programs' content.  This is plainly BAD.  It is quite apparent to me
    and to others who can discern more than one shade of grey that budget
    cuts must be made, and that some reform of environmental legislation is 
    both needed and possible to accomplish responsibly.  But it is also 
    clear that such intent was not used to write the current legislation.
    
    Clear to some of us, anyway.
    
    DougO

    
    Yesterday, Secretary of Interior released 2000 Billion Gallons of
    water from Glen Canyon Dam.  I understand there are some people
    not happy about the dam and some of them even have budget it in 1997
    to remove some of the western dams.  I don't understand why they
    are such against the dams.  Releasing water so they can have some
    high of relieving?  They don't know water is so important for the
    people of west coast.  I don't water my lawn much because water
    is precious.  Please save it in the dam.
    
    
    J.

    
    Re .12
    
    I thought I heard that they did that to promote some form of growth
    (plant,animal?) in the Grand Canyon. Don't know if thats what you're
    talking about
    
    ed

    The water release was to help flush the canyons of silt.  The natural
    flushing has not been allowed to occur due to the managed flow of the
    water i.e. damming.  Spring runoffs helped to keep the rivers clean of 
    detritous and prevented excessive silting.  This also caused the demise
    of more than one species of animal that depended upon the habitat for
    spawning.  The dams capture much of this water and siphon it off to 
    Calif. and other arid places.  
    
    The politics of water will most likely be the next cause of regional 
    strife as the world's water supply continues to become contaminated.  
    Coupled with an exploding third world population which also occupies a 
    great deal of the globe's arid regions, we have a great setting for 
    the next new commodity to die for.  I get p.o.'d at the arrogance of 
    Boston legislators claiming rights to the Quabbin and Wachusett Res. 
    and then having the gall to tell the folks in the western part of the 
    state what they can and cannot do with private property adjacent to 
    these watersheds.  I can only imagine how complicated the politics in 
    the western U.S. must be.  I would have more than a little sympathy for
    landowners that have had their property held hostage if they all went
    down to the reservoir and took a collective pee.  
    
    Brian

    The Glen Canyon Dam has seriously impacted the entire ecosystem in the
    Grand Canyon.  The water temperature has lowered and is clear, as
    opposed to warm and muddy, pre-Glen Canyon.  The spring-flooding that
    naturally occured in the canyon came to a stop, and the water level has
    fluctuated from low to lower, and the sand has not piled up on the
    beaches.  thus grasses and shrubs that thrived in the canyon are
    dying out.  The sqawfish, humback chub and several other large
    suckerfish have all but died out as they relied on the higher
    temperature of the water and also have no way around the dam to reach
    their former spawing grounds.  (most likely under several hundred feed
    of water and muck behind the dam anyway.)
    
    As it is the Dam flooding doesn't even approach the 90,000 CFS that the
    old flood levels would reach, nor will it be as long.  The floods used
    to last from early april through june.  This is a max duration of a
    couple of weeks.  
    
    TS to people in SO Cal, you should be trying to grow grass, rice, or
    heavily irrigated crops in areas that were not designed by nature to do
    it.  If you air-conditioning bill is a bit higher this year because
    power generation costs a bit more, learn to live in a desert properly.
    
    meg, who lives in a semi-arid climate and believes lush lawns in this
    part of the country are anti-social acts.

    > humback chub 
    
      and his orchestra!

    
    
    >We have to look at how the dames benefit the world also.
    
    
    I dunno about dames, but there's a lotta girls out there that have
    helped the world...
    
    

    Some of them may have even built dams.
    

    
    	Or stuck their fingers in dikes.
    

    Sounds like god made a dam out of eve, and not the other way around.

There ain't nuthin' like a dam.

    
      Jason, dames benefit the world.  Trust us on this.
    
      bb

    Dams have prolonged our existence.  We should have gone extinct years
    ago.  We have interfered with the process of evolution and have
    outstayed our welcome!

    Dammed if you do, and dammed if you don't.

How long has the Glen Canyon Dam been in place?

    .17
    
    > God invented human being.
    
    Assumes "facts" not in evidence.  Try sticking to tangible evidence,
    okay?

    re: .27
    
    Exactly.  If He invented us, there should be a patent 
    on file somewhere....
    

    > If He invented us
    
    He who?
    
    (That's a quote from Zodzetrick the goofer dust man:  "Strange things
    happen when I say 'he who'.")

GLen Canyon was constructed in the early 60s.  

    And also erased in that time some of the US's best petroglyphs and
    anazazi ruins, as well as the best spawning habitat of the HumPback
    chub, sqawfish and colorado river sucker.  some of these grew up to 10
    feet and were relatives of the sturgeon.
    
    meg
    
    

    Meg is right on. this is one of few occasions where the environment won
    out over the all might dollar. maybe there is hope?

Glen Canyon?  Did Glen Silva marry Steve Canyon?

    
    re: .27
    
    >.17
    
    > > God invented human being.
    
    >Assumes "facts" not in evidence.  Try sticking to tangible evidence,
    >okay?
    
    
    I agree... God could never be the author of a POS like human being.
    

    -1 wasn't he responsible for Lucifer?

    re: .19
    
    I don't know about that, but I do know one who designed several highway
    interchanges, including the one outside our building in Dallas.
    
    Bob