Jackson Hole Underground

(All photos © 2007 David Stubbs Photography)

The Bureau of Reclamation has scaled back the release of water from Jackson Lake Dam so that the Snake River is flowing at its normally low level for this time of year.

For more than six weeks, a magnificent stream was turned into a 90-mile-long irrigation ditch. An inquisitive person might ask, Where did all the water go?

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Just when we thought there would be peace in the Hole for off-season, the great warlord Dick Cheney is returning this week for at least a short visit.

Cheney will attend a private reception for U.S. Sen. John Barrasso on Friday evening at the Couloir restaurant atop the Bridger Gondola at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

The last time resort owner Jay Kemmerer opened his posh new restaurant to politicians, Barrasso was there to schmooze with the airlines that service Jackson Hole.

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Last week two reporters asked me,
in advance of the Peace Rally,
Why Cheney?

I was surprised. Isn’t it obvious?

Every Jackson Hole resident (and American citizen, really) should read The Washington Post story Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. The four-part series, titled after the vice president’s Secret Service code name, is sure to receive consideration for a Pulitzer.

What this series shows us is that Cheney not only has had a hand in every deplorable aspect of our government for the last seven years, he has personally orchestrated them.

If you must read only one part of the series, take a glance at Part 4, dedicated to environmental policy.

Most galling is the revelation that during the drought-plagued summer of 2001, “Angler” Dick Cheney had water diverted from the Klamath River along the California-Oregon border, causing 77,000 salmon to wash up dead.

The man who professes to be such an avid fly fisherman is responsible for the largest fish kill ever seen in the West.

I could understand if those crops were essential to our nation’s food supply. But no, turns out the votes of the reliably Republican farmers in Oregon (which Bush-Cheney lost by a hair in 2000) mattered more to the vice president than protecting threatened fish.

Here’s where the story really burns a hole in your stomach: We, the American taxpayers, subsequently have paid those farmers $15 million not to grow the crops. And with the stocks of chinook salmon decimated from the fish kill, last year the federal government declared a disaster and approved $60 million in emergency aid to help the commercial fishermen recover.

That’s right: Dick Cheney killed 77,000 salmon on the Klamath River and cost U.S. taxpayers $75 million as a result. Why isn’t this man arrested and his Halliburton millions seized to pay back the debt?

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… and the creeks, the fish, the elk and the fresh air we breathe.

Today is the last day to submit comments on the Bridger-Teton National Forest plan.

The plan is being revised to guide use of the forest for the next 10 to 20 years. It’s possible (although not probable, with your input) that more than half of the 3.5 million acres could be opened to oil and gas drilling.

Comments can be e-mailed to: btnfplanrevision@fs.fed.us.

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