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- From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Subject: Re: Wise Use in Northeast (anti-Green)
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- Date: 13 Dec 92 22:24:00 GMT
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- /* Written 2:21 pm Dec 13, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
- The Scent of Opportunity:
- A Survey of the Wise Use/Property Rights
- Movement in New England
-
- by William Kevin Burke
-
- December 12, 1992
-
- SITUATION BY STATE
-
- Vermont
-
-
- On June 7, 1992, at the Killington Ski Area,
- the Vermont property rights movement hosted what
- was intended to be their largest and most
- impressive rally to date. The group that held the
- rally is called "Citizens for Property Rights."
- The Spring 1992 issue of their newsletter,
- Vermont Property Rights News, was full of pleas
- for the membership to turn out in full force for
- the "election year kick off rally."
-
- "Our enemies are waiting for us to stumble. Or
- just quit. The press is watching. If this rally
- fizzles property rights will suffer. Your rights.
- We need you." Killington Ski Area provided the
- space for the rally along with a special room
- rate for attendees. The lobby was decorated for
- the occasion with twenty paper effigies dangling
- from the ceiling by ropes around their necks.
- Each effigy bore the name of a political figure
- that CPR wants ousted in the coming elections,
- including Democratic Gov. Howard Dean.
-
- "There is the scent of a lion in the political
- arena," said David Edson, CPR's full time
- lobbyist at Vermont's State House. "And that lion
- is John McClaughery." The 150 rally attendees
- cheered Edson, Republican gubernatorial candidate
- McClaughery and Nadine Bailey--who flew in from
- California to tell how efforts to preserve the
- northern spotted owl destroyed her family's
- livelihood. But after the cheering had subsided
- and the nooses had been cut down, it was
- debatable whether CPR had really advanced its cause.
-
- "Tactics like those unveiled at last Sunday's
- property rights bash at the Killington Ski Area
- can only undermine [the property right's
- movement's] credibility and make every CPR
- argument sound like a self-serving, hot-headed
- one," said an editorial in the Rutland Sunday Herald.
-
- James Douglas, Secretary of State and one of
- three Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate
- seat currently held by Patrick J. Leahy, attended
- the Killington rally and said he was "surprised"
- by the "unnecessary" tactics CPR employed.
- Douglas has so far shielded CPR from scrutiny
- under Vermont's laws governing lobbying
- activities. The group claims to be exempt from
- reporting lobbying activities because it spends
- less than five hundred dollars on lobbying per
- year. Yet environmentalists who monitor the State
- House report that Edson is virtually a full time lobbyist.
-
- In fact, claiming not to be "slick, high paid
- lobbyists," unlike the employees of non-profit
- environmental organizations that faithfully
- follow reporting guidelines, is a regional
- property rights tactic, part of the "just plain
- folks" strategy originally advocated by Ron
- Arnold and his backers in the oil and mining industries.
-
- Douglas declined to demand more information on
- CPR's lobbying activities and funding when
- requested to do so by a group of State
- legislators who had been targeted by CPR for
- removal from office. Douglas's protection has
- been the key to CPR's strategy of insisting they
- are not lobbyists, although their organization
- devotes practically all its energy to overturning
- environmental protection and planning laws,
- especially Vermont's Act 200, which encourages
- comprehensive town planning and links it to a
- regional planning process.
-
- CPR claims to be the vanguard of a grassroots
- rebellion to restore Vermont to traditions of
- frugality, freedom from government interference,
- and respect for constitutional rights. But it is
- equally accurate to characterize it as a group of
- disgruntled would-be developers anxious to cover
- their home state with condos, vacation homes, and
- strip malls.
-
- CPR activist Dennis Carver of East Montpelier has
- said that property rights are so absolute that he
- should be allowed to build a nuclear power plant
- on his land, regardless of what his neighbors
- think. The Carver family reportedly would like to
- subdivide their family's farm. David Edson is a
- carpenter and home builder. Douglas Nelson of
- Landowners United, an outgrowth of CPR, hopes to
- build a mall near Newport, Vermont, to lure
- shoppers from Canada.
-
- Landowners United was formed to convince
- landowners to post their land with no trespassing
- signs as a protest against Act 200. This was a
- highly successful tactic. The Vermont Association
- of Snow Travelers (VAST), a snowmobilers'
- organization that depends on the permission of
- private landholders to keep open a wide network
- of trails in northern Vermont, caved in to the
- pressure and elected Ed Eilertson, a staunch CPR
- ally, as president. Environmentalists had
- formerly considered VAST an organization that
- shared some common goals, especially open space
- preservation. Now Eilertson, who has passed out
- bumper stickers reading, "Plant a Tree Hugger,"
- uses VAST to lobby for CPR's agenda.
-
- At present, CPR is focused on repealing ACT 200.
- But their literature suggests that ACT 250, a
- system of development regulation that has been
- operating for over a decade, is next on their
- list. Laws protecting wetlands and promoting
- strict air and water pollution standards are also
- CPR targets.
-
- The most prominent leader of Vermont's property
- rights movement is gubernatorial candidate John
- McClaughery, a Republican State Senator from the
- "Northeast Kingdom," three counties in northern
- Vermont noted for their traditional Yankee
- independence. McClaughery can claim some credit
- for aiding the rise of the New Right. McClaughery
- worked on Ronald Reagan's political campaigns,
- including Reagan's 1980 presidential race, and
- was rewarded with a job in the White House when
- Reagan was elected President. He left that job
- though, reportedly in disgust at what he
- perceived as the overly conciliatory policies of
- the early Reagan administration.
-
- State Senator McClaughery hopes his gubernatorial
- candidacy will push Vermont's Republican Party,
- which has a long moderate conservationist
- tradition, to the right. Last year McClaughery
- introduced a law that would have designated many
- government actions to protect the environment
- (such as denying a permit for an unsound
- development project) a "taking," thus requiring
- monetary compensation under the U.S.
- Constitution. Dubbed the "pout and pay bill"
- because it would have allowed developers to bill
- the state government if any agency blocked an
- unrealistic or illegal project, it failed to pass
- by only one vote in the Vermont House.
-
- McClaughery is on the editorial board of the
- Washington Times. This indicates at the very
- least that he has made a personal peace with the
- anti-democratic extremism of the Reverend Sun
- Myung Moon's Unification Church, which owns the
- paper and largely dictates its editorial
- policies. McClaughery enjoys his reputation as an
- intellectual maverick and has authored a book
- calling for a return to something called "shire
- democracy," a kind of libertarian utopia of small
- hamlets and honest, independent property owners.
-
- "[Property rights advocates] have a great rapport
- with the rural town meetings," said one
- environmentalist. Other activists suggest that at
- least some of this rapport is based on
- intimidation. Paul Daniels is a wealthy farmer
- and one of the original CPR organizers in the
- Northeast Kingdom. Daniels made a great deal of
- money by attaining a semi-monopoly on pulpwood
- sales in his area. Woodlot owners and independent
- loggers were forced to work through Daniels, who
- held contracts for delivering wood to pulp mills
- in the region. Daniels has also served as an
- advisor to a local bank and was in a position to
- exert influence over loan decisions.
-
- Daniels threw his considerable local influence
- behind successful efforts to force the town of
- Albany to withdraw from the Act 200 planning
- process. He has also opposed efforts to improve
- local schools. Daniels has told rural town
- meetings that unless they vote to block efforts
- to promote regional planning and property tax
- reform, "you won't be able to paint your chicken
- coop." Two other of the Northeast Kingdom's other
- original CPR activists (the group was born there)
- are Roger and Jo Sweatt, a husband and wife team
- of realtors.
-
- It is perhaps worth noting that the public policy
- gap that allows Daniels and his fellow property
- rights advocates to gain a following is real.
- Wise Users often accuse environmentalists of
- elitism. While this claim most likely originated
- in the psychological insecurities of college
- drop-out Ron Arnold (who often rails against
- "environmentalists with Ph.D.'s"), it contains a
- grain of truth. Environmentalists are used to
- fighting their battles through environmental
- impact statements and lawsuits. The homespun
- counterattack of the Wise Use advocates has in
- many instances left environmentalists unprepared.
- Environmental organizers in Vermont and elsewhere
- have devoted little energy to convincing rural
- residents that sustainable development and
- rational democratic planning processes are
- possible and preferable to the boom and bust
- cycles of an economy entirely dependent on
- unregulated resort development. Essentially, the
- choice facing many people in the Big North is
- whether their children will be able to work in a
- sustainable forest economy or clean condominiums
- at minimum wage.
-
- Unfortunately the Wise Use and property rights
- advocates seem to have, for the moment, distorted
- the debate on these issues with their threats
- that all reform will lead to "government land
- grabs. It is doubtful that most Vermont
- residents, or even most Vermont small property
- owners, want to see their entire state developed
- without any government planning or regulation
- whatsoever. Nationally, lobbying for limiting
- government's ability to protect land under the
- guise of "property rights" is conducted by
- national organizations of realtors and
- contractors. In Vermont this lobbying is
- conducted by realtors, developers, and others
- with a fiscal interest in limiting and preventing
- environmental protection and land use planning.
-
-
- V
-
-
- Maine
-
-
- Just prior to the October 1991 hearing on the
- Northern Forest Lands Council (NFLC) cited
- earlier, Jonathan Malmude, a property rights
- activist and professor at St. Joseph's College in
- York County, wrote an op-ed article for the
- Bangor Daily News in which he claimed that the
- "super-regulatory NFLC environment could have a
- chilling effect on ministers, teachers, or
- townspeople who are outspoken on civic issues."
- This suggestion, linking a state and federal
- government-led effort to promote debate about the
- economic future of the Big North to gag orders on
- activist preachers, seems carefully designed to
- appeal to the strong Christian fundamentalist
- traditions of rural Maine. Bangor is generally
- considered the center of those traditions.
-
- Maine's property rights movement is as active,
- energetic, and successful as Vermont's, but more
- splintered. The primary Wise Use organization is
- the Maine Conservation Rights Institute (MECRI)
- in Lubec, Maine, which grew out of the Washington
- County Alliance, a group that had opposed the
- preservation of scenic areas in Washington County.
-
- When contacted by a researcher, a MECRI
- spokesperson (who chose not to be identified)
- claimed the group was funded by $100 membership
- fees and additional gifts from its over four
- hundred members. Contacted later, Robert Voight,
- president of the organization, repeated the claim
- that the group was funded completely by
- membership fees, "or whatever the membership
- wants to donate," adding, "We're a grassroots
- group."
-
- But a MECRI filing with the IRS indicated that
- the group expected to receive grants and gifts
- totaling $134,707 against $13,000 in membership
- fees in 1991 and $118,456 against $28,000 in
- membership fees in 1992. This would mean that in
- 1991, MECRI expected to have 130 dues paying
- members contribute on average an additional $1000
- per member, and in 1992, expected 280 dues paying
- members to contribute on average an additional
- $400 per member. This is an unlikely level of
- generosity and suggests additional funding
- sources to those claimed by MECRI. Voight
- declined to furnish any additional details
- regarding actual funding, saying those matters
- were private.
-
- Several environmentalists who have been involved
- in conflicts with the Maine Wise Use movement
- describe the movement with the phrase, "I know
- what they are against; I'm not sure what they are
- for." This perception mirrors the overall
- negative style of the national Wise Use movement
- and its reaction against environmentalism. Beyond
- clearcutting old growth forests, revising
- wetlands regulations, and letting dirt bikes race
- through endangered ecosystems, the movement has
- little positive vision to offer despite its
- relentless rhetoric about promoting appropriate
- environmental protection. Voight confirmed that
- MECRI is a member of the Alliance for America.
-
- In 1991, Ted Johnston of Maine's Forest Products
- Industry Council spoke at MECRI's annual
- conference. In 1992 the featured speaker was Ron
- Arnold. But the hearings on the Northern Forest
- Lands Council remain the watermark for the Maine
- property rights movement's influence. Those
- hearings attracted a wide variety of property
- rights activists. These included Linda Bean,
- granddaughter of L.L. Bean and former funder of
- the Hannibal Hamlin Institute, an earlier
- property rights organization that fought a bond
- issue to fund a state program called Land for
- Maine's Future. Bean announced to the media
- assembled at the hearing that she was running for
- the U.S. House of Representatives. She later won
- the Republican primary for District One in
- Southwestern Maine but lost in the general
- election. MECRI, Malmude, and the John Birch
- Society were also at the hearing, as was someone
- passing out copies of The New Federalist,
- newspaper of the Lyndon LaRouche organization.
-
- The New Federalist has run numerous articles
- alleging that environmental activists are part of
- a terrorist conspiracy to ruin the economy. The
- LaRouchites claim this conspiracy by
- environmentalists to de-industrialize the country
- can be traced backward through the World Wildlife
- Fund, George Bernard Shaw, Aristotle, and the
- Babylonian matriarchy.
-
-
- VI
-
-
- Massachusetts
-
-
- So far, Wise Use/property rights organizing in
- Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut has
- been less widespread and less successful than in
- Maine and Vermont. Eric Veyhl, who maintains dual
- residences in Washington County, Maine, and
- Concord, Massachusetts, tried to lead an effort
- to block a Park Service study of the Concord
- River system outside Boston. His effort failed
- and the study is proceeding.
-
- The property rights movement did win one
- substantial victory in the southern Berkshires of
- Massachusetts. This year a property rights group
- called Friends of the Rivers managed to convince
- three Massachusetts towns to withdraw their
- approval of a Park Service plan to study the
- upper reaches of the Farmington River for
- possible inclusion in the federal Wild and Scenic
- Rivers program.
-
- Friends of the Rivers relied on Don Rupp of New
- York and the Alliance for America for strategic
- guidance. Rupp has long been opposed to Wild and
- Scenic designation along the upper Delaware
- River. He claims that Wild and Scenic designation
- is an inevitable prelude to the establishment of
- a national park, that Wild and Scenic designation
- causes homes to be bulldozed, landowners to be
- bought off their land, and property values to
- fall. None of this has happened along the upper
- Delaware. In fact Rupp, who in 1981 lost his gas
- station for failing to pay state sales tax,
- currently earns his living as a real estate agent
- selling homes and land that have appreciated in
- value as a result of Wild and Scenic designation
- of the upper Delaware.
-
- "Rupp obscured the real issue," said Gary
- Pontier, editor of The River Reporter, a
- newspaper based in the Upper Delaware Valley. No
- program, federal or otherwise, is perfect.
- Because of Rupp's domination and disruption of
- the debate, the real potential problems for
- riverbank landholders from Wild and Scenic
- designation were never discussed in Rupp's home
- region. "The cruelest thing [Rupp] has done is
- that he's stirred up people saying that property
- values will drop." Pontier noted that there is a
- problem along the Upper Delaware for small
- landholders and farmers who do not wish to sell
- their property but face rising real estate taxes
- as their land's paper value increases. Such
- landholders are often forced to sell off chunks
- of property to meet their tax burden, thus
- feeding the real estate market and by
- implication, Don Rupp.
-
- Rupp made other statements that mislead people
- and inflame fears. Rupp reportedly told residents
- along the Farmington River that the Wild and
- Scenic designation was being pushed by
- legislators paid off by the environmental groups.
- He failed to mention that Chuck Cushman of the
- National Inholders Association had convinced the
- Park Service to allow the towns along the Upper
- Delaware to hire their own planners to come up
- with riverbank zoning plans that would comply
- with the Wild and Scenic plan. Rupp told one
- Massachusetts audience that they should not
- participate in the planning process in any way
- because this would allow the federal government
- and its behind-the-scenes allies, the
- conservation groups, to exercise complete control
- over their land.
-
- Friends of the Rivers (FOR) formed to oppose the
- Farmington River Wild and Scenic study. Prominent
- members included the Campetti family of
- Sandisfield, proprietors of an oil business and
- an off road vehicle dealership. The Campettis
- recently turned a wetland along the Farmington
- into a landfill for roadway and construction
- debris. Another FOR stalwart is Francis Deming,
- who operates his over one hundred acres of
- property in Tolland as a pay-as-you-dump waste
- disposal site.
-
- Certainly no one can object to local business
- people banding together to express their will on
- an issue they deem important. But Friends of the
- Rivers hewed to the familiar Wise Use/property
- rights pattern of spreading horror stories and
- disinformation. FOR literature claimed at various
- times that Wild and Scenic would mean the land
- along the river would automatically become a
- wildlife refuge, that the federal government
- would impose strict zoning along the river, and
- that a long list of businesses in the affected
- towns would be closed. FOR also dutifully
- repeated Rupp's claim that Wild and Scenic
- designation devalues property. None of those
- statements was true.
-
- FOR hung a poster in the center of Sandisfield
- claiming that Robert Tarasuk, the town's
- representative on the Wild and Scenic Study
- Committee, was a paid federal agent. Their
- evidence was a copy of Tarasuk's resume which
- revealed that over a decade ago, Tarasuk had a
- summer job with the Bureau of Land Management.
- "There is no better tactic than to threaten
- someone's land," Tarasuk said. "Get somebody who
- lives on their land and that's all they have and
- then tell them that the government is coming to
- take it. Fear works. The Alliance for America
- knows this and I believe that they coach [local
- groups]," he said. "Your land has been stolen,"
- read a FOR flier distributed along the
- Farmington.
-
- At one public forum in Otis, Massachusetts, Rupp
- and John Conner of the Alliance for America
- represented FOR. Dave Howard, president of
- Alliance for America, was also in the audience.
- Conner was also a vocal advocate for Florida
- developer Andrew DeLillo's proposal to build a
- giant landfill in nearby Hinsdale, Massachusetts.
- DeLillo's proposal was defeated when the people
- of the town banded together and convinced the
- Commonwealth of Massachusetts to declare the site
- of the proposed landfill an Area of Critical
- Environmental Concern (ACEC). Conner has since
- formed a group called ACEC Inholders to lobby
- against the state program. Conner's current
- project is an effort to site a waste disposal
- facility in the Berkshires.
-
- Despite their financial interests in preventing
- environmental protection and their reliance on
- misinformation and character smears, FOR was able
- to destroy confidence in the National Park
- Service along the Farmington. "Their message was
- you can't trust those [Park Service] bastards,"
- the Farmington River Park Service project manager said.
-
-
- XI
-
-
- Connecticut
-
-
- Friends of the River was not so successful
- when they tried to organize opposition to Wild
- and Scenic designation along the lower reaches of
- the Farmington River in northwest Connecticut.
- This was due in no small part to the fact that
- Connecticut residents of the Farmington River
- Valley have seen three valleys flooded to provide
- drinking water for Hartford, Connecticut. The
- Farmington River Watershed Association (FRWA), a
- river protection group founded in 1953, was able
- to counter FOR claims of "land grabs" and
- "preservationist lock-ups" of resources with the
- facts about Wild and Scenic designation.
-
- Along the Farmington, FOR's main tool for
- inflaming citizens' fears was a videotaped film
- documentary about Park Service preservation
- efforts in the Cuyahoga River Valley in Ohio.
- That film, which was later adapted for the PBS
- series Frontline, documents an aggressive Park
- Service land acquisition program in that region
- during the early 1970s. It is worth noting that
- the film contains some distortions, such as not
- mentioning that one of the primary examples of a
- "victimized landholder," Leonard Stein-Sapir, was
- a man who bought undeveloped property in the
- region after the Park Service announced its plans
- to acquire land. He then subdivided the land into
- residential lots and sold it to the Park Service
- for $248,250. Nevertheless, he appears in the
- film as the selfless hero of the landholders
- victimized by the Park Service.
-
- The Park Service project manager for the
- Farmington River did admit that the agency has in
- the past used a "top-down" management approach
- that did not take individual landholders into
- account. The structure of the Farmington project
- is meant to be an early example of a new model
- for providing rivers with federal Wild and Scenic
- protection while local control is retained.
-
- This model has worked, if not perfectly, in New
- York along the Upper Delaware. Rising real estate
- values there (now in a cyclical decline due to
- the national recession) provide Don Rupp with his
- living. Wild and Scenic designation provides
- residents of the Upper Delaware Valley with the
- security of knowing that, if New York City tries
- to flood their homes for a reservoir, the federal
- government will stand in the way of any dam
- project and force the rigorous study of any
- diversion schemes.
-
- Wild and Scenic designation allows federal
- control only over the waters of the river.
- Riverbanks remain under local jurisdiction,
- though towns must formulate zoning plans that
- will protect a buffer zone, usually about one
- hundred feet wide, along the banks in order to
- qualify for the Wild and Scenic program.
-
- By carefully explaining the details of local
- control to area landholders worried by FOR's
- false claims of land grabs, Farmington River
- Watershed Association members prevented FOR's
- rumors of "federal land grabs" from taking hold.
-
- The Wise Use/property rights activists had one
- major success in Connecticut. Their distortions
- of the meaning and effect of Wild and Scenic
- designation significantly influenced coverage of
- the issue by Joseph A. O'Brien of the Hartford Courant.
-
- Here is the conclusion of O'Brien's article about
- a town meeting in Tolland, Massachusetts, which
- voted to abandon the Wild and Scenic study:
-
-
- >> Part of Tolland borders the Colebrook
- >> river reservoir, which covers the area where the
- >> village of Colebrook River once stood.
-
- >> "I'm sure you're aware of the town of Colebrook River
- >> that was wiped out," said Julian C. Work,
- >> chairman of Tolland's planning board. "Anything
- >> that smacks of that sort of control I'm against."
-
- >> "I hope this sends a message to other
- >> federal protectionist programs," said Joseph J.
- >> Clark III of Tolland, spokesman for a group
- >> opposed to the designation.
-
- >> "We want local control, we want to make
- >> our own decisions. We've got problems
- >> with federal decisions," Stephen
- >> Palmer, a machinist from Tolland, said. "People
- >> say we don't understand. We do understand. We
- >> feel confident with our own decisions."
-
- Hartford Courant
- 3/8/92
-
- Federal Wild and Scenic River designation is
- primarily a means for providing protection for
- scenic riverways, and the towns, businesses, and
- homes that lie along them from precisely the sort
- of large scale reservoir project that flooded the
- town of Colebrook River.
-
- O'Brien's article allowed the property rights
- advocates to turn the facts of the Farmington
- situation on their head--without any substantive
- reply from a river protection advocate.
-
- In light of Wise Use/property rights movement
- founder Ron Arnold's dictum that "facts don't
- matter, in politics perception is reality," and
- the relentless consistency of property rights
- movement tactics across New England, O'Brien's
- story should forewarn New England's journalists
- to do extra homework on the details of
- politically charged land use and environmental
- issues when dealing with local examples of the
- national property rights movement.
-
-
- VII
-
-
- New Hampshire
-
-
- At the recent Wise Use gathering in Reno,
- Nevada, a glossy pamphlet was distributed that
- promoted the Alliance for America. After a short
- description of the Alliance's birth at a "fly in
- for freedom" in September 1991, the pamphlet goes
- on to list the group's goals and ask for
- contributions in categories ranging from "patron"
- ($10,000+) to "individual/family" ($15). First
- among the goals listed is: "Achieve
- representation in all 50 states." Other goals
- include: "Create a positive public identity," and
- "Become a voice in the 1992 political campaign."
- That pamphlet, which reflects the Alliance's
- perfectly legitimate desire to form a lobbying
- alliance among large businesses, wealthy
- individuals, and people of moderate means to
- oppose environmental regulation and the end of
- federal subsidies for mining and grazing on
- public lands, has everything to do with a series
- of events along the Pemigewasset, a scenic river
- that flows from the White Mountains of New
- Hampshire down into the Merrimack River Valley.
-
- Ed Clark, a local businessman and owner of
- several hydroelectric facilities, had long wanted
- to erect a dam at Livermore Falls in the town of
- Campton, New Hampshire. Livermore Falls is a
- scenic area where the river drops through a gorge
- carved through reddish stone. A small beach just
- above the falls provides residents of Campton and
- Plymouth, New Hampshire, with a place to sunbathe
- and relax. The ruins of a mill and an iron bridge
- that spans the gorge below the falls remind
- visitors of the region's industrial past. Town
- officials also know the falls as a prime place
- for thrill seekers to drink a little too much and
- kill themselves jumping off the rocks or climbing
- on the rusted spans of the "Pumpkinseed" bridge
- (so-called because of its shape, a slender
- pointed oval perched atop the gorge's granite outcrops).
-
- Clark's plan would have flooded the falls and the
- beach, and provided electricity three or four
- months a year. Even opponents of the dam
- acknowledged that it was a sensitively planned
- project that would have been both a
- historically-minded reconstruction and a working
- hydroelectric facility. Two groups formed around
- the dam project. One, which eventually became the
- New Hampshire Landholder's Alliance, favored the
- dam. Its primary early leaders were Don and
- Cheryl Johnson. Cheryl Johnson was a partner in a
- local printing business and her husband Don was
- an employee of Ed Clark. Opposed to the dam
- project was the Pemigewasset River Council,
- headed by Patricia Schlesinger.
-
- At New Hampshire state legislative hearings,
- people who seek to testify sign cards indicating
- their position. These cards allow the
- representatives running the hearing to organize
- and document the presentations. At a hearing on
- the dam project in February 1991, Ed Clark's
- allies produced over eight hundred of these cards
- as evidence the public wanted the dam. It turned
- out the cards had not been issued by the state,
- but were privately printed copies. Moreover, New
- Hampshire state legislator Mary Anne Lewis had
- her staff conduct a quick phone survey, and now
- estimates that two-thirds of the cards bore the
- names of people who had no memory of signing
- anything related to the river project.
-
- Clark's dam project was essentially killed when
- the Pemigewasset was enrolled in a State of New
- Hampshire river management program. The New
- Hampshire Landholder's Alliance (NHLA)
- incorporated as a non-profit organization and
- began distributing literature opposing river
- protection and environmentalism in general. Bill
- Lane, manager of the Campton Sand and Gravel
- Company, also became active in the organization.
- Jerri Ballou, another early NHLA activist,
- apparently dropped out of the movement after she
- was finally able to sell her riverfront land to
- the New Hampshire Land Conservation Investment Program.
-
- NHLA focused its opposition on an ongoing study
- aimed at enrolling the Pemigewasset in the
- federal Wild and Scenic Rivers program. Not
- surprisingly Don Rupp and David Howard of the
- Alliance for America brought their message to the
- region at forums sponsored by the NHLA. According
- to observers at the two forums, public
- attendance, aside from the core membership of
- NHLA and members of the Pemigewasset River
- Council, was sparse: about twenty at one forum
- and nine at the other. The NHLA newsletter
- reported the combined attendance as nearly two hundred.
-
- The low attendance at the NHLA forums was
- preceded by profuse amounts of literature
- distributed throughout local communities
- proclaiming familiar warnings of the perils of
- the Wild and Scenic Rivers program. Since Cheryl
- Johnson started printing and distributing the
- Alliance For America's Alliance News, she has
- reportedly made plans to form her own printing
- company. Johnson earlier had asked the Wild and
- Scenic Study Committee, on which she serves, to
- change the locations of two meetings to Campton
- because she was planning to buy Campton printing
- and could not spare the time to drive to the
- meetings. The committee agreed, but Johnson still
- missed the meetings. She now reportedly has the
- contract to provide all of Alliance for America's
- publications and literature.
-
- In effect, the NHLA seems to be funded directly
- by the national Alliance for America through
- Cheryl Johnson's business ventures. There is
- obviously nothing wrong with the national
- Alliance for America creating a "grassroots"
- group to spread the bad word about the Park
- Service. But the reliance upon Don Rupp, who
- routinely tells blatant falsehoods about the Park
- Service, and the NHLA's concentration of people
- with a financial interest in battling river
- protection should caution against taking NHLA's
- claims at face value. Nor does David Howard work
- to clarify complex issues. His main rhetorical
- tactic is to lump all government land and water
- protection programs into one category, as
- "threats to property rights." This is an
- effective tactic for manipulating media coverage,
- since people who question Howard's assumptions
- find their arguments reduced to one line
- responses that environmental issues are "more
- complex" than his videos about spotted owls
- versus loggers suggest. (For an example see
- "Landowner: People Belong in Environmental
- Picture" the Manchester, NH, Union Leader,
- 3/28/92 ).
-
- As this report was being completed, Gary Weiner,
- the Park Service employee in charge of the
- Pemigewasset River Wild and Scenic Study, led a
- canoe ride down the river to survey various
- scenic features of the river. Cheryl Johnson had
- been invited as a member of the committee, but
- after receiving the invitation she scheduled an
- NHLA fundraising auction for that day. But her
- spirit, and apparently the fruits of her printing
- press, accompanied the trip. All along the route
- of the canoe trip were signs proclaiming, "Go
- Away Park Service," "No Wild and Scenic," and "Go
- Away Gary." When the canoe trip reached its
- destination a parked bulldozer was blocking their
- taking-out point.
-
- The NHLA, like every other property rights group
- presented in this report, displays no interest in
- promoting debate or public education. While
- providing information tailored to advance one's
- public affairs agenda is perfectly acceptable in
- a democracy, flat-out lying is not. A movement
- that combines the routine use of falsehood, an
- aggressive and intimidating style of discourse,
- and the careful concealment of its own financial
- interests in manipulating public opinion deserves
- more complete scrutiny from the press and public
- officials than the property rights movement has
- so far received.
-