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Egypt Valley Wildlife Update

Feb 14

Posted by admin in Agenda 30/30, Egypt Valley Wildlife Area, Government Overreach | No Comments

EGYPT VALLEY WILDLIFE AREA is a large expanse of land, up to 28,000 acres located north of I-70 in Belmont county, mostly Kirkwood Township. Title to EVWA is held by the Ohio Dept of Natural Resources. What is it? What is it for? Who profits from it, and who does not?

The best informative web site on EVWA was built by the Belmont County Tourism Council. https://www.visitbelmontcounty.com/visit/egypt-valley-wildlife-area/ This site shows the jungle and wilderness acreage at it’s best.

When driving I-70 the big signs along the interstate indicate that something worthwhile is ahead. These large signs cost a private business $2300 per year for one sixth of this sign. Governments do not charge governments for signs. This is tax payer supported 100%.

DRIVE THROUGH EVWA — 2-1-24

When entering EVWA these signs welcome guests. Much of the land has been ignored of any management care for over 20 years and has grown into briars and brush/jungle impossible to hunt or even enter.

Gates have been installed with “No vehicle beyond this sign” This eliminates travel on historic mining, hunting and timber roads that crisscrossed EVLA.

Although EVWA is dozens of square miles, hunters are not allowed to drive on EVWA, so hunting is only done near county or township roads. Deer must be hand-carried off EVWA. As a result EVWA is not considered a good area to hunt. Don’t kill a deer further from the road than you can carry it. This is not hunter friendly.

Due to the large land area of EVWA the local townships spend a large part of their budgets installing cement culverts, and graveling roads to eliminate erosion.

Due to no physical management or supervision EVWA has become a huge free dump area. Disposable trash is dumped, or tossed into flowing creeks. These secluded areas are also popular for illegal drug sales and use.Due to no physical management or supervision EVWA has become a huge free dump area. Disposable trash is dumped, or tossed into flowing creeks. These secluded areas are also popular for illegal drug sales and use.

Although signs welcome hunting and fishing, the steel barriers make a very different statement. As a result of over 20 years of jungle growth land values in EVWA have deteriorated. The cost of reclaiming for useful farming or ranching, or food productions will be financially impossible.

Due to no select cut harvest of timber by ODNR, nor spraying for Blister Rust and Ash Borer, much of the timber value is gone. Beautiful forests have rotted. Lack of management has cost jobs and millions of dollars of timber value for the area.

EVWA roads are maintained by county and townships. The chipping and cleaning of right of ways cost above $200 per hour, which local tax payers fund due to the refusal of ODNA to assist with any funding.

As of 2-02-2024 ODNR pays no tax on the 28,000 acres. They do not assist with roads, libraries, schools, law enforcement, or any cost of community services. Just to consider the sucking-away of prosperity from the area, loss in taxes and normal property profits, ODNR has taken more in the last two dozen years from the people of Belmont county than Al Capone’s life time earnings in the city of Chicago.

This is what private ownership of property looks like in the same area of EVWA. The land produces food, fiber, and timber for families, and they pay taxes to support other good local things for their neighbors.

Private land ownership, care of the soil, love of the land and hard work look very different than government controlled land. Know the difference. The governments should not own any agriculture land. They have no ability or knowledge to manage it, nor the generational love of the land to care.

Egypt Valley Waste Land committee. 2-3-24
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The Green Campaign To Reduce Cattle Numbers Through Regulatory Action

Dec 15

Posted by admin in Agenda 30/30, Government Overreach, Green Agenda | No Comments

https://howardstores.com/blogs/news/the-green-campaign-to-reduce-cattle-numbers-through-regulatory-action

By Norman Leahy

December 13, 2023

It’s no secret that some green activists have a profound dislike for gasses and products of varying types and want governments to ban their use (natural gas-powered appliances being a prime example).

But the most ardent green campaigners also have a thing against cows. Cattle, you see, are prodigious produces of methane gas – a potent greenhouse gas. As such these same campaigners are out to do whatever is necessary to cut down on the number of cattle as a way to cut methane emissions.

But banning cattle is tough. Instead, they are looking at what could be called powerful “nudges” – taxes, mandates, and regulations – to make meat and dairy products too expensive for the average consumer to purchase.

It’s a triple bank shot way of making the world go vegetarian…to save the planet. As the Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley writes:

California requires dairy and livestock operations statewide to reduce methane emissions to 40% below 2013 levels by 2030. Sacramento plans to achieve this target with costly regulations that drive farmers out of business. Consider the state’s mandates that more space be given to farm animals under the guise of improving animal welfare. The real purpose of these regulations is to increase the cost of livestock production and thus reduce farmers’ output.

California’s farming rules will have a national effect, because they apply to any livestock raised in the U.S. and then sold in the state. Thousands of pork producers nationwide warn they may be forced to shut down because of the high cost of compliance. Congressional members from 21 farm states this summer introduced legislation to block California from regulating farmers outside its borders—much to the consternation of green groups.

But green advocates aren’t entirely coercive. Like well-practiced statists everywhere, they are keen on subsidies, too:

California and the federal government also provide regulatory credits for dairy farms to capture methane from manure. These credits are literal cash cows, worth nearly $2,000 a head. An April 2022 presentation at the California Air Resources Board titled “What’s Worth More: A Cow’s Milk or Its Poop?” mused that these subsidies might become so rich that farmers may begin to “farm methane rather than milk.”

The thing about the Air Resource Board presentation is this doesn’t have to be a binary choice. Using cow flatulence as an energy source makes good sense.

As for punitive taxation on meat and dairy products…that’s just extracting wealth from those who can least afford it and handing the proceeds to the state. The well off will still be able to get whatever they want. The less fortunate? It’s tough to be you, but this is for the Earth, after all. Pipe down and eat your carrots.