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Turning private lands into political lands.

Farmers who live in Madison and Union counties have asked:

Q. Where do you stand on the proposal by the Federal Fish & Wildlife Service to take 49,000 acres of prime farmland out of production and turn it into a wildlife refuge?

A. Frederic Bastiat said in 1848 in his book The Law that when it comes to legalized plunder there are only three ways the question can be answered:

1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody.

For years and years farmers have been on the receiving end of public largess from the Department of Agriculture to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. We all know the stories of farmers who get paid from the federal government for not growing food.

So how do people in the crowded cities and suburbs perceive that? Well, they figure if the farmers can lobby and get the federal government to spend tax dollars on "farm programs," why not lobby Congress and use tax dollars to buy farm land and turn it into wildlife refuges and parks? We have a mentality in this country that since the government is taxing me into oblivion, I might as well try and get back what I can because if I don't someone else will.

So that's where we are in this country -- everybody plundering everybody, just as Bastiat said. The Federal Fish and Wildlife's Service's proposal to build a 49,000 acre wildlife refuge near the Little Darby Creek on some of the best farmland in the nation, is a perfect example of mutual plunder.

The problem is we all loose because there is no end to mutual plunder as long as we keep sending our money to Washington to let politicians and bureaucrats spend it for us based on which special interest can garner the most votes.

I must back the farmers in their opposition to the Darby Wildlife Refuge because I'm for nobody plundering anybody.

Plus, the best farmland in Ohio is being targeted by the US Fish & Wildlife Service, who would like to take somewhere between 22,000 acres and up to 53,692 acres, or more out of productive prime farmland forever and convert it into swamp ("wetlands") and fire-hazard weeds (prairie grass.) How can they call this a "farmland preservation" project, when the intent is to destroy farmland? How nice of them, to "say" they will allow a mixture of farmland and refuge, when the regulations, lack of maintenance of drainage tiles (needed to keep neighboring farmland dry enough to keep in production) and roads and other major changes that USFWS would make to this area. The proposal would undermine the very basis of farming in the area.

We must change the mindset that "I'm going to get mine before someone else gets theirs." The proposed Darby Wildlife Refuge is a good place for the people of Ohio to lead the way by electing a candidate who will work to eliminate the income tax and take away the federal government's money to wreak havoc in local affairs. This will reduce the federal government to what it was intended to be by the framers of our constitution. The income tax is not needed to run the legitmate needs of the constitution as outlined in Article I, sec 8 which are very few.

I have written to Mr. Thomas Lowry who is the head of the FWS's Region 3. In voicing my reasons for for opposition to the Darby Wildlife Refuge I said:

I don't think the proposed Darby Refuge is a good idea.

I would not like to see the FWS go forward with this project.

The federal government does not need to buy any more land for any purpose. (They already own 1/3 of the land in the US.)

Ohio's wilderness areas grew faster than its developed areas from 1949 to 1992, according to U.S. Dept of Agriculture data. Ohio already has 31% of its land mass in wilderness areas.

If wildness is the goal private property is the way to achieve it. Private ownership is the primary reason for the increase in wilderness acreage. More than 332,000 private land-owners account for 94 percent of Ohio forested or reforested land.

The federal government should be selling land it owns to private interests.

Current lands owned by the FWS should be privatized and managed by private trusts.

The FWS Darby Refuge will disrupt an agriculture environment and the people who live there do not want a federal boundary drawn around their property.

According to policy analysis by Randal O'Toole, executive director of the Thoreau Institute and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, the federal government does not have a good track record in managing land nor do the states. "Their policies are economically inefficient, ecologically short-sighted, and politically driven." The federal government has not paid to counties impacted by federally owned lands all the county tax revenue that was supposed to be paid, thus putting many counties (like Perry county in Ohio) in economic jeopardy.

The fundamental problem is that government owned lands become political lands. "The political allocation of natural resources to favored constituencies, ends up subsidizing some lands at the expense of others and inflicts harm on both the ecological system and the economy as a whole" says O'Toole.

The federal government has lost all creditability with the American people and cannot be trusted because people don't trust politicians and bureaucrats. (Janet Reno comes to mind.)

The federal government has lied to the American people too many times and no matter what is said today about the purposes of buying land for a wildlife refuge and what will be done with it, the farmers who live within the proposed boundaries and bordering property don't believe what the government says about how they will be treated in the future and neither do I.

The farmers of the impacted area and I are asking for a FLOOD of OPPOSITION comments to be sent to by 1-29, as well as comments to be MAILED to Thomas Larson, USFWS, BHW Bldg., 1 Federal Dr., Ft. Snelling, MN 55111, to be POSTMARKED by 1-29-00.


Letter To The Editor (Columbus Dispatch and Madison Press) 1-23-00, Julie Smithson, Stewards of the Darby

When a farm becomes available for purchase in the area of Madison and Union Counties that U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service calls "Proposed Little Darby Nat'l. Wildlife Refuge," that farm is almost always purchased by another farmer, and continues to be farmed. If it were not so, we would have already gone the way of the counties who are suffering from "urban sprawl." Call Madison County and ask about the 20-acre minimum for housing.

Our track record, many farms having been in the same families for upwards of 200 years, would show our allegiance to our farms. The young generation on our farms is writing to their Senators and Congressmen, saying plainly that they want to continue farming on their family farms. These young folks are well aware of the threats to their homes, from more than one source. When you are in our situation, anyone who wants your land is a threat to your home, no matter who it is. When a hungry fox looks at a chicken coop, the chickens don't ask "Which fox is it?"

To those who would make the decisions about our farms: WE are not trying to tell YOU to move aside and let US tell you what is good for YOUR area. If you want Hellbranch Creek to run clean again, we can give you some stream cleanup lessons. Here in Madison and Union Counties, we go out and do stream cleanups, hauling out what has been dumped there by folks from other places. We take responsibility for our own back yards. That is why we have something pristine that others want -- Madison and Union Counties. This farmland cannot be duplicated, so we cannot simply "move somewhere else." Our relatives are buried in those cemeteries that contain the prairie grasses. If you could ask THEM, they would tell stories of the grass fires and diseases that were commonplace, in the "good old days."

Julie Smithson
Stewards of the Darby
213 Thorn Locust Lane
London, OH 43140
1-740-857-1239
E-mail: Jsmit10695