August 9, 1993

By William Norman Grigg

The New American

Vol. 9, No. 16

Economist Llewellyn Rockwell has written, "Private property is the real human right, and the foundation of all freedom. If a church can't own its building, there can be no freedom of religion. If a newspaper can't own its newsprint, there can be no freedom of the press. If there is no private land there can be no freedom of speech."

The subject of wetlands protection has offered the federal government a pretext for an unprecedented assault upon private property. Congressman Don Young (R-AK) has cogently summarized the issue:

[T]here are those in this country who in the name of environmental protection would seek to destroy the right to use your own land. At best these extremists tend to believe that our traditional notions of private property are old-fashioned throwbacks to our capitalist past that have outlived their usefulness. At worst they believe that all resources are to be shared by the masses and that they should be "managed" by the government for the benefit of all. If [anyone] can understand the practical difference between the central government managing the land for the collective benefit of the masses as Karl Marx suggests -- or for the collective benefit of the "environment" -- please explain it to me. I see no real difference.

Rockefeller Report

As with so many other tyrannical federal policies, federal "management" of wetlands was a concept incubated in a tax-exempt Establishment foundation. The late Warren Brookes noted that in 1973 a Rockefeller Task Force on Land Use and Urban Growth published a report entitled The Use of Land: A Citizens' Policy Guide to Urban Growth. According to Brookes, that report "noted that land use could be restricted at no cost to the government, through jurisdictional control." The extension of the government's jurisdiction would require the effective repeal of the "takings clause" of the Fifth Amendment, which clause dictates that private property cannot "be taken for public use without just compensation." The perennial question in land-use issues is this: At what point does regulation of property by the government become confiscation of the property in question?

The Rockefeller task force report dealt with that question by simply dispensing with "takings clause" considerations:

Many [judicial] precedents are [considered] anachronistic, now that land is coming to be regarded as a basic natural resource to be protected and conserved ... It is time that the U.S. Supreme Court re examine its precedents that seem to require a balancing of public benefit against land value loss ... and declare that, when the protection of natural, cultural or aesthetic resources or the assurance of orderly development are involved, a mere loss in land value is no justification for invalidating the regulation of land use ...

As Brookes observed, this declaration issues from "a philosophy that questions the values of private property and freedom." That philosophy has flourished in the two decades since the publication of the task force report.

Section 404 of the 1972 Clean Water Act made it a federal crime to discharge fill material into "the navigable waters of the United States" without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. In 1975, a Washington, DC district judge (responding to a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council) extended federal jurisdiction to include any wetlands that could conceivably feed into America's "navigable waters." Since that time, the wetlands program has expanded through bureaucratic ambition and judicial activism.

George Bush's contribution to the expansion of wetlands regulation cannot be overstated. During his 1988 presidential campaign, Mr. Bush announced that as President he would adopt a policy of "no net loss" of wetlands. This was an encouraging signal to the four federal agencies that supervise wetlands (the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Soil Conservation Service), that were even then meeting to revise the 1987 wetlands regulatory manual.

Three representatives of each agency explored ways to expand the federal regulatory mandate.

Wetlands Revision

In 1989, the federal government published its revised Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands, which added about 100 million acres of land to the wetlands roster. This doubled the acreage of "jurisdictional wetlands," most of which had little or no connection to waterways of any kind.

The 1987 wetlands manual had required that property manifest a "preponderance" regarding three characteristics: hydrology (the wetness of the soil), the presence of hydric soil, and hyrdophytic vegetation (plants that can grow in standing water).

Land that remained submerged for seven consecutive days during the growing season also qualified, as did land with a water table within the "root zone" (a depth of 12 inches below the surface).

Although the 1989 manual required that all three wetland criteria be met, the Corps applied those criteria in inventive ways. Peggy Reigle of the Fairness to Land Owners Committee (FLOC) notes that the Corps operated upon the presumption that any property meeting any one criterion could support the other wetlands criteria if the land had been left "undisturbed."

The most troublesome revision involved a redefinition of "hydric soils." So expansive was the definition that nearly any bone-dry land that has ever been submerged for a significant time could be classified as "wetlands" because of the presence of "hydric soils." The "root zone" was also arbitrarily extended to a depth of 18 inches below the surface. As a result, scores of American landowners suddenly found their property reclassified as wetlands -- and effectively placed under federal control.

In late 1990, the federal land grabbers signaled the seriousness of their intentions with the covert enactment of the Wetlands Enforcement Initiative. A memorandum sent to all Army Corps regional supervisors on December 12th instructed that administrators should produce "clusters" of high-visibility cases to be announced on the following April 22nd -- Earth Day. The Initiative would inspire compliance through sheer terror. According to the memorandum, it would produce a "first 'wave' of publicity ... to provide an early deterrent to potential violations which might otherwise occur during the 1991 spring and summer construction season ... "Thanks to the influence of then-White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, the anticipated publicity never materialized; however, the enforcement initiative ensnared many landowners who had little or no warning.

This tyrannical presumption is all the more astonishing in view of the fact that the federal government has acknowledged an utter lack of constitutional or statutory authority in the matter. In January 1989, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney General Stephen Markham ordered the preparation of a memorandum dealing with the legal basis for the government's wetlands policy. The memorandum concluded that with regard to wetlands protection, "The [Army] Corps and the EPA appear to have circumvented the Constitution's requirements ... and the federal district and circuit courts have not corrected them."

Thus, with no sound legal basis for its actions, the federal government must maintain its wetlands policy through simple terror. Although there are many large, wealthy interests that could have been selected for prosecution, the federal government has chosen its quarrels with small property owners who lack sufficient means to defend themselves.

In 1989, 22-year-old Mark Groenendyk bought a 284-acre farm in Mahaska County, Iowa. The rundown property is located near the South Skunk River. As Donald Etler, an Iowa consulting engineer who is knowledgeable about land-use matters, points out in the February 1993 Fairness to Land Owners Committee newsletter, "For miles both upstream and down from [Groenendyk's property], the floodplain had been cleared and converted into highly-productive grain farms. With a new settler's spirit, Mark was determined to make his farm as productive as his neighbors'. He wanted to clear his trees to till more land and rebuild and extend his levees."

Groenendyk vetted his plans with the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), which informed him that he was in the clear. The young farmer also consulted with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and was assured that he needed only a floodplain permit to extend a levee on his new property. With these assurances Groenendyk and his father began to upgrade the property.

Visit from the Feds

On October 30, 1989, Groenendyk was visited by representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, who insisted that the farmer had filled wetlands on his property. Shortly thereafter, he received a letter from the Corps ordering him to obtain an after-the-fact permit or face the standard $25,000-a-day fines. Of course, Groenendyk proved to be an attractive target for other regulatory bullies: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service piled on with a charge that the farmer had "impacted" over 100 acres of wetlands.

In September 1990, the Army Corps performed a two-day survey of the property, using the methodology contained in the 1989 wetlands manual. The Corps found that the water table on the property remains at least four feet below ground level. However, using a combination of outlandish speculation and outright dishonesty, the Corps ruled that Groenendyk's property somehow managed to meet the seven-day flooding criteria. This was supposedly illustrated by the presence of hydric soils on the property. As Etler points out, "The possibility that the hydric soils could have been relics of conditions that existed prior to the river channelization [which occurred decades ago] and the fact that there were no wetlands on adjacent cropland, of the same soil type and elevation, were ignored."

Speaking of Groenendyk's case to THE NEW AMERICAN, Etler said that government regulators "went for a deliberate kill; they weren't interested in fairness or in obeying their own rules." This is because the Iowa property was among the first targets of the Wetlands Enforcement Initiative. Etler was in attendance at a meeting in which a Corps official told an Iowa SCS official, "We are going after Groenendyk and we don't want you to buckle. It will hurt our case."

The Iowa SCS was more than willing to cooperate with federal authorities. In a May 1992 appeal hearing before the local SCS office in Iowa, Groenendyk documented the fact that of the 111 recorded floods occurring in the previous 47 years, no normal flood had saturated his property for the required seven consecutive days. Groenendyk's neighbors testified that drainage ditches on his property had been built before he had purchased the land. Evidence collected from 23 monitoring holes that had been drilled on the property proved that the water table was normally four to five feet below ground level. At his own expense, Groenendyk provided in his appeal file the climatological data the SCS was legally obliged to present; he also offered photographs showing his property to be bone-dry during the growing season under normal circumstances. In spite of the evidence, the SCS ruled that 150 acres of Groenendyk's property were "jurisdictional wetlands."

Tangled Evidence

The Army Corps and the SCS have never gotten their stories straight about the Groenendyk property. The Corps insists that the property is wetlands because of periodic river flooding; that conclusion was discounted by the SCS and destroyed by evidence assembled by Groenendyk. However, the SCS suddenly "discovered" an aquifer beneath the property that supposedly saturates the soil periodically, bringing the property within the seven-day flooding criteria. But this possibility was ruled out by the Corps during its September 1990 survey of the land. Thus the two chief enforcement agencies involved in the Groenendyk case offer contradictory descriptions of the facts involved -- yet they both insist that a wetlands violation has been committed!

"This is an incredible situation. No matter how much evidence we produce, they keep throwing things at us, trying to wear us down," Groenendyk commented in a phone interview with THE NEW AMERICAN. "They can keep this running as long as they like; they know they'll always get their paychecks. On the other hand, I've had to put my family's life on hold. I've about paid for my farm twice." With a wife and six-month-old son to provide for, Groenendyk has better things to invest his time and money in than a perpetual battle with the federal government. Most galling to Groenendyk is the fact that he carefully avoided entanglement in government agricultural programs when he set out to obtain his farm, and now he is apparently being punished for his independence:

All along I've tried to do this without government involvement of any kind ... It's like somebody buying his dream house and having the government step in and say, "You can't live here, but you still have to make payments on it and pay the taxes on it." The government has already taken three prime years away from me and my family.

The government may yet take much more from Mark Groenendyk. On March 2, 1992, legal counsel for the Army Corps advised Groenendyk to comply with the Corps directive to "restore" the property or face prosecution and possible incarceration. Last November, Groenendyk's neighbors espied a government car keeping surveillance on the Groenendyk property. The neighbors followed the car into Oskaloosa and were able to identify its two occupants as representatives of the Army Corps and Department of Justice. Writing about Groenendyk's case last fall, Donald Etler noted, "All Mark has to do to back them [the Feds] off is to give the government his farm. Mark has yet to hear from the federal prosecutors, but it will likely be soon."

Seventy-two-year-old Marinus Van Leuzen has already had his day in court. Over a half-century ago, the Dutch expatriate obtained American citizenship and enlisted in the fight against the Axis. In 1989, the decorated WWII veteran found himself once again engaged in a fight against corrupt, tyrannical government -- as represented by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers.

For 35 years, Van Leuzen has lived on Bolivar Peninsula near Galveston, Texas. In 1989 he deeded a portion of his 13-acre coastal plot to his daughter and son-in-law, who planned to build a marina. The younger couple sought and obtained a permit to deposit dredged soil on the Van Leuzen plot. After the couple decided on other plans, Van Leuzen chose to build a house on the property. It was Van Leuzen's understanding that there would be no environmental problems caused by his decision, as construction would involve placing fill on the site that had already been approved -- a site that had been designated an "upland" rather than a "wetland." As Van Leuzen's son-in-law explained in an affidavit, "The permit [which authorized the filling of the tract] was granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ... and was in effect until 31 December 1990. This permit was still in effect when my father-in-law ... started construction of his home."

That construction began in late 1989. According to A.D. Downer, Van Leuzen's attorney, construction on a septic system for the house attracted the attention of an Army Corps official; in short order, Van Leuzen was visited by officials from the Corps and the EPA, who told the property owner that he was destroying wetlands. On September 28, 1990, the EPA filed suit against Van Leuzen for "filling a coastal wetland without a permit"; the action asked for fines of $25,000 a day until the wetlands were "restored." At the time of the EPA lawsuit, Van Leuzen had filled an area of one-third to one-half acre in order to build the foundation for his home.

"This is simply a travesty; they [the EPA and Army Corps] do selective enforcement of wetlands regulations," Downer told THE NEW AMERICAN. "His property is surrounded by projects being built by big developers -- people who have the money and resources to fight city hall. But Marinus is just one old man with his Social Security check and the money he gets from the sale of his motel. He offered a much easier target."

Dare to Challenge

Furthermore, Van Leuzen had angered federal authorities. One rainy afternoon in 1990, Van Leuzen received a visit from two FBI agents and an EPA official. The EPA man wanted to run some tests on Van Leuzen's property, but he had other things in mind, as well. Van Leuzen recalled the event for THE NEW AMERICAN:

The EPA official was a young man, no older than 26 or 28. After he asked to do his tests, he looked at me and asked, "Do you have any guns in your house?" I said, "That's none of your business; run your tests and go away. If you want to know what's in my house, go get a warrant and see for yourself." He didn't like that, and told me that nobody would be allowed to go upstairs [into the house, which was on stilts] without his permission. I told him what he could do with that idea.

Van Leuzen is a veteran, a past president of the local Lions Club, and an upstanding community member who has never had a moment of trouble with the law. His grudging cooperation with environmental authorities was coupled with a refusal to submit meekly to their arrogance and presumption. But his Dutch temper (and American independence) provoked the wrath of the eco-Inquisition, which decided to make an example of Van Leuzen.

On May 31st, U.S. District Judge Sam Kent (a Ronald Reagan appointee) ordered Van Leuzen to "restore" the 18,000 square feet of wetlands he had "disturbed" and to make plans to remove the house that he had built on his own property. The removal of the home is to be financed by a portion of the monthly mortgage Van Leuzen receives from the new owners of his former motel. As per the judge's instructions, Van Leuzen will deposit $350 a month to pay for the removal of the home and complete the wetland "restoration" over the next 12 years. Any residue left in that account will be absorbed by the federal government as a fine.

Totalitarian Touch

As if these aspects of Van Leuzen's punishment were not sufficiently tyrannical, the judge added a genuinely totalitarian touch. Within 30 days of the ruling, Van Leuzen was to erect -- at his own expense -- a billboard-sized sign advertising to the public the fact that he is a convicted eco-criminal sentenced to repair the wetland at his own expense. The April 1st Houston Chronicle notes, "Each month, hundreds of thousands of people who use the ferry linking the peninsula to Galveston will see the sign ..."

The judgment written by Kent is a masterpiece of intellectual vanity and self-satisfaction. The document's opening citations consist of a quote by left-wing novelist Kurt Vonnegut and a passage from Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park. Having carefully laid this legal foundation, Kent execrates Van Leuzen for displaying "an environmental insensitivity that will, if unchecked, inexorably kill all of us." Preening before his mental mirror, carefully striking a heroic pose for posterity, Kent concludes:

The lesson of this case must not be wasted upon anyone. Environmental rape threatens the very life of America, and this court stands vigilant at the only gate to the future, for all of us.

Can a judge who is so intoxicated by a sense of historic mission possibly deliver an objective ruling?

Laments Van Leuzen, "I've never been in trouble, I've paid my taxes and never asked the government. Now I've got this hanging around my neck." The aging citizen's future has been mortgaged to satisfy the vanity of an activist judge and the institutional ambition of the wetlands bureaucracy.

Gaston and Monique Roberge are an elderly couple living in Scarborough, Maine. Gaston is 79 years old and suffers from heart trouble and cancer; Monique has suffered a stroke. Both have lived long, quiet lives of deep religious devotion and civic participation. In December 1964 the couple acquired a property lot in Old Orchard, which they managed in a productive and unobtrusive fashion: The property was intended to be the couple's retirement "nest egg." When the local town decided to build a new community sewer line in 1976, the Roberges agreed to allow the excavated dirt to be deposited on their property.

In 1986, the Roberges entered a contract to sell their lot. A resulting inquiry provoked the attention of the Army Corps of Engineers, which found the quiet, modest couple guilty of "ecocrime." The Corps ordered the Roberges to remove the 3,000 cubic yards of fill dirt from the property, at an estimated cost of $50,000 to $100,000. For five years the Roberges were denied the use of their property and were forced to wrestle with the tyrannical wetlands bureaucracy.

Although the couple was able to obtain a personal audience with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), they were unable to get relief. "Senator Mitchell kept telling me that he would help, but he was just bluffing me," Roberge informed THE NEW AMERICAN. "We got nothing from him, in spite of the fact that we had been very generous contributors to his campaign." In the meantime, expenses were sapping the dwindling resources of the elderly couple. In addition to legal fees, the Roberges were required to pay for the services of an engineering firm that made various studies and surveys of the property.

Answered Prayer

After an extended period of desperate prayer, an acquaintance informed the couple of Peggy Reigle and the Fairness to Land Owners Committee (FLOC). They contacted FLOC and also got valuable help from Bernie Goode, a nationally recognized wetlands expert who had been regulatory chief at the Army Corps of Engineers. Goode made on-site studies of the embattled property and concluded that there was no case against the Roberges. He was also so disgusted by the abuse suffered by the couple that he volunteered his services pro bono and arranged for free legal representation on their behalf.

On October 13, 1992, the Roberges got a terse letter from the Army Corps admitting that the fill had been "grandfathered" -- that is, it had been deposited before the land fell under the Corps' jurisdiction. The next day the property was finally freed. However, by keeping the property tied up for nearly six years (November 1, 1986 to October 14, 1992), the federal government had committed a "taking" by depriving the Roberges of the use and value of their land. Furthermore, the battle had compelled the couple to pay for otherwise unnecessary legal and professional services. Late last year the Roberges filed a lawsuit against the federal government, protesting the uncompensated "taking" of their property.

Because of the collapse of the real estate market, the Roberges lost most of the $440,000 they would have earned from the sale of their property; they also continued to pay taxes on the land following the Army Corps' intrusion. They seek compensation for those losses, as well as interest. Federal representatives are deploying every dilatory tactic in their arsenal, hoping to outlast the elderly couple. It should be noted that the Roberges are not litigious by nature; nothing would have pleased them more than quiet, peaceful anonymity. But they have tangible grievances that must be redressed. If a larger public purpose is served by the suit, that suits Gaston Roberge just fine. "The more the public is informed, the better the chances become that positive changes will come," Gaston states.

Richard and Nancy Delene of Covington, Michigan are lifelong conservationists. In 1981 they purchased approximately 2,400 acres of land bordered by the Sturgeon River on the southeast and Michigan's Big Lake area to the west. It was their intention to build a wildlife preserve on which they could spend their retirement years surrounded by natural beauty.

At the time the Delenes acquired their land it was covered with scrub brush and puny, emaciated trees. Dead tree stumps dotted the land, which was also covered in some places by two to four feet of peat and other debris. After securing the relevant permits, Richard Delene set out to improve the land, using bulldozers, backhoes, and dump trucks. He succeeded in clearing about 26 acres for use as a wildlife habitat.

By June 1990, the EPA had given the state of Michigan full authority over state wetlands covered in the Clean Water Act; at that time Delene applied to the state government for permission to construct an 18-acre pond and a 90-acre pond on his property. The state did not see fit to respond to Delene's application until November 9th, on which date Delene was informed that his request had been denied. By that time, Delene had begun work on his project.

Michigan law stipulates that the state has 90 days to deny permission for a project such as Delene's, else the permission is granted by default. Dominic Andriacchi, Delene's attorney, told Delene that the state's silence constituted a legally binding consent.

On March 27, 1992, Michigan issued a cease and desist order against Delene, claiming that his attempt to build a wildlife preserve had damaged wetlands on his own property. Andriacchi advised Delene that he was legally entitled to proceed with his efforts. On November 25th the state Department of Natural Resources filed an injunction against Delene, ordering him to "restore" the property to its earlier condition and assessing fines of $25,000 each day Delene failed to comply with the order.

According to Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley, Delene is an environmental criminal whose crime must incur high-profile punishment: "It is time people realized that wetlands are protected by law because of their fragile nature. Unlawful activity in one wetland can cause damage to areas miles away, and those damages are usually irreparable."

Model Environmentalist

But while Kelley's office and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have pursued Delene as an eco-criminal, other environmental activists have lauded Delene as a model eco-citizen. In April 1992, the Baraga County Soil and Water Conservation District presented Delene with its "Outstanding Agricultural Cooperator" award, which commends him for his "outstanding accomplishments in the conservation of soil, water and related resources." According to Baraga County official Jim Krenek, "Delene believed in wetlands well before it was fashionable to believe in them ... One thing you can't help but notice is when he's out near [the ponds], he comes alive with enthusiasm. There's a spark."

As part of the effort to defend his property rights, Delene has made a videotape record of the effort to develop his land. Thanks to his diligent, sensitive stewardship, a barren patch of land has been transformed into a site of celestial splendor. Delene has designed his refuge with careful attention to the requirements of biotic diversity. The landscape that was once disfigured by dead stumps and desiccated trees is now adorned with all varieties of indigenous flora. Woodcocks, sandhill cranes, ducks, geese, and various songbirds flock to the property. The waters abound in bass, bluegill, and other fish.

Delene's preserve is a compelling illustration of what can be accomplished by resourceful, dedicated private property owners who seek to preserve natural beauty without the government's interference. Perhaps this helps explain the vindictive nature of the Michigan DNR's pursuit of Delene.

Notes Delene, "Just 24 miles north of my site the state has spent over $2 million of taxpayer money, with limited wildlife benefits, to create what I created with my own funds. They're draining swamps, bulldozing heaps of dead trees. One is not sure whether it's a moonscape or a parking lot under construction." On the other hand, observes Delene, "We've got so many birds, ducks, and geese out there that they [the Michigan DNR] want control of it ... They're just jealous." However, Delene has speculated that more than mere jealousy is at work: "They figure if they can make a fool of me, lots of other people will pay attention to their dictatorial powers."

As of April 1993, the Delene family faced fines in excess of $1.2 million. State representatives have suggested that Delene could mitigate the "damages" he has inflicted upon the environment by deeding a significant portion of his land to the Michigan state government. But Delene has resolved to defend his right to manage his own property in an environmentally sound fashion:

“I feel as the Indians did over a century ago, when the Congress and the United States Army took their land away from them by force. Here the bureaucrats through the EPA and the DNR are going to try to restrict the use of this land through the courts. I did not buy this land and do all this work to have my private property rights taken away ... We still have some private property rights in this country -- I think.”

Richard Delene is not the only genuine conservationist who has broken ranks with the Establishment environmental movement.

Peggy Reigle was once a generous contributor to the Audubon Society and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (a foundation-supported eco-lobby). In 1983 she became exasperated with the greed, ambition, and hypocrisy of establishment environmentalism and appalled by the abuse of small private landowners in the name of environmental "protection." She organized FLOC -- the Fairness to Land Owners Committee -- in Cambridge, Maryland.

From an office in her own home, Reigle coordinates grassroots efforts to defend landowners who have been abused by the eco-leviathan. FLOC presently includes 12,000 members in 45 states; the organization is run without corporate aid in any fashion, financed entirely by small donations from individuals and sustained by Reigle's inexhaustible determination to defend property rights.

A Growing Industry

Ann Corcoran, another Maryland property rights activist, is also a disaffected environmentalist: She is a former Audubon lobbyist who grew weary of the self-enrichment being practiced by career environmentalists. On the June 23, 1992 MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Corcoran explained, "The environmental movement has become an industry in this country ... funded by big oil and big gas and big timber. And they've become a true industry, a multimillion dollar industry in this country."

That industry's dominant player is the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA), which was founded in 1985 as an adjunct of the Rockefeller Family Fund, Inc. According to Trashing the Economy: How Runaway Environmentalism Is Wrecking America (a sourcebook on the Green Network co-written by former Sierra Club official Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb), the EGA is "the cartel of eco-money ... It is the planning, coordination and monitoring center for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of environmental grant money. In its closed meetings, funders discuss their agendas and activist organizations discuss their tactics and together they plan and coordinate most of the movement's programs."

The EGA, according to Arnold and Gottlieb, "resembles nothing so much as John D. Rockefeller's original secret Standard Oil Trust," Through its nearly invisible efforts, the EGA arranges "marriages" between eco-groups and corporate or foundation funding "angels." Among those "angels" can be found Apple Computer, ARCO Foundation, Chevron, and the Ford, Hearst, Kellogg, and various Rockefeller foundations. The organization lists 138 member corporations and foundations and an annual budget of $40 million.

Grassroots Threat

In October 1992, the EGA held its fall retreat at Rosario Resort on Orcas Island off Washington State. One of the addresses presented at that retreat dealt with the "threat" posed to the environmental movement by the landowners' rights uprising.

Debra Callahan of the W. Alton Jones Foundation (the seventh largest foundation "angel" listed by the EGA) reported that the landowners' rights movement is a genuine grassroots rebellion against onerous environmental regulations and property restrictions. Because the movement can document genuine harm being done to real people, it may provoke public outrage at the excesses wrought by the green lobby.

A strategic tactic employed by the EGA is to lump the landowners' rights movement with the "Wise Use" movement, which is primarily a western states' effort to save mining, logging, and oil-drilling jobs on public lands. Callahan told her EGA audience, "It's really a mistake in this nomenclature to refer to this stuff [the landowners' rights movement] as Wise Use. But we do it!" -- that is, they do it because it is easier to target a movement connected to large industry than it is to target one arising out of the trials of small, independent property holders.

Accordingly, Callahan suggested that EGA beneficiaries should smear property rights advocates as "extremists," and that eco-activists should "find ideological divisions" in the property rights movement and exploit them.

Significantly, a 300-page report outlining a strategy to link the private property rights movement to the Wise Use movement and other "extremists" was prepared by the Wilderness Society, which was then under the leadership of George Frampton.

Frampton is now a prominent official in the Interior Department under President Clinton.

It should surprise no one when representatives of establishment environmental lobbies pull their snouts out of the corporate feeding trough long enough to snort slanderous remarks about the property rights movement. John Echeverria, counsel for the Audubon Society, told the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour that the property rights movement receives "financial support ... from the traditional interests that we've been opposing, the timber companies, the mining companies, and so forth ... [It] is being used by major forces in this society -- the oil companies, the timber companies, the mining companies, putting a lot of money into certain elements of the Wise Use movement to use them as a vehicle to carry out their agenda. They have resources that far out-match ours." Nearly every syllable of this accusation is demonstrably untrue; furthermore, nearly every syllable of this accusation demonstrably applies to the groups sustained by the EGA.

True Environmentalists

As Peggy Reigle points out, private property owners are now and have always been the true environmentalists, In a June address to the Maryland Chamber of Commerce -- before an audience heavily seasoned by eco-activists and eco-bureaucrats -- Reigle declared:

We are the people who have conserved and served this great nation. We provide all the materials for you to live in those glass towers and brick office buildings. You want our land because it is a treasure -- because we have been good stewards. You don't know how to tend it but you want it. And you want to regulate us off of it. And we are angry!... [We are] telling the eco-bureaucrats and radical environmentalists, "Back off my land. Start managing the public land as well as I manage mine.

There are indications that public outrage can restrain the ambitions of the land grabbers. Public pressure produced an amendment to the Army Corps' fiscal 1991 appropriation that forbids continued use of the 1989 manual; in January of this year the EPA was forced to abandon use of that manual as well. But the green Gestapo is tenacious and adaptable, and is capably represented in the Clinton Administration.

As head of the Florida Department of Natural Resources, EPA chief Carol Browner zealously pursued "eco-criminals."

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt admitted that he was completely unfamiliar with the Fifth Amendment's "takings clause."

During her confirmation proceedings, Attorney General Janet Reno announced her intention to get tough on "environmental crimes."

Unless they are confronted by informed, motivated opposition from the public, the Clinton Administration's eco-zealots will run rampant, and abuses like those suffered by Mark Groenendyk, Marinus Van Leuzen, the Roberges, and Richard Delene will proliferate.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1993/vo09no16/vo09no16_landgrab.htm

More on Property Rights (at least thirteen articles are archived here):

http://www.thenewamerican.com/focus/property/