Having a long time fascination with certain aspects of the West Coast (one of which happens to be anadromous fish), the political events of the past week, and some of the subsequent reactions to such, have led to some damned entertaining commentary.
The near immediate cries for California, Oregon and Washington secession prompted a friend in Washington state to send this over; he’s a fairly highly placed, appointed official in state government in Olympia we met while living out there a few years back. For what will be obvious reasons he can’t out himself but gave us the green light to post just for the hell of it.
…So here’s the idea several fly fishing buddies and I came up with as we sat drinking beer in downtown Olympia a few days ago watching a flood of the great unwashed beat drums as they marched down the street screaming obscenities and generally raising hell.
California, Oregon and Washington should be given the green light on secession. The near immediate opening of secession discussions, which have been sanctified as quite sober and proper by the media, in all reality aren’t that surprising even if thus far woefully devoid of any hint of economic reality and any sort of a comprehensive view of the complexities of secession. Granted, it’s early in the game, and thinking can be damned hard work.
Hell, Texas has been talking about it since the civil war, apparently has serious working groups studying the issue, and they’ve not been able to pull it off yet.
That said, one of our fly fishing group is an attorney for the state, and reminded us that in Texas v. White (1869) the Supreme Court opined (among many other things) that-
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
Would the rest of the nation, with gracious consent, wave goodbye to the West Coast?
Who the hell knows, given the past week we’d guess the odds ain’t bad that consent might just be granted (though we suspect we’d be asked to pay our fair share of the national debt as has been suggested for Texas).
The new sovereign entity would most likely be COW, comprised of California, Oregon and Washington. There’s some discussion that British Columbia should be included; we see that as a long shot given prior sovereign claims on British Columbia, though there’s some great fishing to be done up there and steelhead and salmon management would be strengthened greatly if BC was included.
Perhaps the most compelling reason to consider enveloping BC would be that COW could adopt the loonie as our national currency; who has time to create a new system of currency when putting a nation together, exchanges are already set up, and it just seems to fit so well (many COW protestors embrace the politics and culture of our neighbors to the north).
COW COULD FINALLY MANAGE STEELHEAD AND SALMON AS THEY SEE FIT. Imagine being freed of pesky federal regulations – all hatcheries could be immediately shuttered, no more battling with the feds about genetics and gene banks, harvest quotas, or EPA studies. Dams on OUR rivers within our boundaries could be taken out pronto. Any uprisings from the gear and fish harvest crowd could be easily quelled by COW’s new security forces (using non-lethal weapons of course).
It’s long been clear that we locals deem our salmon and steelhead insight, expertise, suggestions and plans far superior in terms of managing our fish and fisheries – it’s time to give us our shot and let the magic happen.
COW could declare the Boldt Decision [United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312 (W.D. Wash. 1974), aff’d, 520 F.2d 676 (9th Cir. 1975)] invalid and renegotiate the tribes’ “fair and equitable share of the harvest”, finally addressing one of the heretofore “untouchable quandaries” in our present salmon and steelhead dilemma. Let’s face it, the issue can’t even be honestly and openly addressed in polite and politically correct company these days.
The Boldt Decision was rendered 41 years ago; regional steelhead and salmon stocks have declined almost continuously (save for the bumps in the early 80s) since that time. New, up-to-date data proving decimation of the stocks demands another look at the issue.
Water supply would be an issue, particularly for California. We’re betting Nevada would NOT come along for the ride, making California’s current purchase-lease-theft of Nevada waters a tad more expensive and complicated. And there are a few other Western states with claims on flows in the Colorado as well.
Oregon would probably share their water supply in good water years, though management of the Columbia drainage would involve complex negotiations with the remaining US.
Better yet, working a deal with Mexico to desalinate water out of the Sea of Cortez and run a (yuuuge!) pipeline (gasp!) to SoCal even might be in order; we favor this approach as it would also help combat predicted sea level rises given SoCal’s impressive – and continually growing – fresh water demands. Another benefit: desalinization is pretty danged energy intensive, a state-of-the-art coal burner could be built (at our expense of course) down there to run the plant and pumps, keeping our air clean and saving a few bucks on cap ex and ops along the way.
Of course California in particular would also be forced to continue diverting water from agricultural uses to river flows to support the restoration of fisheries as they continue their/our push to make California steelhead great again. I never imagined writing this sentence, but thankfully with climate change warming the nation, increasing crop yields and the amount of arable acreage, the lost food production currently based in California probably won’t be missed.
COW will have some difficult choices to make in terms of energy production, particularly in light of protecting fish and fisheries. With coal and oil off the table, and limited COW-based NG reserves and infrastructure, our vote would be for nuclear with lithium molten salt reactors; permitting could be streamlined through a model COW government. Public approval might be an issue, but as they say ‘physics is a bitch’ and energy density and cost issues (selling electricity to COW will become very profitable for non-COW energy producers) will come into play.
Thankfully, on the other hand, the most mathematically inclined member of our group (via a back of the napkin calculation) thinks there’s probably enough land mass to put up just enough wind turbines to meet our essential needs on windy days, though it’s going to be a tight fit and our bird population will take a serious hit. Take heart, rolling brownouts or blackouts aren’t that big of a deal when wind generation can’t keep up, and the bulk of the population in COW will live in urban areas with relatively mild temperature extremes mitigating winter heating and summer cooling costs (air conditioning is very bad for the environment anyway and extremely energy consumptive).
We’re meeting again this next week to draft a set of detailed resolutions for the new government to help make West Coast steelhead and salmon great again…
Oh my.
And hell yes, we’d fully support COW for the sake of regional salmon and steelhead.
Git ‘er done.
