They've written a letter to gov. Kate, imploring her to halt the reciprocal transfer of water rights held by ODFW at Oxbow Spring to the town of Cascade Locks because the town plans to sell a portion of that water to Nestle, which would build a bottling plant there. In exchange, the town transfers groundwater rights to ODFW.
The only use of the spring water, at present, is at ODFW's Oxbow Fish Hatchery, which can operate just fine with groundwater. There has never been any other use of the spring water. Nonetheless, Portland Democratics are mad as hell.
"We're trading high-value spring water for lower-value well water," said Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland. "It's state water we're talking about. It's not Cascade Locks' water. Everybody has an interest in this."
Hey Mikey: Portland and Salem don't use that water; only salmon do, when they're being raised at the hatchery. So really, you and your pals have no interest in this. Democratics just hate jobs; particularly in little towns with unemployment rates of nearly 20% and few Democrat voters.
"We question the merit of transferring Oregon's public water right so a corporation can bottle and sell our water," reads the letter, signed by Dembrow and Reps. Ann Lininger, Barbara Smith Warner, Phil Barnhart, Peter Buckley, Lew Frederick, Ken Helm, Alissa Keny-Guyer and Nancy Nathanson.
"Oregon has declared drought emergencies in five counties. As water becomes increasingly scarce and sought-after in the West, we should not enter lightly into a deal to extract it."
They make it sound as though Nestle would be sucking up every drop of spring water, when in fact it'd be equal to about 1.5% of the spring's output. Do these nuts have a plan to ship water from the springs to the five counties they cite? Of course not. But running around and flapping your hands is good political theater.
It's especially galling when it comes from folks who claim to want to reduce our already miniscule "carbon footprint": Cascade Locks is a short drive from Portland; at present, Nestle trucks bottled water here from Sacramento. If these clowns were serious about that "carbon footprint" nonsense, they'd be all over the Cascade Locks plan. Heck, they'd be offering millions in subsidies, just like they did for SoloPower, ReVolt, and other "green companies" - that went belly-up.
It's not merely that they're hypocrites; they're uninformed hypocrites.
