Libertarian Party - the other "L" word.

[Inquartata]

Water is a valuable commodity out West. If you can't collect and store it, you can't provide it. Agriculture and business can't use it. Production suffers. Costly all around, and not really avoidable through diplomacy...

[jeff]

That's basic. And a solution that provides both the water storage and takes care of the birds is a successful solution. Diplomacy could have smoothed the path to it. Unlike the conflicts over the Colorado River (many lawsuits) or the Rio Grande (ditto) or any other large body of water in the West, this was not a zero sum game where the result was to give the water to either one party or the other

[Inquartata]

Wasn't it? How do we know?

Either way it was going to increase costs to the utility, and thence to its customers, no? I can't see how that's a win for them in any sense of the word.

And it's not as though the birds only nested around that one reservoir, or even in that one state. Sometimes the government's definition of "endangered" can be as wacky as its definition of what is a "wetland".

[Soldier]

Kind of like the "endangered" Preble's Jumping Mouse that breeds (and gets killed) by the hundreds in our dorms...

[jeff]

Wasn't it? How do we know?

Either way it was going to increase costs to the utility, and thence to its customers, no? I can't see how that's a win for them in any sense of the word.

And it's not as though the birds only nested around that one reservoir, or even in that one state. Sometimes the government's definition of "endangered" can be as wacky as its definition of what is a "wetland".

Well, we would know if you provided us more information (status of the bird, description of the land &etc) about this example, after all, you're the one provided it. Environmental impact needn't be that expensive (building stilt platforms?) and _obviousl_ a watershed fits nicely into the definition of a "wetland". It would be wacky to suggest otherwise.