Hypocrisy takes over

If I apply cow manure to my garden, an element of our culture elevates its perception of my food-cultivating endeavors to new heights.

If I let the cow directly apply the same material - admittedly random - back to the earth, that same culture vilifies me. I have also discovered that the indiscriminate bacterial and parasitic leavings of deer, fish, waterfowl and wolves are of little environmental concern of the general public.

Controlled burns on forests or rangelands are now promoted as a natural method to control vegetative accumulations and undesired species. The same fire applied to my grain stubble field, for the same rationale, is considered pollution.

There is a strong movement to decommission hydroelectric generating facilities when our region has become seasonally energy-deficient. One agency will pay for woody materials to be deliberately added back to waterways for fish habitat, and another agency will prohibit timber harvesting and processing from providing the same service.

In the Klamath Basin, we are replacing agricultural production that consumes 24 inches of water with wetland practices that consume 42 inches and call it conservation.

There are involuntary, and uncompensated, reallocations from the most water-efficient reclamation project in the country to meet the controversial and speculative needs of other political subdivisions and we call it "trust."

Every week I receive "feed the hungry" pleas from entities that politically or legally support eradicating my farm, and we call it social responsibility.

Pure manure or recyclable organic mater? Environmental and cultural paradoxes - or simple hypocrisies?

Steve Kandra