Question, farmy. Does the state stock all private lakes or do landowners buy their stocks from private sources?
Summary:
CA is proposing that any private lake that accepts stocks of fish (presumably supplied by the state fish & wildlife) be required to pay $100,000 for environmental impact statements to assess any possible harm to flora and fauna....
I suppose caution is in order when introducing new species (such as Walking Catfish {not really destructive} or Bullseye Snakehead {potentially harmful} or worse, plants such as Kudzu and Fragrant Water Lily) but that ain't what this is about, is it?
It appears that CA is using shock therapy hoping that their real goal or dollar figure will be gladly accepted after the affected interests gratefully accept a compromise.
It's not unlike asking for a megafraud ( Ø1,000,000) settlement when all your lawyer really wants is 21K (Ø21,000 divided by three, a kewl 7Gs for the lawyer who files the nuisance suit-it also allows his "silent partner" the opposing counsel to look good when they bill their client after settling for chump change)
For this pie-in-the-sky figure it would appear that the state wants to (or wants folks to believe that the state wants to) inventory the state's entire biology at the expense of recreational fishers. Of course this could also be a way to increase (or multiply) the cost of a newly introduced "all species freshwater fishing license" and the secret wish of gouging folks, perhaps for Ø100 minimum (instead of Ø6.48 for a Steelhead license for instance or any of the other licenses in the complicated pricing schedule) will be easier for folks to swallow after defeating this nightmarish proposal. And, what better way to justify the demand for blood than to protect the state's critters and plants?
Whatever happens I'll bet right now that any additional revenue goes into the general fund rather than being earmarked for its ostensible purpose of redundant and unnecessary environmental impact statements.
Yup, nothing more than another slam dunk extortion scheme, leveraging the EPA's nanny-state power to rob at gunpoint.
Slam dunk because of all the creeping precedents set by previous generations of bureaucrats...
Anger? as a first reaction to get your a$$ moving, once you see through the Media Matrix and set yourself free from your lifelong mind control collar. Sustainable? not enough to screen your intention to be free from the Talosians, who can’t read primitive emotions but know what you watch on cable/sat, read on the Internet and eat. Our ultimate weapon is laughter and amused detachment at the folly of the would-be emperors. Fear mongers HATE it when the FEAR card doesn’t work. The humiliation of being seen as merely a naked ape is THEIR big fear. Laugh the bastards off the stage! Tell your friends that we can build a real civilization from the ruins of the totalitarian game!