“It’s simple,” said Moey Newbold, a life-long Bend resident who ran last year’s Stop The Drain campaign. “SWIP was a bad idea a year ago. It is still a bad idea today.”
That was what a press release hot-off-the-presses explained, referring to an injunction filed today (not surprisingly) against the City of Bend.
Central Oregon LandWatch and WaterWatch of Oregon filed a lawsuit today in the Oregon Federal District Court seeking an injunction to prevent the U.S. Forest Service from authorizing the City of Bend to begin construction of a new pipeline that will allow for greatly increased water withdrawals from Tumalo Creek. The project involves the installation of a large new pipeline. Its operation could double the City’s current use of 2 billion gallons of Tumalo Creek water per year to over 4 billion gallons.
Stay tuned for more!
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2013.
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You don’t get a temporary injunction issued because something is a “bad idea.” This is a frivolous lawsuit by ideologues who can’t accept that they’ve already lost. I might not care so much if they weren’t willfully wasting taxpayer money by pointlessly running up the City’s legal fees.
“The motivation of the bullshitter is not to say things that are true or even to say things that are false, but in serving some other purpose.”
This quote aptly describes the way in which the city has conducted itself. From the closed door alternatives review, to conflicts of interest with their consultants to the myriad of half truths, red herrings and outright lies regarding the complex details of the SWIP… the city’s motivation has never been to engage in a legitimate exploration of what is best for Bend. I think most people accept at this point that we’ve been sold a false bill of goods, but are too exhausted from sifting through this torrent of bullshit to care anymore. Whining about legal fees is merely another distraction from the real debate. This project will end up more costly than anyone thought and the flaws in how the city plans to pay the bill will have future city leaders asking some very tough questions. I hope certain individuals on city council and in public works will be around long enough to field those questions.
Nancy Elder, Bend Resident
Everything Nancy Elder says is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the issues in the TRO case. The lawsuit alleges that the FS did not adequately analyze environmental impacts of the project. The lawsuit could not possibly address any of the complaints Elder describes above. So who’s trying to distract from the real debate?
Central Oregon Land Watch and Stop the Drain have lost, but they can’t accept this so they use obstructionist tactics (ironically, just like the Republicans) that delay and greatly increase the cost of the project. Elder’s hypocrisy is evident when she complaints about me “[w]hining about legal fees” and then turns right around and continues complaining that the project will “end up more costly than anyone thought.”Why? Because of sour grapes lawsuits brought by Elder and her ilk that add hundreds of thousands of dollars onto the cost of the project – all paid for by the taxpayers of Bend.
You do not get a veto on everything the City does. You had your say and your side lost. Now please do your part to keep the costs of the project down and stop abusing the legal process because you failed in the democratic process.
Comparing legal fees to the $70,000,000 project cost is not the cleverest argument I’ve heard… and the city was hardly concerned with fiscal responsibility when they spent millions on pipe and construction staging before they even had permits. These 11th hour lawsuits and the costs associated with them can be blamed on the city’s hubris in willfully stifling debate and trying to ram an improperly vetted project down our throats. In my opinion, the real debate is not a singular environmental issue before a federal judge; it’s the doubt cast on SWIP’s merits by the lack of honesty and transparency employed in justifying the project.
When it comes to bullshitting, city officials have achieved ninja status on the SWIP, particularly leading up to the city council’s 1st vote approving the project. How they managed to keep HDR’s reports under wraps until the council voted is beyond me (and trust me, anyone knowledgeable who has read them will agree that the alternatives analysis and financial assumptions are a joke). The reason people didn’t show up to oppose the project years ago is because nobody knew it existed. Yet city officials claim that ‘we had our chance’ to engage in debate and now have no right to oppose the project. This arrogance is reflected in DJ Hurricane’s (sweet name bro!) assertion that citizens don’t have veto power over government – when that’s exactly what we’re supposed to have. I call shenanigans.