AHRI opt out kit

American Heritage Rivers-opt out kit
Attention property rights activists and landowners:

Enclosed you will find tools to help you try to to exclude your land or community from the American Heritage Rivers Initiative.

The first order of business is to get your member of Congress to exclude your Congressional district or the state in which you live from the Initiative. To do this contact them and show them the following this quotes by Katie McGinty, Chair, Council of Environmental Quality (the federal agency that is spearheading the Initiative), at a hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives Resources Committee on September 24, 1997.

"The member of Congress certainly is afforded in this program, a veto right in terms of the existence or the participation in this program."

"It's a veto authority that any member of Congress would retain throughout the existence of the program."

"A Senator will have the right to exercise that veto as well as the member of Congress in whose district this river, or stretch of river, might run."

Have your member of Congress send a letter to Katie McGinty informing her that their district and/or state will not be part of the AHRI. Try to get as many members of Congress from your state to sign this letter.

The second thing you should do (even if you are able to get a member or members to exempt their district or state) is use the enclosed letters (found at the end of this document) to strengthen your case for why your area should be excluded from the American Heritage Rivers Initiative.

The proponents of the American Heritage Rivers Initiative state that a key part of the nominations for designation as an American Heritage River will be a demonstration of "broad-based support". The purpose of these letters is to show the opposite; that there is widespread opposition to this initiative.

The people submitting nominations for inclusion in this initiative will designate themselves as the "River Community" and will be the entity through which the federal government will deal in order to implement the designation.

The key, then, is for you to call yourselves Representatives of the River Community and steal the thunder of this initiative's proponents by submitting your demand to be excluded. But, the key is to do this before they are able to do so. In order to accomplish this the following steps (and any others you can think of) need to be followed.

1) Designate one person to be the leader of the effort to exclude your area. This person will be responsible for gathering all the letters of exclusion and for being the spokesperson for the nomination of exclusion.

2) Get as many elected officials and property owners (both organizations and individuals) to sign these letters as you can. Time is short (the feds must receive all of this by 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, December 10).

3) Include a map of the area to be excluded from the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. Shade, color or otherwise demarcate the areas to be excluded from the initiative.

4) Write a cover letter (1-3 pages) for the Application for Exclusion stating what the specific concerns are of the people included in the application and copy the application to all the appropriate public officials (federal, state and municipal). In the cover letter stress that the American Heritage Rivers Initiative is supposed to 100% voluntary and so you are volunteering your area out of the initiative.

5) Hold an event (press conference or some kind of gathering) at which the Application for Exclusion is made public. Distribute the Application to as many people in the media as possible (we can help with regional media if need be )as possible. Getting the media to pick-up on your application is vitally important. As mentioned, the whole point of the Application for Exclusion is to pre-empt the advocates of the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. If you can do this then you will force them to react to you.

6) Send the Application for Exclusion by certified mail return receipt requested (if you don't, the feds will probably say they never received it, and it must be received by 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, December 10) to:

American Heritage Rivers

Executive Office of the President

Old Executive Office Building, Room 360

Washington, D.C. 20502

7) Even if a river in your area is officially nominated, do not give up. Continue working on your members of Congress and gather signatures for the enclosed letters. The key to your efforts will be to undermine the proponents of this program by showing there is not broad-based public support but that there is broad-based public opposition to it.

8) Send a copy of your application to (this needs to be done so we can keep track of who has done what):
Liberty Matters, P.O. Box 1207, Taylor, TX 76574, FAX 512-352-3030 E-Mail:libertym@libertymatters.org

9) Send copies of your application of exclusion to your senators and congressman

Trying to get your area excluded from the American Heritage Rivers Initiative can be a lot of fun. You can make the advocates of this Initiative look silly trying to explain how they are really the "River Community", not you. But if you get out in front with your demand to be excluded and call yourselves Representatives of the River Community then the advocates of this initiative will be forced to play defense and you can play offense. The key to all of this is to get out in front and draw as much attention to yourselves as possible.
If you have any questions contact David Howard at; (518) 725-1090: or Chuck Cushman, with the American Land Rights Association, at; (360) 687-3087.

Nominations are expected for, but not limited to, the following list as American Heritage Rivers

1. Willamette River - Oregon
2. Yellowstone River - Montana, Wyoming
3. French Broad River - western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee
4. Rio Grande River - Texas
5. Mississippi River - Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana
6. Hudson River - New York
7. Connecticut River - Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut
8. St. Johns River - Florida
9. James River - Virginia
10. Tennessee River - Tennessee
11. Potomac River - West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia
12. Columbia River - Oregon, Washington
13. South Platte River -
14. Illinois River - Illinois
15. Penobscot River - Maine
16. Ohio River (including its headwaters - Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers) - PAennsylvania, WVest Virginia, NYew York, OHhio, KYKentucky, ILllinois
17. Lehigh and Delaware Rivers - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware
18. Youghiogheny - Casselman watersheds - Pennsylvania
19. Kiski - Conemaugh watersheds - Pennsylvania
20. Susquehanna River - Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland,
21. Schuylkill River - Pennsylvania
22. Blackstone and Woonasquaqtucket Rivers - Massachusetts and Rhode Island
23. Loxahatchee River - Florida
24. Chattooga River - Tennessee
25. Neponset River - Massachusetts
26. Trinity River - Texas
27. Chicago River - Illinois
28. Passaic River - New Jersey
29. Raritan River - New Jersey
30. Niagara River - New York
31. Buffalo River - New York
32. St. Lucie River - Florida
33. Fore River - ??
34. Los Angeles River - California
35. Mystic River - Massachusetts
36. Chattahoochee River - Georgia, Alabama, Florida
37. Kankakee River - Illinois
38. Anacostia River - District of Columbia, Maryland
39. Arkansas River -
40. AuSable River - Michigan
41. Cahaba River - Alabama
42. Cape Fear River - North Carolina
43. Chenalis River - Washington
44. San Luis Valley - Colorado
45. Clark Fork-Pend Oreille - Montana
46. Colorado River - Colorado, Utah, Arizona, California
47. Vermillion River - Illinois
48. Coosa River - Georgia
49. Farmington River - Massachusetts, Connecticut
50. Arnold Creek - Oregon
51. Cowlitz River - Washington
52. Detroit River - Michigan
53. Green River - Washington
54. Kennebec River - Maine
55. Locust Fork River - Alabama
56. Nanticoke River - Maryland
57. Russian River - California
58. Roanoke River - Virginia
59. Santa Cruz River - Arizona
60. St. Joe River - Michigan
61. White River - Indiana
62. Housatonic River - Connecticut
63. Little Tennessee River - North Carolina
64. McKenzie River - Oregon
65. Merrimack River - Massachusetts, New Hampshire
66. Nashua River - New Hampshire, (MA?)
67. Ouachita River - Arkansas, Oklahoma
68. San Jacinto River - Texas
69. Saugus River - Massachusetts
70. Barton Creek - Texas
71. Smith River - California
72. South Yuba River - California
73. Sudbury-Assabet-Concord Rivers - Massachusetts
74. Susquehanna River - Pennsylvania
75. Thames River - Connecticut
76. Toiyabe River - Nevada
77. Tuolumne River - California
78. Kenai River - Alaska
79. Ashtabula River - Ohio

Resolution by Elected Officials for:

Exclusion from the American Heritage Rivers Initiative

On behalf of __________ (County, Parish), _______________ (State), we the undersigned, as duly elected officials and representatives of the community, do hereby request that our community be excluded from any area designated as an American Heritage River. The application for designation as an American Heritage Rivers requires that a "river community" designate itself for the purposes of this Initiative. As such, we the undersigned, affirm our Constitutional role as the local, legal authority(ies) authorized to represent this river community. We, the representatives of the river community, thereby request that all lands that fall within the jurisdiction of one or more of the undersigned not be designated, or be part of a designation, as an American Heritage River.

We oppose the intervention of the federal government, agencies and employees into matters of zoning, planning, and land and water use. These matters are best resolved at the state and local levels.
We will not submit nor support any petition for federal designation of a river, watershed or portion of a river within our community, and within the boundaries of our jurisdiction, under the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. Any person or persons submitting a petition to the federal, state or local government to designate a river, a portion of a river, or a watershed as an American Heritage River that falls within the lands under our jurisdiction does so without our approval or consent as the elected representatives of the river community.
Now, therefore, be it resolved on this the _____ day of __________, 1997, that this resolution shall be executed, made public and delivered to the White House Council on Environmental Quality in Washington, DC.

Signed:

Resolution by Property Owners for:

Exclusion from the American Heritage Rivers Initiative

We the undersigned, as citizens and representatives of ________ (County, Parish), _______ (State), do hereby request that the property owned either by us or by the members - which includes both property totally in private ownership, rights property, as well as to public lands and resources - of our organization(s) be excluded from any area designated as an American Heritage River.

The application for designation as an American Heritage Rivers requires that a "river community" designate itself for the purposes of this Initiative. As such, we the undersigned are representatives of the river community. We, the citizens of the river community, thereby request that all lands that fall within the jurisdiction of one or more of the undersigned not be designated, or be part of a designation, as an American Heritage River.

Now, therefore, be it resolved on this the _____ day of __________, 1997, that this resolution shall be executed, made public and delivered to the White House Council on Environmental Quality in Washington, DC.

Signed:
_____________ ______________
(name/organization) (date)