A Washington state tribe has launched a “What’s Upstream” campaign to “rally political support for more regulations on agriculture.” The campaign has thus far included anti-agriculture billboards claiming that unregulated agriculture places Washington waterways/salmon at risk.
According to reports, the tribe has funded the campaign with nearly $600,000 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. After the EPA confirmed that the media campaign is an “inappropriate use of EPA funds,” the billboards are coming down.
But, as Washington Policy Center’s Todd Myers points out, the inappropriate use of funds isn’t the only problem with the media campaign. In fact, the picture used to make the point isn’t even in Washington State. The Washington Policy Center:
“The billboard features a photo of three cows standing in a stream, the implication being that farms upstream are violating water quality standards and harming salmon. The billboard claims such activity is ‘unregulated.’”
Of course, the claim that there are no regulations on the books is false. Washington State has “strict regulations on the impact of livestock on water…” Many laws and regulations make it illegal to cause or contribute pollution to streams, including livestock in water.
As Myers points out, that’s probably why the liberal Seattle public relations firm behind the billboards – Strategies 360, which is run by Democrat U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell’s former campaign manager Ron Dotzauer – used a stock photo that isn’t from Washington state.” Rather, the photo used is labeled “Amish Cows” and could be found on the stock photo site Bigstock.
It’s just another example of the far-Left using deceptive (and illegal) tactics to push an extreme agenda that is itself based on false claims. Myers writes that it is “one more example that some Seattle environmentalists are all hat and no cattle.”
You can check out the photo/billboard comparison below:
Photo courtesy of Capitol Press.
The only things that need to be removed from Washington rivers and streams are Indian nets! They chris-cross the rivers with nets and then complain about the lack of fish.
Just for the record, the tribe responsible for the ads was the Swinomish of Skagit County. They collaborated with a couple environmental NGO’s and a leftwing PR firm to mount this attack on Washington agriculture.