Patrick Mazza May 1982 RAIN Page 19 should stick it to the bondholders, do you ?' I said, 'How many bondholders do you represent? How many bondholders live in your county? I think it depends on who you represent.' More and more people are beginning to make statements, so it's going to become clearer and clearer exactly who they represent. The kind of thing that's happening in Grays Harbor is indicative of what's going to happen around the state. There's going to be a real clear line drawn. That is, that the bondholders can eat it and we'll do our best to find any way out of this thing." On the other side of the Cascades, in the dryland wheat farming country west of Spokane, the feeling of popular revolt is the same, as is the basic issue, the economically-damaging impacts of large power plants. But the focus is different. Here, the concern is that pollution and acid rain created by a proposed coal-fire power plant would reduce wheat crop yields 10-15 percent, an assertion backed by scientific studies from Montana and West Germany. For farmers, that "would hurt to beat hell," says Ed Gray, a Rearden wheat rancher. "Basically, we're growing right at the cost of production. Anything that decreases our yield is going to mean a loss, and we can only stand a loss maybe three years in a row. If the plant goes in, it's not three years in a row, but from then on. So I can't see anything to do but fight the thing now." Proposed by Washington Water Power, a Spokane-based private utility, the plant would be a giant. Located amid wheat fields near, the small Lincoln County community of Creston, it would have a production capacity of 2,280 megawatts and use up to eight million tons of coal a year. The expected consumption is about 300 railcar loads each day. The resulting pollution would include large quantities of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. To Orlin Reinbold, another plant opponent, that Would mean the end of wheat farming in Lincoln County, reputedly the nation's second largest wheat growing area. "You aren't going to be a wheat producing area anymore," Reinbold says. "You're going to lose the greatest food chain in the State of Washington. It's going to be all over with. People have got to wake up and beat the drums." Reinbold was one of the early drum beaters. He and a group of fellow Lincoln County farmers several months ago formed Blue Sky Advocates, a coalition to raise funds for what is expected to be a very long legal battle. In addition, about 1,700 members of the farm community have signed petitions against the plant. There is a measure of irony in all this. Eastern Washington farmers are not known as environmental types. In fact, if you sit with them in them in the small cafes where they gather most mornings for coffee,you have a good chance of hearing about the latest damn- foolery of "the invarnmentlists." On issues like chemical spraying and expansion of irrigation, the farmers generally find themselves in conflict with "the birdwatchers from Seattle." But loss of crop productivity and farm income is serious business in Lincoln County. So the farmers have made their alliances with whomever they can, including major, Seattle-based environmental groups. About this, says Blue Sky founding member Anthony Appel, "Adversity makes strange bedfellows. We're suddenly seeing farmers united with Sierra Clubbers. I guess that isn't all bad." The issue with the farmers is not just economic or environmental. It is a matter of local control. It rankles them to see decisions so important to their livelihoods being made by institutions in which they have no voice. "We should have a vote on whether we want this plant here or not," Harrington wheat farmer John Adams says. "We should have a say over our future. Washington Water Power shouldn't decide our future for us." Construction of the plant could mean a 50 percent increase in Lincoln County population. Says Adams, "We feel we'll lose our power to control the circumstances in our area." The farmers have even had difficulty making themselves heard before public bodies. Because they entered the process relatively late, they have had trouble getting legal standing before the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, the group that must approve major power plants. "We are quite concerned they are not listening to us," Appel said. "We keep getting indications nobody is listening at all." That's not how it's supposed to work in a democracy. The farmers of Lincoln County know that, as do the working people of Grays Harbor County. There is a feeling things have gone out of control, and that now is the time to do something about it. In all this, one sees old ghosts rising from the ashes, ghosts of agrarian populism and working class activism taking physical form, returning from their long absence to haunt their old enemies: banks, utilities and undemocratic institutions in general. In the vast economic expansion of the post-World War II era, the average American seemed content to let things rest. In these new times, these times of unemployment and desperately tight family budgets, that is changing. Assertive democracy, asleep for so long, is being shaken awake by the harsh demands of a hard time. In that awakening, in that change, the seeds of a new popular movement are present. Their blossoming could change the political face of this country in this decade, and prove that democracy is still the central and driving force of the American experience. □ □ "Adversity makes strange bedfellows. We're suddenly seeing farmers united with Sierra Clubbers." Unbearable Rates Create Ire
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