Caution! EPA Goon squad at work!

Good day all. With all the news about Der Fubar’s wanting to show he really is manly, and failing miserably as usual, this story sort of slipped under the radar. Apparently, the EPA sent a SWAT team out to do a water inspection on some Alaskan gold miners.

The miners are always getting the water they use tested by the EPA. Normally some flunky tech comes up and just does the tests and unless a problem is found, heads back to the office. Not this time though. According to Fox News, this time they sent in an EPA SWAT team goon squad.

Some miners in Alaska want the feds to start digging for answers.

A task force including members of 10 state and federal law enforcement agencies descended on a gold mine in the tiny town of Chicken (pop. 17) last month, in what locals described as a raid.

“Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say “POLICE” emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms,” gold miner C.R. Hammond told the Alaska Dispatch. “How would you have felt? You would be wondering, ‘My God, what have I done now?”

You exist, You think for yourself, You do real work, and you probably don’t like the Federal Government much.

A spokesman for the federal Environmental Protection Agency did not deny that agents wore body armor and carried guns, but said it was not a “raid.”

Hey moron! You show up with a swat team, you are on a raid, not a trip to the corner doughnut shop. Now read their excuse and get a load of the alphabet soup of agencies involved.

“The ongoing investigation conducted by the AK Environmental Crimes Task Force — consisting of EPA, ADEC, USFWS, ADFG, BLM, Coast Guard, FBI, Alaska State Troopers, NOAA, & US Park Service — did not result in a raid,” the statement read. “The Task Force members involved in the investigation during the week of August 19, 2013, were EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division & Bureau of Land Management’s Office of Law Enforcement & Security, in cooperation with ADEC’s Environmental Crimes Unit.

Now I wonder why the Coast Guard was involved. This took place no where near the ocean. As to all the rest, WTF, OVER?

The investigation was into possible violations of the Clean Water Act, according to the EPA. The officers were part of the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force and visited the outpost near the Canadian border during the third week of August to investigate water discharges into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans.

Needless to say, the state government of Alaska is NOT happy about this.

Late Thursday, Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell announced he had ordered an investigation into the incident, adding, “this level of intrusion and intimidation of Alaskans is absolutely unacceptable.”

This isn’t just unacceptable, its also downright dangerous. Most of these Federal LEO types are not noted for their common sense or their marksmanship. The residents on the other hand, are probably very good shots. One misunderstanding that gets out of hand, and KABOOM!

EPA law enforcement officers, according to the statement, are not only authorized but required to carry firearms to safely and effectively perform their jobs.

First, I don’t see a problem there. In fact, considering that most of Alaska is wilderness and that there are hungry animals out there who might like to make a meal of them, it’s common sense to be armed. However, what the Hell is the EPA doing with any sort of Law Enforcement role in the first place? We have a perfectly good US Marshal Service that can handle arrests if needed.

“This may include the arrest of offenders and the protection of public safety,” the statement continued. “Environmental law enforcement, like other forms of law enforcement, always involves the potential for physical, even armed, confrontation.”

Considering the usual storm trooper tactics of the EPA, people wanting to string them up isn’t at all surprising.

Several local lawmakers, including U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, have inquired about the incident, but EPA officials have thus far “refused to publicly explain” why it utilized the armed officers during the operation, according to the Alaska Dispatch.

The raid, according to one Senate staffer close to the matter, was conducted as such because of information received from the Alaska State Troopers about rampant “drug and human trafficking” in the area, the Alaska Dispatch reports

This “Report” from the Alaska State Troopers doesn’t seem to be passing the smell test.

That purported explanation was seemingly debunked by a spokeswoman for the law enforcement agency who told the newspaper that it did not advise EPA officials to conduct the raid, adding that no evidence exists to believe those crimes are occurring. Calls seeking additional comment from the Alaska State Troopers were not returned early Friday.

“Their explanation — that there are concerns with the area of rampant drug trafficking and human trafficking going on — sounds wholly concocted to me,” Murkowski told the newspaper. “This seems to have been a heavy-handed and heavy-armor approach. Why was it so confrontational? The EPA really didn’t have any good answers for this.”

Gee, the EPA lied. What a surprise! NOT!! This is an organization that is utterly out of control and literally thinks that they are above the law, the constitution and can ignore whatever congress tells them to do.

Meanwhile, across the state in southwest Alaska, EPA officials have been entrenched in an ongoing dialogue with locals regarding the proposed Pebble Mine, which may contain more than $500 billion in gold, copper and other minerals. But environmentalists claim the project near the headwaters of Bristol Bay would decimate the region that produces half of the world’s wild sockeye salmon population.

One of the problems in Alaska is just how much of the state was basically seized by the Federal Government. I don’t have the exact numbers but I think it may be as much as 80% of the land is controlled by the Feds. Alaska is rich in resources, which is why people want to mine it.

What they don’t want to do is destroy the water and land. This is not the 1880’s anymore and people know that it pays to keep the work sites as clean as possible. I really doubt that the miners want to risk destroying half the habitat of the Salmon. Now, what the EPA should be doing is working with the miners to design a system that protects the environment yet allows the miners to get the gold and other things. As you can see, actually working with people and companies to clean up or protect the environment is the last thing they have on their minds. Now, according to the Alaska Dispatch:

Miners in the area are not waiting for the results of the investigation. They have met in Chicken and are demanding a Sept. 14 meeting with the EPA, the state, and the members of the Alaska federal delegation to discuss the task force’s tactics.

“Compliance exams are a normal thing for miners. Usually (Bureau of Land Management) or DEC points out a problem and you correct it. This (the task force’s action) was way over the top and uncalled for. It was a massive show of intimidation,” said David Likins, a gold miner in the Fortymile Mining District.

Welcome to the Obama Tyranny. This raid wasn’t an anomaly, it’s standard operating procedure.

Likins said he believes the aggressive actions of the task force made their investigation much more dangerous for everyone, including the miners and the agents.

“If it were my mine, and I was sitting on some gold, and people came storming out of the woods, I would probably meet them on the porch, with my shotgun,” he said.

And that is almost a guarantee that shooting is going to happen, sooner rather then later. Alaskans are a very independent bunch, especially those that live in the middle of nowhere. They have to be. One of the reasons they live there is to get away from the Gestapo Storm trooper tactics that the Federal Government loves to use. If these clowns keep pushing and threatening people, eventually they will run into a buzzsaw that will make the BATFE raid on the Branch Dividians look like a miner training accident. These aren’t religious types, (Not like the BD’s), and they won’t take being pushed around by the Feds for very long. If push comes to shove, they will take action.

The EPA has been out of control for decades. This is just the most recent abuse that has come to light. This agency is run by hard corp socialist totalitarians who pretty much hate the human race as well as the United States. People have been demanding that Congress reign them in for years, but the current crop of Republicans, with a few exceptions, are nothing more then craven cowards. The Democrats? They want to institute a single party soviet style state. These blatantly unconstitutional agencies are the way they push their agenda on Americans. They need to be stopped and stopped soon. If congress won’t do the job, then it’s up to the states to tell them “ENOUGH!!” Eventually, a governor with the backing of the legislature will shut down the EPA in their state and start the Constitutional Crises we are overdue for. It can’t happen soon enough for me.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~