June 15, 2022 |
Wyoming and other western states don’t have the water they need because our forests are broken. That was the message from Carbon County on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Savery rancher Pat O’Toole, in testimony before Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Capitol Hill, rebuffed previous witnesses who said the solution for extreme drought in the west was taking farm and ranch land out of production.
O’Toole, who president of the Family Farm Alliance, said America needs more farmland. And farms need water which forests are not producing like they should.
Pictured above: Screenshot from livestream of testimony from Pat O’Toole, courtesy
Energy GOP/Youtube.
O’Toole told the Senate committee that stretches of the Medicine Bow Routte National Forest where he used to ride horses is so cluttered with dead and fallen trees an elephant can’t walk through now. O’Tool urged the committee to take action that will revitalize forests and build water storage so farming can flourish.
O’Toole said he has heard Washington bureaucrats call for farmland to be taken out of production since the Clinton administration, when he was appointed to a federal water commission.
O’Toole is a cattle and sheep rancher. He also raises hay on rich, irrigated fields that sprawl along both sides of the state line on either side of the Little Snake River. He said farmers must be at the center of all negotiations and decision-making on the Colorado River between upper and lower basin states. O’Toole was invited to testify at the hearing by ranking member, Senator John Barrasso.
