Dedicated to preventing the ecological degradation caused by livestock grazing on Arizona's public lands, and exposing the government subsidies that support it.
Arizona voters approved Proposition 200 in 1990 with the belief that it would annually divert up to $20 million of Arizona State Lottery revenue to create and maintain two natural Heritage Funds, one administered by the State Parks Board, the other by the Game & Fish Commission. But since then, the Arizona Legislature has made …
Continue reading “Arizona Legislature Defied Voters To Change The Heritage Fund”
Government agencies have quietly distributed large subsidies that increased livestock grazing on public land in the Desert Southwest during the ongoing long-term megadrought.
Arizona’s Water Quality Improvement Grant (WQIG) program is a part of the bewildering array of government assistance program’s available to the state’s public land ranchers.
Arizona voters passed Proposition 303 in 1998 to fund the Growing Smarter Act with the belief that it would provide $20 million a year for communities and nonprofits to buy state land to preserve it as natural open space. But very few of the voters knew that the Arizona Legislature had secretly included a clause …
Continue reading “Arizona Legislature Diverted Prop. 303 Money To Ranchers”
The Arizona Water Protection Fund (AWPF) was created in 1994 by the Arizona Legislature to protect and enhance the state’s streams and associated riparian habitat. But during the last several years it’s been hijacked for the benefit of ranchers and irrigated agriculture.