Last night I went to the monthly meeting of one of the local associations that is supposed to be for all the residents of our river canyon. They are always saying 'we need more members' but they don't really mean it, and they look at all the non-members like 'who the hell are you and what do you want?'

I invited myself to this meeting, though, because the county flood recovery manager was going to be there, as well as the man in charge of the newly-formed river restoration coalition. We need as many landowners along the river as possible to give permission for volunteers to assess our land and make recommendations for how to restore it. Without it, we are on our own to find engineers competent in the relevant areas like hydrology and structures - these two disciplines are not the same. And then we would have to obtain county, state, and federal permits, but they will not issue them to individuals unless all potential downstream impacts are addressed.

When question time came, one woman started talking about how the Bureau of Reclamation should pay to fix the river and for our property losses because their release of water from the dam is what caused all the damage.

She said that unless the coalition was going to press that agenda with the Bureau, she didn’t see how anyone could cooperate with the coalition. And if it didn’t bring the Bureau to task, then it must be a conspiracy to protect the federal government.

Time to bring out the tin foil hats.

While she was ranting on, this other woman at my table said: “She just wants to tell her story. I’ve got a story too, and you don’t see me wasting everyone’s time with it. I almost died up on that mountain that night, too.”

And then there was some nut job guy from Storm Mountain, which is not along the river, but the flood destruction kept them from accessing their property. Everyone just rolled their eyes and started mumbling when that’s where he said he was from. All those elitists from the Association were no doubt thinking 'this is why we don't let just anybody in.'

Later on, I saw this giant knife – like a 10 inch blade Bowie knife – that he left on the table while he went to talk to someone. I asked someone at his table why in the world did he need that at a potluck dinner, and she said 'Maybe to cut the pies.'