West nile has and will continue to inflict harm on even the most strongest. Until you have seen someone with it and some take many years to overcome, you might want to think twice! It is still it it's infancy stage and this man shows great compassion to other human beings along with the creator, so bless him. Once again the federal gov't takes away the way of life of a great people, who literally are disapearing!

Amazing! Ranchers and farmers arehard working and hardy people. Our government might do well to remeber "no farms....No food".

If the land was not swamp (wetlands) before the government sized it, then no wonder the conversion of the Young ranch did not work.

Wetlands, by federal definition, requires the existence of a natural spring or river head as a water source...areas that are wet or have standing water, due to drainage, are not natural swamps, er...wetlands--but that seldom stops an environmentally conscience bureaucrat.

When I lived in Ohio, two departments of the Federal government declared a water-retention basin for run-off from the freeway and nearby on-ramps as a wetlands. . . well, it was large, there were cattails growing and ducks & geese liked it.

It originally was supposed to percolate run off into the soil...but Fed Highway topped the area off with clay--so the water sat stagnate, stinking and breeding mosquitoes.

When the city demanded a rehabilitation & clean up to the original master-plan, actions were delayed 2 years because someone designated it as a historic wetlands. It was pointed out that swamp was the result of failed engineering, not nature--no matter.

3 years, several studies, & millions later, the drainage was redirected. Where once was stagnate water, now sits a fed protected dry wetlands area--the irony.