This mentality is everywhere.

Came across a guy yesterday clearing about 100 yards of Class 2 salmonid stream buffer yesterday. The small stream was an upper trib of the White River. Then he piled up all the slash 5 feet from the edge of the stream and starts burning, the creek was turning grey from the ash that was seeping into it. A few hundred yards below the site I witnessed a pair of wood ducks and numerous smolts in the shallows. Told him to stop work and he began to claim that he didn't know he needed a permit for the work, got back to the office and found out that he has already been turned in many times for clearing violations, he played me, but I knew he wasn't innocent by any means!

BD
_________________________
Bobber Down

"It makes no sense to regulate salmon habitat on land while allowing thousands of yards of gill nets to be stretched across salmon habitat in the water"

John Carlson, Gubernatorial Contender, Sept. 2000 speech at the Ballard Locks