The fate of Dave Parrish (the demoted Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional supervisor) somewhat parallels that of Don Quixote when the valorous knight attacked a windmill he mistook for a giant. ...With the support of Sen. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, Rep. Bedke picked up the phone and relayed to the governor's office that he thought Dave Parrish's remarks in his editorial to the Twin Falls Times-News were "inappropriate," came too early in the environmental process and violated Gov. Butch Otter's media policy.

I was disappointed and alarmed that Dave was demoted by the department in a purely political move. Dave and his staff came under heat when the Magic Valley office opposed Cove Springs in Blaine County because of its negative wildlife impacts. In fact, Dave's job was threatened then when the Cove developers complained to the governor and his Fish and Game supervisors. This summer, Dave spoke out about the wildlife impacts of a large proposed wind farm and that brought the hatchet down, despite his having worked on hundreds of projects which were successfully negotiated.

Last month, the Magic Valley's regional Fish and Game supervisor, David Parrish, spoke his mind about how a proposed wind farm might injure wildlife. Parrish got demoted and transferred to Fish and Game's headquarters in Boise. But the real victim is the political independence of Idaho's wildlife agency and its staffers. ...He ran afoul of three Republican lawmakers - Rep. Stephen Hartgen of Twin Falls, who worked as a consultant on the project; Sen. Bert Brackett of Rogerson, whose nephew owns land on which part of the wind farm could be built; and Assistant House Republican Leader Scott Bedke of Oakley -- who complained to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.

Some semblance of the Bush administration's notorious policy of silencing employees from speaking freely seems to have seeped into the personnel rules of Idaho Gov. Butch Otter. One casualty of Otter's speak-no-evil speech restrictions is highly regarded, longtime state Fish and Game Regional Supervisor Dave Parrish, who was demoted and transferred from Twin Falls to Boise after writing a letter to the editor of the Twin Falls Times-News criticizing the impact on wildlife of a proposed wind-power generating farm in the Magic Valley.

43 wind turbins on a mountainside are by definition a scarring of Idaho's natural beauty, and one would think that before such a facility would be approved it would be brought before the public.