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10/15/03
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1. EU Commissioner Charges US Biotech Firms Lied On
GMO's
2. Minnesota Unveils Visionary Conservation Plan
3.
Water Quality in Wyoming Being Rubber-stamped?
4.
Montana's Manure Mess
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1. EU COMMISSIONER CHARGES US
BIOTECH FIRMS LIED ON GMO'S
The row over genetically modified
crops edged up a notch this week when European Union Environment
Commissioner Margot Wallstrom accused US biotech companies of
'trying to lie' and 'force' unsuitable GM technology onto
Europe. Her comments which were carried in a London newspaper
Tuesday, come as Britain's government prepares to publish
long-awaited results of GM crop trials.
"They tried
to lie to people, and they tried to force it upon people,"
the Commissioner told reporters. "So I hope they have
learned a lesson from this, especially when they now try to
argue that this (GMO's) will solve the problems of starvation in
the world and so on. But come on... it was to solve
starvation amongst shareholders, not the developing world,"
Ms. Wallstrom's comments came in advance of the release later
this week of the results of the UK's three-year farm scale
trials of GM crops. Read
more.
2. MINNESOTA UNVEILS VISIONARY CONSERVATION PLAN
Yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tom Pawlenty unveiled a vision of
collaborative conservation between Minnesota and the Federal
Government that would set aside or conserve over 150 square
miles of watersheds in Minnesota.
The plan would extend
the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), which has
been credited with restoring environmental vitality to the
Minnesota River valley, to watersheds in three corners of the
state: the Red River in the northwest, the Mississippi in the
southeast and the Des Moines in the southwest. Most of the
funding, $180 million, for the clean-water initiative would come
from the federal government, but Pawlenty said he will ask the
State Legislature to borrow $46 million over the next three
years to pay the state's share.
CREP money pays farmers
who volunteer for the program to quit tilling acreage near
environmentally sensitive waterways and return it to native
grasses, trees and other conservation practices. The
program is being criticized by the Farm Bureau who claims it
will hurt farmers by raising taxes. Critics of the
Farm Bureau note that the bureau is more likely concerned about
any loss in the sale of insurance premiums. Read
more.
3. WATER QUALITY IN WYOMING BEING RUBBER-
STAMPED?
Throughout the western United States
coal-bed methane production is a booming business. Since
President Bush took office methane production is up almost 40%
and is expected to jump an additional 50% in the next two
decades. This alarming increase has united ranchers,
environmentalists and rural activists who fear water
contamination from the pumping and discharge of coal bed
aquifers. In Wyoming a new legislative task force has released
findings that raise serious questions about the safety of
current practices in that state. It found that the state
Department of Environmental Quality has crippling inefficiencies
resulting in a run- away lack of regulation of water quality.
An 11-member, governor-appointed task force of industry,
landowner and state representatives issued a report Oct.1st
identifying nine specific problem areas saying the current
process is effectively "rubber stamping" permits for
water discharge. It said that, among other problems, the
NPDES (permitting) program suffers from inadequate staffing and
laboratory facilities, poor in-house and interagency
coordination, insufficient public notification and inconsistent
program policies. Read
more.
4. MONTANA'S MANURE MESS
On October 11th, a Montana
District Court judge ruled that the state's method of approving
water permits for feedlots was inadequate and ordered Montana's
environmental officials to conduct a more thorough statewide
study of feedlot pollution.
The judge also ordered that
the state refrain from issuing any more permits until the study
is completed. The ruling came in a case filed by the
Montana Environmental Information Center in Helen and rural
residents who argued that the state had not adequately studied
possible environmental effects of cow feces running into river
and streams.
Now, less than a week after the ruling which
could have shut down all the feedlots in Montana, the State's
Department of Water Quality is saying that a permit is not
needed for the feedlot operation to continue operating.
Tom Reid, head of the state Department of Environmental
Quality's water permit section says that as long as the feedlot
doesn't spill any animal waste into state rivers or streams, it
will satisfy all Montana's environmental laws -- permit or not.
Jeff Barber, a community organizer for the Montana Environmental
Information Center, said that argument that doesn't "hold
water. That is precisely the argument used in court and
the judge found it wrong," Barber said. "They
could not be more wrong." Read
more.
Cultivating a vision where
rural and urban communities join together
to ensure abundant family farms, healthy critters, clean water and
a wild Earth.
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Rural Updates!
Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org
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