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Residents of Little Flat Creek, DNR Officials Square Off
August 22, 2008
Joplin Globe
By Wally Kennedy
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. It was a night of trading figurative punches.
Residents in the of Little Flat Creek in Barry County were in no mood Thursday night to listen to the positions of representatives of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in connection with the department's handling of a proposal to exempt a stretch of the stream from bacterial regulation because it is shallow.
Conversely, a representative of the department, Rob Morrison, with the water-protection program, was in no mood to hear pointed questions from Little Flat Creek property-owners who said they could not understand why the department would even consider such an exemption.
At one point during the meeting at the DNR's regional office in Springfield, voices were raised, fingers were pointed and accusations were made.
Morrison accused Tracie Snodgrass, who lives along the creek, of being "disrespectful and mocking" to a department employee, John Hoke, who is overseeing the department's program to exempt approximately 90 streams in the state from bacteria regulation. Final consideration on the plan most likely will be made before the year is out, but no decision is imminent.
When Snodgrass asked Hoke to explain comments he had made, Morrison said he would not tolerate treatment of a DNR employee in that fashion. But some who attended the meeting came to her defense. They said Snodgrass was "talked down to" by Morrison in a disrespectful manner for seeking answers to questions the department did not want to answer for fear of looking incompetent.
Others among the 15 or so people who attended the meeting then jumped in to accuse the department of doing nothing to rein in the water-pollution threat posed by confined-animal-feeding operations (CAFOs), noting that Barry County has more CAFOs than virtually any county in the state.
Morrison defended the operators of the CAFOs, saying those with complaints about individual operators should report them to the regional office in Springfield. Some residents of Barton County, where hog CAFOs are expanding, said they had filed complaints but had not received any response to those complaints from the regional office.
One Barton County resident, Darvin Bentlage, accused the department of collusion by protecting a CAFO operator from enforcement action for violating water-quality rules. He said he filed a complaint against a CAFO operator for an illegal discharge from a waste-water lagoon. Shortly after filing the complaint, an employee of the CAFO stopped the discharge and tilled the soil around the lagoon to hide the evidence of the activity. There was no enforcement action, he said.
Morrison said that workers in the regional office in Springfield would not do such a thing. Bentlage said he had taken photographs of the lagoon discharge and the tilled soil. He said the evidence speaks for itself.
The department was criticized for its handling of the notification of residents along Little Flat Creek. Snodgrass and others said they would not have known anything about the department's plan to delist a two-mile stretch of the creek from bacterial protection had she not received a letter from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, based in St. Louis.
Residents said the DNR, in its survey of Little Flat Creek, relied almost exclusively on stream depth to determine whether the stream can support swimming and other recreation. If the stream isn't deep enough at the sites sampled, the state assumes a person can't swim in the stream and exempts it from protections normally required for swimming and other whole body contact recreation.
"Nobody with the department ever contacted us," Snodgrass said. "No interviews with property owners were conducted. If you don't do that, how do you know how we use that stream?"
Hoke said he did not know why property owners along the creek were not contacted. He said the department has learned lessons from this project and that in the future it will do a better job of notification.
The DNR program does not require the stream surveyor to contact or interview local residents about their use of the stream.
Others at the meeting questioned the purpose of the program. Morrison said the Missouri Clean Water Commission did "not want to go overboard on protection." The department has said that most of the streams are so small they do not flow in the summer, and if they are not used for swimming and other full-body-contact recreation, then it might be a waste of resources to regulate them with regard to bacteria.
Jim Riedel, a resident of Eagle Rock where the DNR has permitted a large chicken CAFO along Roaring River, said the condition of Missouri's streams and rivers are not improving, but are in a state of decline. He questioned why the department would take steps that he views as encouraging that decline.
"Why are we even talking about declassifying?" he asked.
Others said the DNR, instead, should "grow a spine and crack down on these polluters before we lose our rivers and lakes." One person suggested a statewide moratorium on the construction of new CAFOs, alleging that the DNR cannot regulate those in place now.
The meeting, which lasted more than two hours, is one of six across the state that were organized by the DNR in response to what it said was "misinformation" about the purpose of the bacterial exemptions. The DNR has extended the comment deadline on the stream issue to Aug. 31, officials said.
CAFOs a Drain on Economy
August 9, 2008
Joplin Globe
By Ken Midkiff, guest columnist
Several state governors -- including our own -- promote concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) as a rural economic development tool. But are they?
I set out to find an answer to a simple question. That simple question is: Are CAFOs economically beneficial?
The answer, I learned, is equally simple: No.
Realizing that I am entering an area that has traditionally been the stomping grounds of rural economists, I relied heavily on the studies of Bill Weida of Colorado College and John Ikerd of the University of Missouri. Both are rural economists and both are retired. Retirement has certain benefits. For one thing, it frees retirees from the dictates of the hierarchy at whatever institution employed them. The second benefit is that the retiree is freed up to work on the issues deemed important.
Both Weida and Ikerd have studied rural development and both have concluded that CAFOs do more harm than good to the rural economy.
For indicators, they cite:
- The increase in rural crime (burglaries, driveby shootings, drug deals).
- The decrease in property values on lands near CAFOs.
- The necessity (and increased cost) for local school districts to teach English as a Second Language.
- The necessity for local "C-Stores" to hire bilingual clerks.
- The closure of local retail outlets.
- That local banks and savings and loan institutions are purchased by larger entities or close altogether.
- That independent farmers go out of hog-rearing, dairy or chicken operations (and this has a ?domino? effect).
- The amount of direct and indirect subsidies to CAFOs.
- The few local workers hired by CAFOs.
- The growing numbers of documented and undocumented immigrants as the work force.
- The burden on the local community to provide social services for a foreign population.
Any one of these indicators would be problematic, but when all of them are added together, it becomes readily apparent that CAFOs are an economic disaster for rural communities.
No doubt, a few on the boards of Tysons, Smithfield, and Seaboard benefit. No doubt, that CEOs of ConAgra and Cargill do well. But the folks on corporate agribusiness boards and the CEOs don't live in rural communities. Indeed, Joe Luter, the CEO of Smithfield -- a self-described "family farmer" -- lives in a condo on Park Avenue in New York City.
So, while a few of the already-rich get richer, rural communities get poorer. While a few bigwigs vacation for months in Bermuda or a tropical island in the Pacific, rural residents can hardly afford to take a vacation at all.
Economic benefit? No. Economic development? No.
If this is, as some say, "the future of agriculture," rural residents had better hang onto their pocketbooks and hope that the invasion of the CAFOs goes away.
So what are the governors thinking in promoting CAFOs as a way to benefit rural communities? While my first impulse is to state "They aren't thinking," the adage of "follow the money" applies. Take a look at which business organizations bankroll gubernatorial campaigns. Take a look at the donations flowing in from advocacy groups such as the Farm Bureau, the Pork Producers Association, the Poultry Federation, or the American Dairy Federation.
Who are the governors listening to? Those with the most money for them.
Ken Midkiff is a spokesman for the Sierra Club.
Missouri Wind Energy Public Forum #2 Video Available
August 8, 2008
Missouri Department of Natural Resources' Energy Center
Due to technical difficulties, many people were unable to access the live videoconference of this event on August 6. Below is how to access the archived version of the August 6th videoconference:
Downloadable file:
Open a web browser or Windows Media Player and copy this link into the Address line(browser) or select File\Open URL(Windows Media Player) http://150.199.24.201/WMSDownloads/dnr/windenergy080608.wmv
Select File\Save As and it will save this to your desktop. Note, as the file is 750 MB it will take quite a while to download, even if you have high-speed internet access.
Archive link in video streaming mode:
Open a web browser or Windows Media Player and copy this link into the Address line(browser) or select File\Open URL(Windows Media Player) mms:\\streaming.more.net\DNRArchive\WindEnergy080608.wmv
Please note that the links provided above are just the video content. To simultaneously view the presentation files, make sure you've already downloaded the PDF version of the presentation files provided by the three presenters. Below are links to their presentations:
- Presenter #1 - Kemker - http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/renewables/wind-power-kemker2008-0806.pdf (0.2 MB)
- Presenter #2 - Flowers - http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/renewables/wind-flowers-economics20080806.pdf (4.2 MB)
- Presenter #3 - Waltemath - http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/renewables/windfarm-mikew2008-0806.pdf (1 MB)
For step-by-step instructions on how to simultaneously view the video and the presentation files, go to:
http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/renewables/windforums-videostream.htm
MIT Discovery to Unleash Solar Revolution
July 31, 2008
MIT News Office
By Anne Trafton
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.
Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."
Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.
The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.
Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.
The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.
'Giant leap' for clean energy
Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.
James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.
"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."
'Just the beginning'
Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.
More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.
"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."
Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.
The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."
The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.
Green-Energy Mandate Could Be On Ballot
July 20, 2008
Joplin Globe
By Andy Ostmeyer
Missouri voters can expect to decide in November if the state's investor-owned utilities should be required to generate or purchase electricity from wind, solar, biomass or small hydro equal to at least 2 percent of their retail sales by 2011. If passed, the requirement ratchets up to 15 percent by 2021, with at least 2 percent of that coming from solar energy. The proposal also limits the rate impact to 1 percent per year.
More than half of all states now have the so-called Renewable Portfolio Standards, which require utilities to get a certain percentage of their power from renewable sources. Some states have had the mandates in place for more than a decade.
But Southwest Missouri residents will escape the impact of the initiative petition that would require investor-owned utilities in the state to boost their use of green power. That's because Empire District Electric Co. already is on its way to meeting the top requirement outlined in the mandate and also was recently exempted from the one piece of the proposal that Empire officials said could have pushed up costs for ratepayers in the area. Empire is the only investor-owned utility in Southwest Missouri. Other area residents are served by cooperatives or municipal power providers, which will not be bound by the mandates.
The push for renewables is being led by Missourians for Cleaner Cheaper Energy, which in May turned in about 170,000 signatures -- 90,000 were needed -- for the Clean Energy Initiative to the Missouri Secretary of State's office. That office is verifying signatures, but that isn't expected to be a stumbling block, said Warren Wood, executive director of the Missouri Energy Development Association, which represents investor-owned utilities in Missouri.
"We think there is a good chance it will go on the ballot and the polling data we've seen indicates support for it if it gets on the ballot this fall," Wood said.
While MEDA is "neutral" on the initiative, Wood said there are concerns. Missouri electric rates are the seventh lowest in the nation, and a requirement from voters that utilities develop more green power could push up costs, even if it is capped at 1 percent per year.
Already there
Still, Wood noted that Empire customers will be spared.
"For Empire, based on where they are right now, I don't see any impact," he said.
Empire already has a 20-year contract for energy produced by the Elk River Wind Farm near Beaumont, Kan., and has been purchasing it from that site for nearly three years. That wind farm has the ability to generate about 150 megawatts, or enough electricity to meet the annual needs of about 42,000 homes.
The Elk River Wind Farm can provide about 8 percent of Empire's needs, although the benefits of the wind are currently resold on the open market as green credits, said Brad Beecher, Empire vice president and chief operating officer for electric services. The credits are sold to utilities in other states that may already have renewable requirements, with the money used to keep rates lower for Empire customers, Beecher said, explaining: "It is a reduction in costs."
That renewable benefit can be brought online incrementally for all Empire's customers as the renewable standard creeps up each year and those costs already are built into the existing rates.
And last summer, Empire announced a 20-year agreement to purchase power from the Meridian Way Wind Farm near Concordia, Kan. Empire said that will generate about 105 megawatts annually for its customers, or enough electricity for 25,000 homes. That wind farm is under construction.
Combined, the two wind farms will be able to provide about 15 percent of Empire's power as early as 2009.
"We were first in getting into wind energy big," said Beecher.
Empire exemption
Last week, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed Senate Bill 1181 creating the "Show-Me Green Tax Holiday," making certain energy-efficient appliances exempt from sales taxes on certain days.
That legislation also contained a provision put in at the behest of state Reps. Bryan Stevenson, R-Webb City, and Ed Emery, R-Lamar, Beecher said. It states that any electric company that achieves renewable-energy use equal to or greater than 15 percent by Jan. 20, 2009, "shall be exempt from a requirement to pay an incentive to any customer who installs a solar-energy system and shall also be exempt from meeting mandated solar renewable energy requirements."
Empire is the only utility in Missouri that fits that exemption, and worked with local legislators to get that provision in the law ahead of the initiative.
"We're not going to be shoved into solar if it doesn't make sense," Beecher said. "Right now, it is more expensive. ... We could meet it but it would add cost."
Beecher said he supports the goal of 15 percent and thinks it is attainable, but he doesn?t want to see utilities tied down to specific mandates -- like the 2 percent for solar -- if there is a better alternative.
"Right now, your main option to meet this is wind," he said.
Nor does Beecher like the idea that only investor-owned utilities are being held to the proposed standards, but not municipal power companies, such as those serving the communities of Carthage, Monett and Springfield, for example. Cooperatives also are not included.
"If it is good for Missouri, it ought to apply to all," Beecher said.
Carve-outs
Asked why cooperatives are excluded, Erin Noble, energy policy and outreach coordinator for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, said: "There would have been some big opposition."
While cooperatives in Missouri have not opposed the petition, Noble noted that groups representing cooperatives have opposed any federal mandate for renewable standards.
P.J. Wilson, treasurer for Missourians for Cleaner Cheaper Energy and executive director of Renew Missouri, which crafted the petition language and initiated the volunteer signature drive, said the Missouri initiative is based on Colorado's, which initially excluded cooperatives, although they were added later. Of the 26 states with renewable standards, half exclude municipal power providers and nine exclude cooperatives.
Wilson said the proposal in Missouri is "feasible and noncontroversial. ... That policy, the way it is crafted, is the best policy in Missouri right now."
He also noted that investor-owned utilities serve the bulk of the state, providing between 70 and 75 percent of Missourians with power.
As for the solar requirement, Wilson and Noble said the inclusion is not extreme. Investor-owned utilities would need 2 percent of their power to come from renewable sources in 2011 and 2 percent of that would be from solar, or a total of .004 percent. Twelve states have solar "carve-outs" with some as high as 4 percent, they said.
Noble said the petition also includes a requirement that utilities offer a $2-per-watt solar rebate to help homeowners and small business lower the cost of installing their own solar systems.
Mandating solar also creates a market for it, said Wilson. "We still need policies that make solar cheaper."
Asked about the exemption for solar that was built into Missouri legislation for Empire, Wilson first praised Empire for its aggressive pursuit of wind power: "I really do commend them for where they are at."
But, he also said: "Empire is the only utility in the state that wanted to see that ... it all did happen at the last minute."
If voters endorse the petition in the fall, with the solar mandate, he said that "will speak more loudly than the actions of a couple of lobbyists and a couple of elected officials in the last 24 hours of the session."
"It's really the utility's customers who will end up paying for the rebate for the people who put the solar in," Beecher said.
He also noted that capital costs for commercial solar run about $8,000 per kilowatt, compared to $2,000 for coal and $2,000 for wind. Solar also can be utilized 40 percent of the time, compared to 15 to 20 percent for solar, meaning, according to Beecher, that solar is four times as expensive as wind but produces half the energy.
No blowback
As for the impact on rates, Wilson said the initiative will ensure that investor-owned utilities have more diversified portfolios, which means they will be subject to less volatility, which is better for ratepayers.
"A more diverse portfolio is a more secure portfolio. ... We predict this will make rates go down. Wind is on par with natural-gas plants right now," he said.
But once the wind farms are online there is no cost for the fuel as there is with coal or natural gas. There also are other costs, such as damage to the environment and to health, that aren?t built into the cost of coal, for example.
Some states that have adopted renewable standards found they can do it with little impact on rates.
Terry Dote, of the Colorado Public Utility Commission, said the first standard -- 10 percent by 2015 -- was adopted in 2004 following a petition process. In 2006, the legislature doubled that to 20 percent by 2020 and set a 2 percent cap to protect ratepayers and brought in the municipal companies and cooperatives but at a lower level.
In 2007, customers received a rate increase for the renewable mandate that amounted to six-tenths of a percent; this year it is 1.4 percent, Dote said.
But Jim Greenwood, director of the Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel, which represents residential and other small ratepayers, said they should expect the maximum increase allowed each year.
Still, he said, there hasn't been any fallout from the rate hikes.
"To my knowledge, there is no particular blowback at this point," he said.
Greenwood thinks the 1 percent cap proposed for Missouri "probably is doable ... simply because there is so much low-hanging fruit out there," he said, referring to wind.
Edward Garvey, director of the office of Energy Security in Minnesota, which has a standard for all utilities of 25 percent by 2025, also said utility customers have been on board with rate increases to pay for the renewable energy.
"The fuel is free and it is carbon free," he said. "It has not caused rate shock because they come on gradually by themselves."
Ameren UE To Expand Nuclear Plant
July 9, 2008
KOMU TV
By Noel Feldman
FULTON - As Ameren UE gets closer to expanding its nuclear power plant, some Missourians aren't pleased with the idea.
The plant located in Callaway County is just 10 miles southeast of Fulton.
With representatives from Ameren UE and the U.S. Nuclear regulatory commission in Fulton, some Missouri citizens held a conference nearby to express their distaste for nuclear power.
"If we invest in efficiency and we invest in renewable energy, we don't need nuclear plants," explained Mark Haim of Missourians for Safe Energy.
While those who support expanding the Callaway plant convened at Champ Auditorium, the opposition spoke its mind around the corner.
"We don't need any new reactors, nuclear power," Haim said. "It's a dead-end technology, a failed technology. One that has failed the test of the marketplace."
But Ameren UE says that while nuclear power isn't flawless, it is the right decision.
"It's got a proven track record," President and CEO of Ameren UE Thomas Voss said. "It's not the perfect solution, but it's certainly the best solution."
Voss says nuclear power creates no emmissions, is economically responsible, and has an outstanding safety record. Ameren UE awaits approval from the U.S. Government before beginning construction on the new wing of the Callaway plant.
The proposed new addition will require two new water cooling towers, standing 550 feet tall. They have the potential to cool 585,000 gallons of water a minute.
Ameren UE expects to get the green-light by 2012 and hopes construction will be completed by 2020.
While the opposition says nuclear power isn't worth the cost and possible dangers, Ameren UE officials say they're confident the proposed expansion will mean good things for Missouri's energy future.
The proposed addition to the Callaway plant will more than double its current power output.
Retired Scenic Riverways ranger hopes park prospers in future
July 7, 2008
Columbia Tribune
By Kathy Love, Special to the Tribune
The canoeist's foot slipped on a muddy bank, and she pitched forward, head-first, into the canoe. Her head wedged between the seat and the side of the canoe, which swamped and sank with its struggling passenger to the bottom of the river. Luckily for her, a ranger witnessed the mishap.
Bill Terry, who retired last year after 34 years as a ranger at Ozark National Scenic Riverways, rescued the woman before she drowned. All in a day's work for Terry, who earned the National Park Service's Yount Award for meritorious service in 2002.
Terry fell in love with the Current and Jack's Fork rivers, which make up Ozark National Scenic Riverways, as a Columbia boy scout. Troop 10 spent two weeks each summer camping on the rivers.
"We fished, we swam, we paddled, we jumped from the bluffs, we explored the caves by candlelight," Terry recalled. "By the end of the third summer, there was a feeling in my soul that this is where I needed to live."
He graduated from the University of Missouri in 1972 with a degree in park administration and wildlife management. Under the tutelage of MU emeritus professor of parks, recreation and tourism Glenn Weaver, he applied as a seasonal ranger at the national park. Terry had no trouble making his presence - all 6 feet, 4 inches of it - known on the rivers.
One of his early assignments was investigating a double murder on the Jack's Fork River in the mid-1970s. A canoeist was convicted of killing his wife in order to collect on an insurance policy. When the man's daughter witnessed the murder, he killed her, too.
No other incidents rivaled that grim case, but life-threatening situations occurred frequently. Terry and his wife, Susie, were on a vacation cruise to Barbados in 2000 when a tour guide made eye contact with him.
"Aren't you a ranger on the Current River?" he asked.
The young man had been a student at Rolla 10 years earlier when he and a group of friends camped on an island in the Current River. Torrential rains caused a flash flood that night, and Terry used a johnboat to evacuate their camp in the dark.
"I will never forget your face and voice from that night," the tour guide told him.
For the past two years, the park service has enforced new regulations aimed at curbing the excessive drinking that can change a wholesome float trip into an X-rated experience. Terry recalls checking a popular swimming hole one afternoon where a group of about 150 people had gathered to watch an attractive young woman on a bluff as she twirled her bikini top and danced to music blaring from a boom box. When the music ended, she jumped into the river.
By the time she swam to shore, Terry had already written her a citation for disorderly conduct. An onlooker asked what her fine would be. When Terry replied it would amount to about $150, the man asked, "If we get $300 together, will you let her do it again?"
The new regulations outlaw Jell-O shots, beer bongs and kegs. Terry says the new regulations, plus saturation patrols that combine park rangers with law enforcement staff from other agencies, are allowing canoeists to once again have a "national park-type experience."
The National Park Service had its share of controversies during Terry's tenure on the river, from limiting the number of canoes and the size of motors on boats to eliminating non-native species such as wild horses and tame tomato plants. When the park tried to remove a remnant band of wild horses, local residents enlisted U.S. 8th District Rep. Jo Ann Emerson and Sen. Kit Bond to amend the park's enabling legislation to permit them to remain free-roaming in the riverways. Terry says a local group known as the Wild Horse League has done a good job keeping the herd to about 50 horses. The park had better luck eliminating tubs of tomato plants being grown by a canoe concessionaire. He had to dig up his roses, too.
More serious issues await the new superintendent, Terry said. At the top of his list are horse trails and motorized vehicles in and around the rivers and scenic easements.
"Every unmaintained road and undesignated horse trail that penetrates the park boundary is a crack in the ecological integrity of this special place," Terry said.
All these issues will be addressed in a new management plan being drafted now that will guide park policies for the next 25 years.
"This is a critical time for the park," Terry says. "I encourage everyone who cares about these rivers to get involved in the planning process. We have the opportunity to preserve the Current River as one of the most unique river and karst systems in the world. It can be an inspiration for all Americans if we preserve and protect it."
Wetlands Needed to Reduce Flooding Disasters
July 2, 2008
The Wetlands Initiative
Despite a century of massive investment in flood control structures throughout the Upper Mississippi River Basin, flood damages have increased. Indeed, it could be argued that it is because of our emphasis on structural solutions, rather than ecological solutions, that we now face these damages. Clearly new solutions need to be explored.
The Wetlands Initiative believes the solution requires new thinking about the way we use our floodplains. Rather than immediately discharging water downstream after a precipitation event, we need to store that water on and in the ground for days, if not weeks. We need to restore the natural hydrology of the unleveed 100-year flood zone while reconnecting much of the leveed floodplain to its parent river. In short, we should be returning the floodplain to its basic functionsholding floodwaters, improving water quality, and supporting rich, biodiverse habitats.
To assess what it would take to implement this solution, the Wetlands Initiative (TWI) and its partners conducted a study, funded by the McKnight Foundation, to determine how much of the 100-year flood zone was existing or drained wetlands. Called Flood Damage Reduction in the Upper Mississippi River Basin: An Ecological Alternative, the study estimated the potential storage capacity of the floodplain if leveed lands and restored wetlands were pressed into providing the services of flood storage.
TWI began with an analysis of the 100-year floodplain within 77 counties of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. Within this study area, we identified the hydric soil, wetland, land use, and leveed areas. Our study area covered 24% of the total 100-year flood zone of the five states. These data were then used to extrapolate landscape characteristics for the entire area of the five states in the basin. We concluded that:
- Almost 7 million acres (37%) of the 18.4 million acres in the 100-year flood zone in the five-state region were wetlands prior to European settlement.
- Approximately 4 million acres of these former wetlands have now been drained for row crops (3 million acres) and for pasture (1 million acres). This means that nearly 60% of the former wetlands on the 100-year flood zone are now used for agriculture.
- Federal levees isolate approximately 2.3 million acres (13%) of floodplain from their parent rivers.
Read More
EPA Extends Lead NAAQS Comment Deadline
July 1, 2008
The Environmental Protection Agency has extended the deadline for submission of written comments on the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for the toxic metal lead. The comment period will continue for an additional two weeks to August 4, 2008 (rather than July 22). The new final rulemaking deadline will be October 15 (rather than Sept 15).
You can get additional info on lead air standard at the EPA website or by contacting the Missouri Coalition for the Environment at 314-727-0600 or moenvironATmoenviron.org.
Officials Worry About Collapse of CAFO Lagoons
June 27, 2008
Kansas City Star
By Karen Dillon
Along the Mississippi River, they're watching the levees. In northern Missouri, they're watching the walls of lagoons holding back millions of gallons of animal waste.
Rains this week were filling waste lagoons on industrial farms, and some were leaking and overflowing.
State officials, worried that lagoon walls might collapse, have told farmers that they can lower lagoon levels by spraying the waste on fields, even though the ground was soaked from rainfall.
"All the lagoons are overflowing or right at the edge," said Karl Fett, regional director of the Department of Natural Resources office in Lee's Summit. "It is a dire situation."
Missouri has never faced the failure of so many lagoons and potential contamination of waterways, state officials and environmentalists said. The lagoons were built to collect waste from animals on industrial farms, which have proliferated in Missouri in recent years.
"I have been with the department since 1999, and I haven't seen anything like this," said Joe Heafner, a natural resources industrial farm inspector.
Many lagoons are 1 to 3 acres and can be 8 to 15 feet deep. They can contain up to 25 million gallons of animal waste.
More rain was expected to fall Friday night in northern Missouri, which includes Carroll, Daviess, Gentry and Harrison counties.
On Wednesday, the state natural resources department issued a notice to factory farm operators in 20 counties after 8 inches in some place, more than 11 inches fell in less than 24 hours.
The notice told operators to begin following emergency management practices to try to prevent lagoons from collapsing. This allows fields to be sprayed with waste.
Normally, operators would spray the waste on dry fields to decrease the chances of the waste getting into waterways.
"I'm not going to deny that it is getting very concerning," said Derrick Steen, the Department of Natural Resources' agriculture chief with the water protection program. "The problem is, it has rained a little bit every week, and now the fields are saturated."
Premium Standard Farms, a major operator of industrial farms, confirmed that waste discharged from lagoons had made its way into a creek and in another instance into a ditch.
The company pledged to work with the state in order to minimize the impact on the environment.
A dispute over factory farms has been ongoing in the state for years because of pollution runoff and odors, but now concerns are heightened.
"This could result in an unprecedented environmental disaster," said Scott Dye, national director of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinel program. Several thousand gallons of waste from a lagoon leaked Thursday into a stream that flows through Dye's family farm near Unionville.
A collapsed lagoon would be even worse, Dye said.
"I have no idea how you clean up 25 million gallons of hog (waste)," he said. "This is exactly why people are opposed to them."
In the 20 northern counties that received the state warning, 122 industrial operations mostly hog farms have been authorized by the state to house thousands of animals under one roof. Numerous smaller factory farms are not tracked by the state.
A recent study by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production found that factory farm animals present a serious and growing threat to humans, animals and the environment. The facilities are harmful because of pollution and the potential for the spread of disease, the report said.
But the Missouri Farm Bureau contends the report focused only on negative aspects of industrial farming, which keeps food abundant and affordable.
Estil Fretwell, communications director for the farm bureau, said the recent rainfall had created a unique situation.
"These are unusual rains and unusual times," Fretwell said. "Agriculture is really impacted by these rains, and I don't think this is the time to be coming down on farmers."
Heafner, who watched this week as operators applied the waste to a flooded field north of Kansas City, called it the lesser of two evils.
"It was flooded, but they didn't have anywhere else to go with it," he said.
But opponents of factory farms present few good options.
"The lesser of two evils is not a good argument," said Bryce Oates, a spokesman for the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, which supports family farms. "If the ground is saturated, it doesn't go into the ground. It runs off and goes into our water systems anyway, and that is not good for anybody in the state."
River Reclaims Its Natural Floodplain
June 22, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Tim Bryant and Terry Hillig
FOLEY -- Tim Johnson, shirtless and deeply tanned, looked out over his riverfront property, which was under several feet of the flooding Mississippi River.
Obscured by trees standing in algae-covered floodwater was his house, perched on concrete piers to try to keep it above harm. But record flooding in 1993 sent the river into his home, and the Mississippi returned last week.
"I had three feet of water in my house in 1993, and I expect I'll have three feet in it this year," Johnson said as he stood on the levee above his 62 acres.
A hundred yards away, the Mississippi could be heard gushing over the earthen levee. The river went over or through many levees in the area, sending floodwater across farm fields toward Foley, Winfield and elsewhere.
Johnson, 45, a carpenter, loves living on the river. He knows floods are part of his life but is somewhat taken aback by their growing size and frequency.
"It's not the 500-year flood anymore," he said. "It's the 15-year flood."
Environmentalists say the relatively rapid repeat of record floods should come as little surprise. In too many places, levees overtopped or washed away 15 years ago have been rebuilt or raised, they say, adding that squeezing rivers inevitably forces floodwater higher.
Some areas ignored the 1993 lesson that building in flood plains is unwise, said Dan Sherburne, research director for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. Levee failures on the Mississippi show the river is a nearly irresistible force, he said.
"Levees breaking is an indicator of how the river is returning to its natural flood plain in some respects," Sherburne said.
This month's flooding gives the region another chance to reduce future floods, he said. The first step is to return areas of "good natural flood plains" to the river.
"A lot of old levees are failing or could fail," he said. "If this kind of flooding repeats itself, the question is: Do you invest a lot of money to restore and maintain them, or do you take into account the broader perspective of protecting communities up and down the river?"
Susan Heisel, Missouri director of the Nature Conservancy, said the current flooding demonstrated that levees disconnected the Mississippi from its flood plain.
"You see these levees break and then you see how the projected crests downstream are lowered," she said.
Alan Dooley, the corps' spokesman in St. Louis, said deciding which levees to maintain, strengthen or remove was complicated.
In many instances, levees are sensible and necessary, he said.
The corps began building the world's largest levee system on the lower Mississippi after the colossal flood of 1927 displaced more than 600,000 people.
In 1903, when East St. Louis lacked flood protection, the Mississippi swamped the city. Such flooding now would cause havoc with key rail and highway hubs, Dooley said. Levees in Wood River protect the ConocoPhillips refinery that not only produces gasoline but also much of the jet fuel used in the Midwest, he said.
In short, continuing to invest in levees is worthwhile despite the risk that some might fail, he said.
"In the end, even the best levee is not perfect," Dooley said. "But, hey, life has risk in it."
Adolphus Busch IV, a founder of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, said levee breaks allowed the Mississippi to spread naturally across its flood plain.
"This clearly shows how much this amount of flow 50 to 100 years ago would not be that big a deal because the water would have so much more room to spread out," he said.
Busch, who lives in the flood plain in St. Charles County, favors a halt to construction of levees designed to withstand 500-year floods. "You hate to see bad things happen to people, but it's nature," he said.
HOME BUYOUTS
Missouri and Illinois responded to the 1993 flood by offering voluntary buyouts to homeowners in flood-prone areas.
Susie Stonner, spokeswoman for Missouri's Emergency Management Agency, said about 5,000 homes had since been removed. The $100 million program has produced $400 million in savings in emergency services, flood-related rental help, infrastructure rebuilding and other costs, she said.
"That's a very substantial savings," Stonner said. "More important, you've moved people out of harm's way."
St. Charles County led the state with 1,374 residential properties purchased within the 100-year flood plain.
Illinois undertook a 3,100-property buyout program that included an entire town Valmeyer.
"A lot of the places that flooded in 1993 are now open space," said Paul Osman, who administers flood plain programs for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Osman said communities, including Grafton, that lacked levees but enforced flood plain regulations suffered little flood damage this year.
"It is a very relaxed atmosphere in Grafton right now no worries, a completely different atmosphere than previous floods," he said. "You can feel it."
Osman said federal, state and local officials now discouraged construction in flood plains. He said there were far fewer structures at risk in Calhoun and Jersey counties than 15 years ago.
The 1993 flood forced out hundreds of Grafton residents. Since then, federal, state and local governments have spent more than $2.7 million to buy out 100 homes, businesses and lots.
Before the 1993 flood, Grafton had about 980 residents. It now has about 700 but is slowly growing.
In 1994, city officials led by the late Mayor Gerald "Windy" Nairn established a tax-increment financing district and bought 235 acres of blufftop land that would become the Grafton Hills subdivision. Eighty-two homes have been built there, as well as an elementary school that opened in 2005.
Mike Prough, coordinator of Jersey County's flood plain management program, said that 70 structures in the county were flooded last week but that most were modest weekend or vacation homes. Since 2002, owners of about 25 such structures have agreed to raze them. Prough said there had been 900 buyouts of flood-prone property in the county since 1993.
A levee failure 15 years ago destroyed most of Valmeyer, in Monroe County. But the town was rebuilt on higher ground, thanks to buyouts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state, local and private funding.
"We're happy we're 400 feet higher than we were the last time this took place," said Dennis Knobloch, who was mayor during the 1993 flood.
Valmeyer had about 900 people before the 1993 flood. Now, it has about 1,200 and continues to grow, Knobloch said.
The population at Johnson's river home east of Foley is stable. It totals himself, his wife, Sandy, and their affable golden retriever, Diamond.
Last week, Diamond waded in the floodwater, then rolled in the grass atop the levee to dry himself in the sun, oblivious to the potential danger of levee failure.
Johnson plans to increase his home's elevation this fall by putting steel columns on top of the piers already holding up the house. He has no plan to move.
"You could live in hurricane alley," he said. "You could live in the flood plain. You could live in town with all the traffic. You just have to pick it."
CWIP Protects Against All Sorts of Costs
June 18, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Letter to the Editor by Margaret Hermes
David Miller rails against activists who succeeded in gathering signatures to put a "construction work in progress" (CWIP) measure on the ballot in the early 1980s. CWIP was approved by the voters two to one. Miller claims this vote is responsible for increasing electric rates.
I find flaws with his logic. Without CWIP, ratepayers not shareholders would have been footing the bill for a second nuclear reactor at Callaway even before they would have been receiving power generated by it. He cites our aging power plants, Callaway #1 among them, as cause for concern, but had the second reactor been built with ratepayers' dollars, it, too, would now be one of the aging plants he warns against.
Mr. Miller also fails to take into account the high costs of generating nuclear power once a plant is built. There are the costs of exposure from "routine releases" of radioactivity and from catastrophic accidents. There are the uncountable costs of disposal of radioactive wastes wastes that will remain extremely hazardous as far into the future as anyone can imagine as no technology exists as yet for safe disposal, let alone affordable disposal. CWIP has protected us from doubling our stockpile of those wastes. There are the costs of safeguarding these huge stores of nuclear plant wastes from political terrorists and unstable individuals in order to prevent them from being turned into weapons of mass destruction. There is the cost that results from diverting dollars from the development of safe, "green" energy sources.
Despite Mr. Miller's insistence, CWIP has protected us against costs to our bodies and our environment as well as to our wallets.
Residents Press EPA on Lead Standard
June 13, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Kim McGuire
Citing lead's harmful health effects, St. Louis-area residents urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to adopt an air quality standard for lead that's tougher than what the federal agency has proposed.
Federal environmental regulators traveled to the Omni Hotel in St. Louis to take public comment on its plan to reduce lead air pollution, a harmful neurotoxin proven to cause developmental and learning problems in children. The agency also presented its plan in Baltimore on Thursday.
Last month, the EPA proposed strengthening the current standard of 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air. Missouri is the only place in the nation with an operating lead smelter and does not always meet the current lead air standard.
Under the EPA's proposal, the new air quality standard for lead would fall within a range of 0.10 and 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter. But the agency said it would accept comment on a standard below 0.10 and up to 0.50 micrograms per cubic meter.
The proposed standard would affect several sources that emit lead, including iron and steel foundries, waste incinerators, cement manufacturers and gasoline used in piston-engine aircraft.
The majority of the 20 or so people who spoke at Thursday's meeting said the agency should adopt a maximum threshold that does not exceed 0.20 micrograms per meter a number recommended by its own scientific advisers.
"Why raise the high end of this range?" asked Judy Riehl, of the St. Louis Lead Prevention Coalition. "We cannot incrementally gamble with our public health."
Some residents of Herculaneum, where the smelter is located, told EPA officials what it's like living there. Catherine Malugen described how thoroughly she wiped down her children and dog anytime they came in the house from outside. She said that high levels of lead were found in her house that were not attributed to paint.
Larry O' Leary, who sits on a local citizens advisory group, pressed EPA to change the way it monitors for lead in the air from a quarterly system to a monthly basis.
"We live day to day," he said. "I breathe more often than a quarterly basis."
Officials with the Doe Run Company, which operates the Herculaneum smelter, did not directly comment on the EPA proposal. Aaron Miller, the company's environmental management coordinator, delivered a presentation that explained the significance of lead in everyday products and some of the company's environmental achievements, including an 82 percent reduction in lead emissions, from about 310 tons of lead in 1979 to about 24 tons in 2006.
"We all share a common goal of clean air for ourselves and our children," he said.
Asked by an EPA official what the company thought of the proposal, Miller said, "EPA has at its disposal many qualified science and health officials that will advise them on the standard and I'm sure EPA will come to an appropriate conclusion on that standard."
Miller later explained that the company is still working on the comments it plans to submit to the agency. The deadline for submitting comments is July 21 and the agency expects to issue a final rule by mid-September.
The EPA proposal was spurred by a successful 2004 lawsuit filed by attorneys for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment and a Herculaneum couple, Jack and Leslie Warden.
EPA hosts meeting in St. Louis on lead
June 10, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Kim McGuire
When the Environmental Protection Agency was discussing where to hold national meetings regarding its proposal to reduce lead air pollution, one location was obvious: St. Louis.
That's because Missouri is home to the last operating lead smelter in the nation. And Jefferson County where the smelter is located is the only place in the nation that violates the current federal standard for lead, a neurotoxin particularly harmful to children.
"It's because of the smelter," said Cathy Milbourn, an EPA spokeswoman about the meeting location. "But I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that EPA is taking a strong step to protect the public from lead sources around the country."
EPA has proposed a new air pollution standard for lead, which is a range that's 80 percent to 93 percent tougher than the current limit.
On Thursday, agency officials from Washington and Kansas City will be at the Omni Majestic Hotel to take public comments regarding the lead proposal, which is expected to finalized in September.
Current and former residents of Herculaneum, where the Doe Run Co. operates the smelter, say they will attend, as will local environmental groups, state environmental regulators and lead industry officials.
"I was almost in tears when I heard about the proposal," said Leslie Warden, a longtime Doe Run foe. "Finally, this validates what we've been saying all along our children are entitled to protection."
Lead is a neurotoxin that interrupts normal brain development and has been linked to behavioral problems in children. Adults can tolerate higher levels of lead than children can, but can still can suffer from health problems.
Concerned about the health effects of airborne lead, a group of Missouri residents spurred EPA to revise its standards.
In 2004, attorneys for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment and a Herculaneum couple, Warden and her husband, Jack, sued the EPA, demanding that the agency update the standard. They cited several new studies that showed children are harmed by lead at much lower levels than what was known when the current air pollution limit was set in 1978.
In 2006, the agency published a paper that concluded that the EPA should assess whether a federal standard was needed at all.
Then, last month the EPA proposed a range of limits that are significantly tougher than the old standard.
Doe Run officials say they are still unsure how the proposal could affect their operations.
"Our goal is and will continue to be to reach attainment of the standard with whatever is out there," said Aaron Miller, the company's environmental management coordinator.
While some Missouri residents cheered the move, national environmental groups argued that no amount of lead in the air is safe and EPA should have outlawed the pollution.
Missouri environmental regulators, however, will tell EPA officials on Thursday that they support the new standard and are pleased that the agency didn't abandon federal limits as once was suggested.
"That just wasn't an option we could support," said John Rustige an environmental engineer with the state Department of Natural Resources. "We're happy EPA moved forward."
Rustige said the department is still assessing which lead sources might have trouble meeting the tougher new standards.
On the department's radar are old lead mines and mills, metal processing facilities and aviation fuel, which still contains lead.
Rustige said that process might prove difficult as the state doesn't have air monitors in all of the places where lead might be a problem.
One of the places where the state does have a network of monitors is in Jefferson County, near the Doe Run smelter.
At times, those monitors have registered levels of lead that exceed the current standard of 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air.
For example, for the first quarter of this year, two of the 10 air monitors near the smelter recorded lead levels that were 2.0 micrograms per cubic meter of air or more. The proposed standard for lead is a range between 0.10 to 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Company officials said the exceedances were due to work being done at the facility that created dust. The facility met the standard during the last quarter of 2007.
Even though the plant has made several upgrades to its pollution control capabilities, Department of Natural Resources officials say they're not sure how Doe Run will be able to meet the new standard.
"I just don't know if it's possible," Rustige said.
Doe Run officials say the EPA proposal appears to have some flexibility that would allow them to meet a tougher standard.
For example, although EPA has proposed a range that has a maximum of 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter, it is seeking comment on a range that has a maximum of 0.50 micrograms per cubic meter.
The company also may look at technology-based options, Miller said.
Study: CAFOs affect neighbors' property
May 23, 2008
The Joplin Globe
By Wally Kennedy
GOLDEN CITY, Mo. - Darvin Bentlage has been connecting the dots, and he thinks they could spell trouble for his cattle.
Bentlage has three Angus herds in Barton County, where the number of hog CAFOs -- confined animal feeding operations -- is increasing. These CAFOs hold up to 2,500 hogs under one roof. Liquid waste from the hogs is put into lagoons and spread onto nearby farmland as fertilizer.
In 1998, Bentlage purchased 389 acres for his 1,160-acre farm operation and placed an Angus herd on it.
"I put cattle on it in 2000. I never had twins or I rarely ever had twins with three different herds. In 2001, I started having twins from 28 cows. Some were deformed. I have had 11 sets of twins since 2001. That's way above the national average," he said.
Bentlage said he should expect one set of twins from a herd of 200. He was getting one set out of 25.
"But what really bothered me was that they didn't survive and some of them were deformed," he said. "Only three of the 11 sets of twins survived. They all went full term, but some were born with no front legs or they were born hairless. It just seems odd that with the two other herds I never have twins."
Bentlage said his herd is downstream from a hog CAFO lagoon, which is 12 to 13 years old, and he wonders if wastewater has made its way into a creek used by the herd with the excessive numbers of twins.
"Lagoons are known to leak," Bentlage alleged. "I know hog hormones affect cattle. We do embryo transplants. They use pig hormones to get cows to produce more eggs."
Pew study
Two weeks ago, Bentlage received a copy of a new report by The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production in the United States.
He didn't think much about it until he got to the part that sounded an alarm about "the routine use of specially-formulated feeds that incorporate antibiotics, other antimicrobials and hormones to prevent disease and induce rapid growth" in confined animals.
The report said the practice should be restricted because of growing concerns about the potential impact on humans and animals.
The recommendation was among several made by a 15-member panel of experts who have expertise in public policy, veterinary medicine, public health, agriculture, animal welfare and rural culture that looked at the impact of CAFOs over a period of 2 1/2 years. The commission was chaired by former Kansas Gov. John Carlin.
Bob Martin, chairman of the Pew group that looked at CAFOs, said the concern raised by Bentlage about his herd is justified.
"We have seen it elsewhere. Specific public health problems and threats to other species," he said. "It's what happens when you pack these animals together so closely. It's particularly true with hog CAFOs and their liquid-waste management. We have seen that in Iowa and South Carolina."
The Pew panel, he said, also documented that the downwind plume from hog CAFOs may cause higher rates of asthma among children stemming from the release of ammonia hydrogen sulfide and particulate matter from buildings in which the animals are confined.
"There are all sorts of pathogens in the waste," Martin said. "It sits untreated in the lagoon and then it is sprayed on the ground untreated. It contains pathogens, excess antibiotics, excess hormones and heavy metals. Anything fed to the animal and excreted out can show up in the water."
The Pew panel also found that the industry is not sufficiently regulated to protect nearby residents.
"Regulation varies widely from state to state. Most state regulation is not adequate. There are laws on the books, but not enough resources out in the field to regulate CAFOs," he said. "We found that the agro-industrial complex has an overwhelmingly and undo amount of influence at most every level of government. They dominant the research, too."
More research
Bentlage says he wants to find out whether his herd is being impacted by the hog CAFO and plans to contact a veterinarian with the College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri-Columbia to do a study. He also is looking for a laboratory to test water in the creek for antibiotics and growth hormones.
Dr. Robert Zinnikas, with Four Corners Embryo Transfer, of Langley, Okla., Bentlage's veterinarian, said he would have do a lot more research before he could take a position on what's happening with Bentlage's herd.
Zinnikas, who handles artificial insemination chores for Bentlage, questioned whether the same bull was responsible for the twins. If so, there could be something wrong with the blood line; Bentlage said different bulls were used.
Bentlage and some of his neighbors have been at odds with Synergy LLC, of Lamar, the owner of the hogs, and the company challenged a vote last year by township residents. The residents attempted to control CAFOs at the township level by giving the township board authority to regulate the numbers of animals in a CAFO.
The board unanimously voted to place the issue on the ballot last fall. It was approved by 81 percent of the township's voters.
A judge who was appointed to hear the case sided with the summary provided by the lawyers representing the companies.
That judge cited a zoning exemption for "farm structures," and an alleged violation of the Missouri Sunshine Law by the township board and zoning board as reasons for his ruling. The zoning was overturned.
Rebecca Haskins, a spokeswoman for Synergy, could not be reached for comment by telephone to respond to Bentlage's concerns.
But Paul Stefan, who owns a 10 percent stake in the hogs, said the use of antibiotics is strictly managed by the operators of the CAFOs and that he is not sure whether growth hormones are used with Synergy hogs.
Stefan also said the environment in modern hog barns is much better than it used to be and that the use of antibiotics to keep animals healthy in close quarters has actually declined from 30 years ago.
As far as Bentlage's herd is concerned, Stefan said, "I think some other factor is doing that. I like facts. This is just a theory. I think Bentlage has some kind of vendetta against this."
Stefan said cattle with access to creeks and streams, such as those owned by Bentlage, are contributing contaminants to the water, too.
Stefan said more CAFOs are coming to Barton County, saying "a modest expansion" is planned. As for state oversight by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, he said, "Yes they do come and check us out. We've been turned in by neighbors, and they have to come out every time there is a complaint. We have been visited by the DNR."
Stefan said the hog CAFOs provide quality food at low cost to the American consumer. That echoes comments made last fall by Dan Cross, general manager of Synergy, an Iowa-based hog company with five breeding farms and seven independent nurseries in Barton County. He said farmers would make less money and consumers pay more for meat by raising pigs the old-fashioned way. He also said he's not convinced it's possible to raise enough animals to feed everyone without CAFOs.
"The hog business is becoming more difficult all the time, and it takes a larger scope of operation to even make it profitable," he said.
'Roulette'
Zach McGuire, a farmer who lives near Bentlage, has taken his airplane aloft to count the number of CAFOs in Barton County and where they are located. McGuire also was a member of the Richland Township Zoning Board at the time of the vote that was overturned by the judge.
"They are all, it seems, connected to a theme in that they are placed next to a creek or a stream. It's going on all over the county and nobody seems to notice it," he said. "The Web site for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources shows six registered CAFOs in the county.
"I have counted 60 Class 2 and 11 Class 1 poultry and hogs CAFO in the eastern two-thirds of Barton County."
Bentlage questions the cumulative effect of the CAFOs and the fact that so many lagoons are positioned near creeks and streams.
"Parking a lagoon right on a creek, well, that's just Russian roulette," Bentlage said. "The Pew report goes right along with what we have been saying. It was a 2 1/2-year study where they went out to find out the good things about CAFOs. That study more or less speaks the truth. These CAFOs, because there are so many of them, are affecting country people and their livestock."
The Pew panel also found that agricultural corporations can control the market, shutting out independent farmers from the marketplace.
"It has created real problems for rural communities," Martin said. "The contract growers are really serfs on their own land. The contracts are very restrictive. They can only sell their hogs to a contract producer.
"We are recommending that the federal government aggressively enforce anti-trust laws to limit the power of integrators to give family producers a better shot at the market. We need new laws to help level the playing field so that everyone can get access to a market, not just the contract growers. They can't find a place to take your hogs to slaughter because the slaughter houses are all owned by the parent companies."
Martin said the existing system that is used to raise hogs is not the only model available to growers, but it is the least costly way to do business.
"We're not trying to go back to the 1950s, but there is a confinement system called a hoop barn that is better for the animals. The waste is composted. You don't need hormones and antibiotics. But more people would be involved in agriculture.
"What is happening now is not good for the animals or good for the environment, but the company makes more profit."
Rock Port, MO Gets Power From Wind
May 20, 2008
ABC News
Rock Port, MO gets all its power from wind. Watch the video on YouTube.
Clean Energy Initiative Submits 170,000 Signatures
May 6, 2008
JEFFERSON CITY, MO Missourians for Cleaner Cheaper Energy today turned in approximately 170,000 signatures for the Clean Energy Initiative to the Secretary of State's office.
More than 400 Missouri volunteers statewide circulated petition pages for the initiative, which would require investor-owned utilities to generate or purchase 15% of their electricity from clean energy sources, such as wind and solar power. Approximately 170,000 signatures were turned in from six US Congressional districts.
"We are pleased that so many Missourians have gathered signatures to put this clean energy measure on the ballot. Using clean, renewable energy works for everyone in Missouri, and voters will now get the chance to vote on the future of energy in Missouri," said P.J. Wilson, a spokesperson for the campaign.
Twenty-five other states have already enacted similar renewable energy standards to increase production of clean energy and promote energy independence. Renewable energy sources are often local, such as a wind turbine on a local farm. Using smarter power sources is good for the environment and is great for the economy. Because renewable energy is local, consumer prices won't be affected by foreign markets and risks. With the Clean Energy Initiative, Missourians will see the difference in the air, in the river, and in the local economy but they will not see an increase in their utility bills.
Missourians for Cleaner Cheaper Energy enjoys broad-based support statewide from community, labor, business, environmental and religious organizations.
EPA Proposes Stronger Air Quality Standards for Lead
May 1, 2008
EPA Newsroom
Washington, DC -- Today, EPA is taking steps toward revising the nation's air quality standards for lead for the first time in 30 years, proposing to dramatically strengthen the standards to reflect the latest science on lead and health.
"By tackling lead emissions, EPA is keeping America's clean air progress moving forward," said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. "With today's proposal, we can write the next chapter in America's clean air story."
The proposal recommends tightening the primary standard to protect public health by 80 to 93 percent. It would revise the existing standard of 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter of air to a level within the range of 0.10 to 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter. The agency is taking comment on alternative levels within a range from less than 0.10 to 0.50 micrograms per cubic meter.
Since 1980, emissions of lead to the air have dropped nearly 98 percent nationwide, largely the result of the agency's phaseout of lead in gasoline. And average levels of lead in the air are far below the level of the 1978 standard. Lead in the air today comes from a variety of sources, including smelters, iron and steel foundries, and general aviation gasoline. About 1,300 tons of lead are emitted to the air each year, according to EPA's most recent estimates.
Lead that is emitted into the air can be inhaled or, after it settles out of the air, can be ingested. Ingestion is the main route of human exposure. Once in the body, lead is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and can affect many organ systems.
More than 6,000 studies since 1990 have examined the effects of lead on health and the environment. Evidence from health studies indicates that lead in the blood can cause harm at much lower levels than previously understood.
Exposure to lead is associated with a broad range of health effects, including harm to the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, kidneys and immune system. Children are particularly vulnerable: Exposures to low levels of lead early in life have been linked to effects on IQ, learning, memory and behavior.
Lead also can cause toxic effects in plants and can impair reproduction and growth in birds, mammals and other organisms. EPA is proposing that the secondary standard, to protect the environment, be identical to the primary standard.
EPA will accept public comment for 60 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register. The agency will hold two public hearings on June 12, 2008: one in St. Louis and one in Baltimore. EPA must issue a final decision on the lead standard by Sept. 15, 2008.
Report Calls Factory Farms a Threat
April 29, 2008
Kansas City Star
By Karen Dillon
Industrial farms where animals are kept tightly confined present a serious and growing threat to humans, animals and the environment, a private commission reported Tuesday.
The facilities can be harmful not only to workers and neighbors but also to others because of pollution and the potential for the spread of disease, according to the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production report.
"One of the most serious unintended consequences of industrial food animal production is the growing public health threat of these types of facilities," the report said. "There is increasing urgency to chart a new course" in agriculture, which has been shifting over the last 50 years from family farms to large livestock meat producers.
The report came out of a 2 1/2-year project of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit philanthropic organization, and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
It includes a number of recommendations, such as banning use of antibiotics to promote growth and stricter regulations on handling of millions of tons of animal waste.
But Garrett Hawkins, Missouri Farm Bureau national affairs director, said the report went too far and would force animal production to be shipped overseas.
"Essentially you are talking about driving production to Mexico, Brazil and other countries," said Hawkins. "It makes me question how can American family farmers and ranchers compete in that type of environment if those regulations that they call for go into effect? The question becomes how does that impact food security in this country?"
Hawkins added that a global economy would make it even more difficult for producers to compete under new requirements.
John Carlin, a former Kansas governor who was chairman of the 15-member commission, said the recommendations attempted to strike a balance.
"The American public has a growing concern about public health and their food," said Carlin, who now is executive-in-residence and teaches political science at Kansas State University. "We are not saying we can go back to the good old days of just small family farms."
Another commission member was Dan Glickman, former U.S. secretary of agriculture and congressman from Kansas and now the chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America.
The commission studied industrial livestock facilities that housed dairy cows, hogs, chickens and other livestock. It addressed four broad areas of concerns about them, including their impact on:
Public health and the use of nontherapy antimicrobials for animal growth.
Humans and the environment because of massive amounts of animal waste.
Animals and whether their confinement is humane.
Rural life and how that has changed because of a lack of competition in farming.
Commission members said Tuesday that they hoped Congress and state and local governments would study the report and implement at least some of its recommendations.
Large-scale meat production already is controversial in Missouri, where the industry has grown rapidly. Kansas also has industrial farms, but they haven't been as controversial.
Regulators and residents have sued over odors and pollution in Missouri, where hog farms are common in the north and chicken facilities in the south.
There also has been a yearslong battle over regulations should the state or local government have control? The report recommends more power should go to local governments because state regulators cannot take into account all the particularities of a site.
In addition, the report says states do not have enough agents to inspect the regulated farms. There also are thousands of industrial, or "factory," farms nationwide that are not regulated because of their smaller size, but need to be because of pollution.
Rhonda Perry said that debate applied to Missouri.
"That is a major issue we need to address in the next legislature," said Perry, a livestock farmer and program director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, which represents family farms. "In Barton County alone there are thousands and thousands of hogs in one area of the county, and there are no regulations" that apply to those farms.
Perry said the report had some very good recommendations. They include:
Phasing out and banning antibiotics and other antimicrobials that are used to promote growth but not treat illnesses. Experts believe the drugs are in the food supply and more people are becoming infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The cost of a ban would not be significant to producers, the report said.
Improving animal disease monitoring and tracking. The tracking system would follow food animals from birth to consumption and would include federal agency oversight of all aspects of the system.
Creating a new system of laws and regulations to deal with farm waste. The commission recommended that industrial farms be regulated as rigorously as other industries and factories. The regulations would outline what states must do to prevent pollution and to protect public health and the environment.
Phasing out within 10 years "all intensive confinement systems that restrict natural movement and normal behaviors" of livestock. That would include swine gestation crates, restrictive swine birthing crates, cages used to house multiple hens, and the individual housing of calves to produce white veal.
Increasing competition in the livestock industry. Livestock production from birth to the slaughter house has become concentrated, giving way to concerns that federal antitrust laws are not being enforced. To restore competition in the industry, the commission recommended enforcing existing antitrust laws.
Download a PDF of the Final Report
Are Missouri's Evangelicals Going Green?
April 16, 2008
St. Louis Platform
By Patricia Rice
Across the country, evangelical Christians are going green. To be sure, many are still leery about jumping onto a bandwagon already filled with in their view ultraliberal, even "unwashed," activists. Yet, in recent months, several national evangelical leaders have urged their fellow believers to protect the environment.
"We believe that our world was given to us by our Creator, and we must care for it," said the Rev. Francis S. Page, national president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest evangelical denomination, in a letter this winter. Page said his Southern Baptist members have long stood for stewardship of God's gifts but have not spoken outside of their assemblies about environment protection.
Evangelicals are not turning the volume up on the issue because it's a civics lesson. They say their actions are a Bible-based, moral imperative. In this, they join many other religious groups, including Catholics, Buddhists, Jews, mainline Protestants, Orthodox Christians and Sikhs and others who have talked about theological environmental obligations for decades.
This spring and summer, as candidates for public office make their rounds, they can expect evangelical Christians to pepper them with environmental questions, some Missouri evangelical Christian leaders said in interviews. Among their concerns are: air pollution, clean streams, household and hazardous waste disposal and tax credits for green construction or retrofitting. In interviews, the most popular issue among environmentalist evangelical Christians is alternative energy politics in Missouri.
GOD IS GOOD -- AND GREEN
Is God green? That's what a Clayton evangelical pastor asked three dozen college students in a bible session called "Open Swim" on a recent Sunday night.
"That's a no brainer, of course: God is green, he created the universe and all that's in it," said the Rev. B.J. Otey (left), Sunday evening service pastor at Central Presbyterian Church. (His evangelical congregation believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, which differentiates it from the Presbyterian Church USA denomination.)
"This issue is really on people's minds, and we need to bring it forward, see it from a faith view. It is much more than politics, it is about caring for God's gifts. It's about making good choices every day," Otey said.
After Otey's theological chat, church member Erin Noble took the floor and suggested practical ways to make eco-friendly choices. The students at the event from the University of Missouri, Washington University, St. Louis University and Webster University were eager to go greener.
Noble also offered more opportunities for them to use academic savvy to examine public policy on clear water, wetlands protection, air quality and alternative energy. Noble's day job is the Missouri Coalition for the Environment's outreach director, which fits neatly with her evangelical beliefs.
At the end of the Open Swim session, she collected the students' signatures to put a renewable energy measure on the November ballot. In recent weeks, Noble has recruited hundreds of volunteers to gather the signatures of Missouri registered voters for the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative. If passed, Missouri public electric utilities would have to green up by getting at least 15 percent of their product from clean renewal energy sun, wind, geothermal or sustainable energy crops in a dozen years.
"People understand that a law would make a difference," Noble say. "College students get this issue, they care about this."
THE CREED'S FIRST LINE
Still, there is just enough edginess about the green movement that one St. Louis evangelical theologian likes to tease his students with the line: "Is it OK for Lutherans to observe Earth Day?"
On Earth Day, April 22, millions will celebrate and educate themselves about caring for the planet and its people. Some evangelical Christians shake their heads in disapproval at even the name Earth Day, which they say sounds like a fling with a pagan Mother Earth.
"Of course, it is fine to celebrate Earth Day," said theologian Charles Arand (left), a professor at Concordia Seminary in Clayton. "Martin Luther had a robust attitude about the earth."
Arand is one of three professors at Concordia Seminary who teach biblical roots of environmental theology. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is an evangelical denomination proclaiming the inerrancy of the Bible, unlike the less conservative Lutheran group called the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
"Those who see the earth as a prison or a place to endure until they are released to heaven may ask 'why bother?' to care for the earth," Arand said. But if Christians listen as they pray the first line of the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed: "I Believe in One God ... Creator of heaven and earth," they will treat God's creation with respect.
"We need to give more attention to the first line," Arand said. "Then acting as God's stewards will be more basic to Christians."
He'd like his seminarians to get beyond any skittishness about Earth Day and to visit "Going Green" informational booths at the Earth Day festival in Forest Park, three blocks from their campus. Mixing with people who disagree with evangelicals on other heartfelt issues is not bad, he said.
"Just as there are many ways to oppose abortion, including violent ways that we disapprove of, there are many ways to preserve the earth," he said.
Patricia Rice has written about the environment and religion for many years, both regionally and internationally.
Energy Activists Want Wind, Sun, Trash
April 8, 2008
South Side Journal
By Shawn Clubb
Jane Gramlich takes steps to conserve energy whenever possible.
She and her partner, Steven Sloan, have switched to a high-efficiency heating system in their home in the Southwest Garden neighborhood. They've switched to compact fluorescent light bulbs. They even hold potluck dinners at their home to engage friends in discussions of energy conservation.
Gramlich has now found a new way to try to make an impact on the energy she uses. She has begun collecting signatures as part of an effort to require utilities to obtain at least 15 percent of the energy they sell from renewable sources by 2020.If Gramlich and other like-minded people collect 150,000 by May 4, they could place an initiative on the November ballot calling for a mandatory renewable energy standard.
PJ Wilson, executive director of Renew Missouri, one of the agencies seeking the renewable energy standard, said the effort is aimed toward energy independence, energy diversification and to stave off global climate change.
Wilson said he became aware of the country's dependence on foreign oil after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He said producing energy in Missouri through renewable resources would lessen the need to use diesel-fuel powered trains to bring coal here from other states.
"The theme here is localization and energy independence. Ultimately in looking to the future we're not going to be running our cars on gasoline forever," Wilson said. "We're going to be running them on electricity. And where is that electricity going to come from."
Renew Missouri states on its Web site - www.renewmo.org - that 86 percent of the energy used in Missouri comes from coal-fired power plants. It also states that more than $9 billion per year is used to purchase coal from other states.
Under the proposed initiative, wind power, solar power, landfill gas and energy created from plant matter would all qualify as renewable energy.
Erin Noble of Missouri Coalition for the Environment, based in University City, said the group rallied its volunteer base to gather signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. They gathered signatures outside of Busch Stadium during the Cardinals' home opener and has plans to gather more at the St. Louis Marathon on April 6 and the municipal election on April 8.
Noble said 25 states have put renewable energy standards in place. Colorado and Washington did it through public ballot initiatives. The people of Columbia, Mo., passed a similar initiative in their city. Columbia Water and Light is now exceeding its targets for use of renewable energy, Noble said. It uses wind power generated in northwest Missouri and energy from landfills in Columbia and Jefferson City.
"The tides are turning. More and more people are understanding the importance of renewable energy," Noble said.
While energy independence and localization are big issued for Wilson, Noble said Missouri Coalition for the Environment is most concerned about global climate change. She said coal-fired power plants produce mercury and other pollutants.
However, Noble said renewable energy can appeal to many groups. She said it can create jobs and investment in rural areas.
Three wind farms operated in northwest Missouri by Wind Capital Group represent $300 million in investment, Noble said.
"I imagine it could create green jobs in the St. Louis area as well," Noble said.
Wilson said the only concern he has heard from Missourians is that a move to more renewable power would drastically increase the electric rates they pay. He said that is why a provision of the proposed ballot initiative stipulates the change cannot affect rates by more than 1 percent. He said that would be in line with how rates have changed in other states that adopted renewable energy standards.
Tim Fox, a spokesman for AmerenUE, said the company supports the development of renewable energy and will soon commit to purchasing 100 megawatts of wind power to add to AmerenUE's system. However, he said AmerenUE does not support mandates.
Fox said the price of renewable energy is high and there is competition for parts for wind turbines and other equipment used to generate the power. For a wind farm project to come together, Fox said, a company would need a lot of land, plenty of wind and a way to connect them to a power transmission system.
"At this point it's difficult in Missouri to build wind farms," he said.
AmerenUE would prefer the market dictate use of renewable energy, Fox said. If more becomes available the price goes down, it would become a more attractive option, he said.
An effort to pass a similar measure in the state legislature failed. An aide for state Sen. Joan Bray, D-St. Louis, said Senate Bill 1262 - which is making its way through the legislative process - is the third attempt by legislators to create a renewable energy standard. She said Bray has offered or supported amendments to each bill to make it mandatory.
Wilson said it would be cheaper to have the legislature pass its bill, but he doesn't believe there is time to wait for the legislature to come around.
Noble said politicians seem to lag behind the general public in supporting such issues.
"This hasn't happened nationally. This hasn't happened locally. We know we have to take the initiative and bring it to the voters," Noble said. "We're going to make it happen ourselves."
EPA Asked to Move Radioactive Waste
March 28, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Kim McGuire
Community members urged federal environmental regulators Thursday to remove radioactive waste from a local landfill which they say is vulnerable to flooding from the nearby Missouri River.
Those comments were made during a meeting sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is once again seeking public input on its plan for the 200-acre West Lake landfill, a Superfund site slated for federal cleanup. The public has until April 9 to give comments on the proposed cleanup plan
By-products of uranium ore processing from the old Mallinkrodt Chemical Works' facility near downtown St. Louis were stored near Lambert Field and later blended with soil that ended up in the municipal landfill in the 1970s.
Rather than hauling the waste off-site, EPA officials proposed in 2006 to leave it there and place rock and rubble over the landfill to contain the waste. Since then, however, the agency has received many comments regarding the landfill's location in a floodplain. Some have questioned whether the Earth City levee, which is about one mile west of the landfill, might someday fail.
Last week's flooding on the Meramec River, "clearly showed us that floodplain sites are in jeopardy," said Dan McKeel, a retired Washington University associate professor in the School of Medicine.
Kathleen Logan Smith, director of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, questioned why the waste at West Lake would be left in place when similar radioactive waste in the St. Louis area was transported to an out-of-state facility for disposal.
"It's the same stuff," she said. "And it was illegal and wrong to dump it there in 1973 and it is illegal and wrong to leave it there."
EPA officials have said leaving the waste in the landfill is less risky than digging it up and shipping it elsewhere. They plan to monitor groundwater at the site to ensure that pollution is not escaping the landfill.
Jerry Leigh, a representative for the Earth City Levee District, said that levee has withstood all the major floods since it was built in 1972 including the record-breaking event from 1993. He showed photos of last week's floodwaters pooling far below the top of the structure.
"It was no big deal, folks not for the Earth City levee," Leigh said.
Similarly, Matt Hunn, an engineer with the Corps' St. Louis District, explained the agency's inspection program and added that the levee has received good marks for many years.
Radioactive Wastes On the Flood Plain: Let the Corps Haul It Away
March 27, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial
By Kathleen Logan Smith
Dumping high-level radioactive residues in an unlined hole in the ground in the Missouri River floodplain at Earth City was illegal in 1973. And it was wrong. Leaving those wastes at the West Lake landfill site, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now proposes, perpetuates that crime and endangers the next 23 million generations of humans living nearby and downstream from it.
Leaving radioactive material in the floodplain upstream from St. Louis' drinking water intakes puts generations at risk of genetic mutations, cancers, birth defects and disorders of the reproductive, immune, cardiovascular and endocrine systems. Genetic damage can be passed down to successive generations. Must our grandchildren be burdened with such a toxic inheritance?
In 1973, someone -- whose identity never was investigated sufficiently -- paid truck drivers to haul radioactive waste from Latty Avenue in Hazelwood to the West Lake landfill on St. Charles Rock Road near Earth City. The waste was left over from two decades of Mallinckrodt's uranium processing for the U.S. government in the 1940s and 1950s.
Similar radioactive wastes had been stockpiled at a site north of Lambert Airport until they were excavated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and shipped out of state to a federally licensed waste facility. Wastes also are being removed from the downtown Mallinckrodt site, the Latty Avenue site in Hazelwood and Coldwater Creek.
Authority to clean up those sites is the responsibility of the Corps of Engineers under a program called the Formerly Utilized Site Remedial Action Program, and the cleanup is proceeding. The West Lake site, however, falls under the EPA's Superfund program, which has been gutted for decades and rendered virtually impotent. Thus, this site will not be cleaned up. Instead, it only will be covered over, literally, with clay and rock.
That leaves a radioactive time bomb in a floodplain. It is subject to the relentless flow of groundwater through the highly porous river bottom soil -- an underground conduit for contaminated water to flow into the major source of St. Louis' drinking water: the Missouri River.
Above ground, meanwhile, the risk is flooding. By leaving the wastes where they are, the EPA is counting on the Earth City levee to stand for more than 700 million years between the Missouri River and some of the hottest uranium residues on the planet.
In a letter last month, Doyle Childers, director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, assured our organization that projections made for his department found that the floodwaters at the level of the 1993 floods would rise no higher than the base of the West Lake landfill. However, Missouri River researchers suggest that Mr. Childers' figures may not be accurate because many new, larger levees upstream increase the pressures on the Earth City levee.
As our climate warms and floods become a more and more common event, do we really want to risk a catastrophic, radioactive disaster for the sake of substandard government oversight?
As the uranium at West Lake decays over time, it gives birth to different radioactive substances: radium, actinium, radon, polonium, radioactive lead, bismuth and thallium. Some of these cell-damaging elements are difficult to detect in drinking water. And they make an attractive target for suicidal terrorists.
The EPA has ignored the West Lake site for 30 years, allowing contaminants to erode from the surface onto adjacent properties where unwitting workers have pushed around piles of it with earth movers. It is hardly secure. It is extremely unsafe.
At 6 p.m. today in the multi-purpose room at the Bridgeton Community Center (4201 Fee Fee Road), the EPA is scheduled to present its plan for the future of the West Lake landfill and the St. Louis drinking water sources downstream. However, concerned local citizens believe that authority for the site should be transferred from the EPA to the Corps of Engineers, something only Congress can do.
It is time to call out the corps.
Kathleen Logan Smith is executive director of Missouri Coalition for the Environment.
Restoring the Missouri River
March 26, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial
For 60 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been managing the Missouri River as if it were nothing but a barge canal.
Now the corps under pressure from environmentalists and the federal government finally is trying to restore the river to something approaching a natural state. But Missouri officials seem determined to thwart the effort. The state's foolish and short-sighted approach favors agricultural interests at the expense of everything else.
Restoring native fish species, as the corps is trying to do, would boost tourism and improve the environment. During periods of high water, the corps' management plan also would relieve some of the strain from the flood-control levees that have blossomed along the Missouri River in recent years.
But as Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief Bill Lambrecht reported this week, the state's powerful agricultural and barge industries have dug in their heels. They feel threatened by any change in the unnatural way the Missouri River has been managed its banks armored against erosion, its flow constricted in the spring and pumped up during the summer. Politicians looking to court those interests are happy to throw up roadblocks.
The latest is Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, the presumptive Democratic candidate for governor. On Tuesday a federal judge blocked Mr. Nixon's attempt to stop the corps from creating a spring rise in the river's level by releasing water from dams on the upper Missouri. The higher waters are important to the spawning season of the pallid sturgeon, an endangered fish.
Mr. Nixon said he's worried that the rise will add to flooding problems that peaked last week. But it would take nearly two weeks for the pulse of water to reach the St. Louis area, giving current water levels time to subside. And major flood problems were in the watershed of the Meramec River, not the Missouri. Mr. Nixon's concerns were political, not hydrologic.
A more serious threat comes from Missouri's Clean Water Commission, which should be encouraging river restoration. Instead, it's trying to block the corps' multimillion dollar habitat rebuilding project. Part of the work involves dredging and dumping sediment along river banks to create shallow channels needed by native fish like the pallid sturgeon. Those channels existed naturally before the river was dammed for navigation and flood control.
Citing state law, the Clean Water Commission issued an order on March 12 that blocked the corps from dumping sediment into the river. That would be a sensible position if it were applied to naturally clear Ozark streams. But this is the river once known as Big Muddy because of the volume of sediment it carried. Turbidity is as natural for the Missouri River as pallid sturgeon, catfish and the spring rise.
Kristin Perry, who chairs the Clean Water Commission, is executive director of a group called Agriculture Leadership of Tomorrow. She says that her goal is to represent agricultural interests on the Clean Water Commission. But state law requires commissioners to represent the general public, not one narrow interest group.
A river must be more than a ditch with water running through it for the convenience of an occasional barge. Restoring the Missouri River enriches us all.
Court requires removal of nuclear waste
March 25, 2008
Twin Falls Times-News
By Matt Christensen
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed an earlier federal district court decision requiring the federal government to remove all transuranic nuclear waste from the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls.
The ruling is a victory for the state of Idaho, which has pushed the federal government to remove buried nuclear waste from the site since the late 1980s, and a setback for the federal government, which has said removing all the waste is unnecessary and too expensive.
"We're happy about this, of course," said Curt Fransen, deputy director of the state's Department of Environmental Quality.
The decision from the three-judge panel means the federal Department of Energy will have to remove tens of thousands of cubic meters of nuclear waste from the site by 2018, Fransen said. The DOE had proposed removing just a fraction of the waste.
The case stems from a 1995 agreement between the state and the federal government brokered by then-Gov. Phil Batt. In the deal, commonly called the Batt Agreement, the feds agreed to remove all transuranic waste at the site.
But shortly after the agreement was reached, the federal government began to question what it had agreed to.
"This whole case," Fransen said, "is about the word 'all' - whether 'all' means 'all.'"
The DOE argued it was not obligated to remove all the waste. The state of Idaho - and the courts - have disagreed.
Last week's decision marked the second time the buried waste question has gone before the 9th Circuit Court. In an earlier review of the case, a three-judge panel remanded it back to the federal district court in Idaho "to consider the parties' extrinsic evidence" of the agreement's interpretation.
The case returned to U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Lodge, who sided with the state's interpretation of the word "all." Then on appeal, the 9th upheld Lodge's ruling.
The circuit court's recent decision could mean the DOE will have to abandon a $1 billion proposal that called for removing just some of the waste. Removing all of the waste would cost about $13 billion and unnecessarily expose workers to radiation, Rick Provencher, DOE's department manager for cleanup, has said in the past.
The DOE has already sent some of the material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., for storage.
Tens of thousands of cubic feet of nuclear waste was buried at the INL site between about 1950 and 1970, sometimes haphazardly rolled into trenches in barrels off the back of trucks. Since then, nuclear waste has threatened an aquifer beneath the site that's a drinking water source for tens of thousands of Idahoans.
Fransen said he hopes the decision will lead to negotiations with the DOE on a plan to begin removing all the waste.
Calls to the DOE seeking comment for this story were referred to the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where an agency spokesman said the department is reviewing the decision.
River flooding could be disastrous
March 4, 2008
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial
By Nicholas Pinter, Robert Criss and Timothy Kusky
There exists today a major threat to the St. Louis-Metro East river corridor. By describing this threat in detail, we hope we can open a dialogue with Col. Lewis F. Setliff III, the commander of the St. Louis district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Three specific points all involving the Corps need to be discussed: the construction of river structures that magnify flooding; the failure of the Corps' St. Louis district to address this issue in the design, planning and implementation process; and a long-term pattern of insularity and professional bias among the district's technical staff.
Mainstream scientific and engineering research, some of it stretching back more than a century, documents that navigational structures in the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers have increased flood levels significantly. In the Corps' Kansas City district, for example, a report dating from 1933 noted flood magnification because of "dikes and revetments used in shaping and controlling the stream for modern barge transportation." A milestone paper in 1975 by Charles Belt of St. Louis University documented systematically higher flood stages over time, even with river flow rates that remained steady. Recent research has confirmed these links using hydrologic, statistical and numerical modeling techniques.
Sadly, the Corps' St. Louis district has ignored this growing body of evidence as it continues to build structures in the Mississippi channel. It has constructed some of its latest inventions arch-shaped chevrons in the St. Louis harbor directly opposite Illinois levees that are in the procees of being decertified as viable flood protection structures.
The district plans to build more chevrons, along with other large structures such as underwater walls called bendway weirs (another St. Louis district invention) and wing dikes, all of which will worsen a severe and growing problem. In terms of river water, these structures are the equivalent of loaded cannons pointed at St. Louis and East St. Louis, waiting to go off during the next large flood.
We fear that Col. Setliff may have been misled by staff engineers, some of whose statements are inconsistent with known scientific data. For example, through-the-looking-glass assertions that dikes lower river levels are flatly contradicted by more than a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as research by corps scientists outside the St. Louis district. These show clear and unequivocal data linking navigational structures to diminished channel conveyance and increased flood levels.
The National Science Foundation funded the compilation of a database at Southern Illinois University of more than 8 million hydrologic measurements and detailed construction histories for more than 2,500 miles of the Mississippi-Missouri River system. The pattern is clear: When and where dikes and levees were built, flood levels went up and not by inches, but by five feet, 10 feet and more. Between 1990 and 1992 alone, the St. Louis district built 25,700 linear feet of bendway weirs and 14,700 feet of wing dikes on the Mississippi, contributing to the unprecedented water levels of the 1993 flood.
Part of the problem is that the St. Louis district uses so-called tabletop micromodels of the river to help design its navigational structures. Yet these micromodels have been criticized heavily in scientific circles.
In a 2006 article in the "Journal of Hydraulic Engineering," the Corps' own engineers (notably, from outside the St. Louis district) concluded that the models' use "should be limited to demonstration, education and communication."
Such professionally reviewed published statements conclusively refute claims by St. Louis district engineers that the models can demonstrate what actually would happen in the river channel when their various structures are installed. In fact, the sandbox micromodels cannot even be run above flood stage and, thus, are useless in assessing the structures' effects on flood levels.
The Corps provides invaluable services to St. Louis and to communities all along the Mississippi River. But in the case of these new chevrons between St. Louis and the crumbling levees protecting the Metro East area, some terrible error seems to have been made. How could these structures have been built w | |
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