I work with animals using a variety of alternative approaches so I've gotten
to know lots of them.
I don't call myself an animal lover.
I do find I have great respect for them as individuals.
I sometimes find the "human" decision to judge animals as "lesser" ..
because, based upon the tests we have devised, they can't quite muster
enough to pass them .. but of course the "humans" keep raising the bar ..
what I find telling is that .. at least to my knowledge .. there isn't a
human I know of that has mastered WHALE or SPARROW as a language.
.. so instead of lingering on simply the cruelty of the factory farm
practice .. I'd like to also suggest looking at the spread of pollution ..
both water, land, and air .. and the spread of dis-ease.
This is one of the most gruesome practices in all respects.
.. but .. I also find a strong similarity between factory farms and the
practices of all "corporations".
The word "fodder" leaps to mind.
Mary Lynn
Mary Lynn Schmidt
ONE SPIRIT ONE HEART
TTouch . Animal Behavior Modification . Behavior Problems . Ordained
Minister .
Pet Loss Grief Counseling . Radionics . Dowsing . Nutrition . Homeopathy .
Herbs. . Polarity . Reiki . Spiritual Travel
The Animal Connection Healing Modalities
http://members.tripod.com/~MLSchmidt/
From: "Bo Lozoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Biofuel] Cleaning Up Factory Farms
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 19:46:35 -0500
Please friends, let's realize the problem with factory farms is factory
farming -- not the discharge of wastes. There is no stretch of the
imagination that can condone the torture, cruelty and insanity of raising
"food" in that way. Ever been inside one? Please don't even respond to this
e-mail unless you have, or at least have seen truthful film footage of how
animals are raised and treated. I'd like to think that anyone interested in
biofuels would be absolutely opposed to factory farming. The wastes are the
least of the problems, in my view.
Bo Lozoff
From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Biofuel] Cleaning Up Factory Farms
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 05:24:15 +0900
http://www.alternet.org/story/21391
Cleaning Up Factory Farms
By J.R. Pegg, Environment News Service. Posted March 2, 2005.
The Bush administration thinks it's perfectly OK to let factory farms
discharge waste into the nation's waters. A federal appeals court says the
policy stinks.
The Bush administration's regulations to limit water pollution from
factory farms violate the Clean Water Act and must be revised, a federal
appeals court ruled Monday. The court found the regulations failed to
ensure that factory farms would be held accountable for discharging animal
wastes into the nation's waters.
The ruling, released Monday by a three judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in New York, is a major victory for environmentalists who
filed suit against the February 2003 rules. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
president of the Waterkeeper Alliance and an NRDC senior attorney, called
the regulations the "product of a conspiracy between a lawless industry
and compliant public officials in cahoots to steal the public trust."
"I am grateful that the court has taken the government and the barons of
corporate agriculture to the woodshed for a well-earned rebuke," Kennedy
said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which issued the rules,
was not available for comment on the ruling.
The decision continues a long-running battle over how to regulate factory
farms - known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). CAFOs
have emerged as the dominant force in the modern production of
agricultural livestock as the size of livestock operations has grown over
the past two decades. These operations produce some 500 million tons of
animal waste annually - disposal and storage of this waste presents
serious risks to public health and the environment.
CAFOs often over-apply liquid waste on land, which runs off into surface
water, killing fish, spreading disease, and contaminating drinking water
supplies. Waste can leak onto the land and into groundwater and drinking
water supplies from the massive waste storage units on the farms.
Three decades ago the U.S. Congress identified CAFOs as point sources of
water pollution to be regulated under the Clean Water Act's water
pollution permitting program. The 2003 rule aimed to implement that
decision - it applies to some 15,500 livestock operations across the
country.
Large CAFOs are defined in the regulations as operations raising more than
1,000 cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 pigs, 10,000 sheep, 125,000 chickens,
82,000 laying hens, or 55,000 turkeys in confinement.
The regulations require these operations to apply for discharge permits
under the Clean Water Act every five years and develop nutrient management
plans to manage and limit pollution - or otherwise demonstrate that they
have no potential for discharge.
The Bush administration said the rules balanced environmental protection
with the concerns of a competitive and economically important industry.
But the court described the regulations as "arbitrary and capricious" and
said the Clean Water Act "demands regulation in fact, not only in
principle."
The court determined the rules illegally allowed permitting authorities to
issue permits without reviewing the terms of CAFO plans to manage and
limit pollution.
"The CAFO rule does nothing to ensure that each large CAFO will comply
with all applicable effluent limitations and standards," the panel wrote
in its 65-page ruling.
The rule also "deprives the public of the opportunity for the sort of
regulatory participation that the Act guarantees because the rule
effectively shields the nutrient management plans from public scrutiny and
comment," the judges wrote.
The panel agreed with environmentalists who argued that the regulations
violate federal law because they do not ensure that permits contain
specific limits on the amount of pollution CAFOs can discharge.
"To accept the EPA's contrary argument - that requiring a nutrient
management plan is itself a restriction on land application discharges -
is to allow semantics to torture logic," the court said.
The agency also failed to require factory farms to use the necessary
technological controls to reduce bacteria and other pathogens from their
pollution, according the ruling.
"The court agreed that there is a better way than the Bush
administration's plan," said Eric Huber, a Sierra Club attorney. "When
technology and existing law can keep animal waste out of our rivers, why
should Americans have to settle for a plan that puts polluters before the
public?"
J.R. Pegg is Washington D.C. Bureau Chief for Environment News Service.
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