Friends of Rural New York

Tikkun Magazine- A Bimonthly Jewish & Interfaith Critique of Politics, Culture and Society
March/April 2005
When Kosher Isn’t Kosher pp. 52-55
“Sadly, virtually all kosher meat comes from animals that are raised in the same abusive factory farms that produce most meat in America. This chronic abuse of animals on factory farms does not capture headlines in the way that the unusual level of abuse at Agriprocessors has, but this “normalized” abuse is equally, and perhaps more, worthy of our attention.”

Sorry- we could not find the article on their website. But the issue might still be on the newstand.

New York legislature might phase out foie gras factory farm.

“But to animal-rights activists, it’s fur on a plate, an outrageous flaunting of humanity’s dominion over other species, and at the same time a wedge issue that can usefully be wielded against the entire meat industry. Which is why, within an hour of Cardinal Ratzinger’s elevation last week, an exultant e-mail went out from Bruce Friedrich, director of vegan campaigns for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling media attention to the new pope’s views on animal husbandry. In a 2002 interview, Ratzinger opined that “degrading living creatures to a commodity,” specifically by force-feeding geese and confining chickens in crowded factory-farm cages, seems “to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.”
......from Newsweek

CAFO generated nitrate pollution to the Cortland-Homer-Preble Aquifer in the Otisco Valley and Preble NY area.
by Melissa Blackburn Sarat

Since the advent of the Clean Air and Water Act and thus the formulation of the Dairy CAFO umbrella to protect CAFOs from these laws and since the DEC was given an unfunded mandate to be the CAFO regulatory agency, pervasive nitrate pollution to Preble area aquifer groundwater has occurred, with little recourse for residents to stop it.

Family dairy farms have been on the decline due to Agribusiness lobby manipulations and attrition due to low milk prices, retiring farmers, increasing costs of supplies, etc.
While the price of milk has remained fairly stable since 1980, the
cost of producing it has doubled. Farmers have to double the size of
their herds every 15 years to maintain the same profit margin. Companies like Kraft and Dairylea skim milk profits, while the price that dairy farmers get for their milk has not increased since the mid 1970’s.  Family dairy farms needed to go big in order to survive, but it was known that larger operations would generate larger amounts of waste, and farmers would be left open to lawsuits for water and air quality violations.  With the $1.75 billion Clean Water, Clean Air Bond Act becoming law in New York State in 1996, the CAFO umbrella was created to protect farmers from lawsuits. The Ag. Markets and milk lobbies made sure that CAFO regulations were ironclad to protect their interests and those of the CAFOs that would be doing the polluting. Many CAFOs are owned by conglomerates in the US and overseas and all are highly subsidized by NY State.  Our tax dollars.

Small family dairy farms with some 30-90 cows are falling swiftly by the wayside or morphing into CAFOs, with cows numbering into the thousands per operation. CAFO operations produce enormous amounts of toxic nitrate-laden slurry (liquid animal waste product) often out of proportion to acreage available for safe spreading.  Most dairy CAFOs confine their cows for life, keeping them in a perpetual state of ketosis from high protein feed and enormous amounts of water, a combination that makes the their manure liquid. Manure generated by small family farms (“honey wagonâ€? manure, mixed with bedding) spread on the same fields that had grown the feed for the cows, is proportionally balanced and the bedding helps stabilize the nitrates in the soil for absorption by crops and prevents over leaching into the groundwater.  But, CAFO generated slurry, scientists tell me, is extremely toxic and once dumped or sprayed, acts much like the chemical in windshield-washer fluid, attaching molecularly to inherent toxins and leaches swiftly into ground water. With the advent of CAFOs, the disposal of the huge amounts of slurry generated each day has become the hot environmental problem that no agency foresaw or has an answer for. CAFOs are causing these same problems all across the U. S. and around the world. In N. Y. State, the overseeing agencies (Soil and Water & DEC) are simply not doing their jobs to enforce the CAFOs’ Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans (CNMPs), as well as other existing CAFO regulating laws.

The CAFO concept was rushed into law by the all-powerful Ag. Markets and implemented before adequate tests were done to show the enormous impacts on air and water quality that would ensue from their actual operation (this statement is from a New York State Environmental Health Dept. official).  CAFO regulations are very specific, and New York State CAFO regulations prohibit CAFO-generated slurry pollution to surface water, but does not protect ground water (i.e. slurry dumping on land over shallow aquifers such as the vulnerable EPA Sole Source Tully, Preble, Homer, Cortland Aquifer: (http://www.epa.gov/region02/water/aquifer/cortland/cortland.htm). There are only 70 designated sole source aquifers nationwide. Why were aquifers (our drinking water sources) left unprotected?

The extremely porous soil and shale over the Preble aquifer area measures only 4-6 feet above the water table in some areas. Constant CAFO slurry dumping over the Cortland Homer Preble Aquifer has caused Preble to be designated one of a hand-full of nitrate hot spots with nitrate spikes up to 20ppm and many areas exceeding 10ppm.  The EPA nitrate limit for drinking water is 10ppm (http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/dwh/t-ioc/nitrates.html).  Many hot spots in Preble register well over 10ppm and the numbers are growing each year.  Most residents in Preble get their water from their private wells.

Three years ago, 2 private residents from Preble attended a meeting about the Preble water/nitrate issue held at the Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation District headquarters. After being told by various agency heads and scientists present that the high nitrate numbers would not be made public while the matter was studied further, the two Preble residents insisted that the nitrate levels be made public by telling them that they would go immediately to the press themselves with the information.  Had this not happened, the high nitrate numbers would still be hidden from the residents of Preble. I was one of the two. Nitrate levels in drinking water above 10ppm can cause death in babies.

Excessive on-going CAFO slurry dumping on land over the aquifer in the Preble and the Little York area is not being regulated by the DEC or Soil and Water. Mr. Lynch of the DEC in Syracuse states that their job of â€?…regulating CAFOs was handed down as an unfunded mandate and that residents of Preble have the responsibility to file complaints of illegal slurry dumping, but the DEC can’t respond to every complaint.  If a complaint is made, the procedure is for Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation District to go check on the farm involved, to see if it is complying with its CAFO regulations.â€? Cortland County Soil and Water is under the State AG. Department umbrella and were responsible for keeping the high nitrate numbers quiet for years.  When asked about the source of the nitrate pollution in Preble water, the C.C. Soil and Water Head stated, “We will never know the true source of the nitrate contamination, this is not our concern, but it is this agency’s responsibility to make sure that everyone has safe drinking water.â€?  When another scientist in this agency was asked, “What do we do if our well water is contaminated?â€? The reply was, “Take clean plastic milk bottles down to the small public water supply in the center of town and fill them up and carry them home.â€? (Visual images come to mind of a primordial Plebeian-Prebeleian procession of water gatherers.) Cafo slurry is being spread on the hill above and on fields near the public water supply.

The Preble Day Care Center has had to put in a reverse-osmosis system to remove the nitrates from their water. Some Preble residents are putting in their own reverse-osmosis systems. Residents living near areas where slurry is being dumped are reporting breathing problems such as asthma.

DDI (the FARME) in Little York, a CAFO partially owned by a company in Holland, is situated on a small parcel of rented land. They are renting fields near them and in Preble to dump their slurry; all of these fields sit over the Cortland Homer Preble EPA Sole Source Aquifer. Constant DDI slurry dumping can be easily observed.  A DDI official recently responded to concerns that DDI’s slurry dumping was causing nitrate pollution to the aquifer by saying, “We will provide bottled water to all families whose water we have polluted.â€? Indeed, if DDI, birthed by the Cortland County Ag. Markets, without consideration of future adverse impacts to the aquifer, were being properly regulated by Soil and Water and the DEC; nitrate pollution to the aquifer and toxic aerial emissions from slurry dumping would not have/be occurred/occurring.

CAFOs in Preble and DDI dump their slurries day and night on fields inadequate in acreage for the amounts of slurry they generate. Nitrate hot spots in Preble are in and around the aquifer-flow path precisely where the slurry has been and is being dumped. Slurry is being dumped year round, at night, over frozen ground, over snow, pooling in fields of mud during the spring and summer and quickly leaches into the ground water in the spring.  See images of slurry dumping over snow:
http://www.prebleny.com/images/ManureDumpPA/

Slurry dumping throughout Otisco Valley has caused much of the aquifer nitrate pollution here. Scientists tell me that the Otisco Valley, sitting over an arm of the aquifer flowing into the Preble aquifer, is very unique in that there is very little surface water where nitrates can slowly, over time, percolate up to the air and dissipate. Nitrates don’t break down in ground water.  Nitrate laden aquifer water from the Otisco Valley area flows into the Preble aquifer.  Also, CAFO slurry dumping in the center of the Preble valley is also leaching nitrates into the aquifer. DDI leases fields in Preble to dump
slurry as well.

Some CAFOs, owned and operated by dairy farming families long respected in our area, have gone the CAFO route in order to survive and are themselves struggling with the slurry problem. No one told them that going “CAFO� would cause so many problems.

The New York State DEC (the CAFO regulatory agency), Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation District (whose responsibility it is to assure that CAFOs are implementing and abiding by their CAFO regulations and to assist the CAFOs with ongoing plan implementation, which involves technical assistance, plan evaluation and plan revisions), as well as other agencies, still insist at public meetings that they don’t know the source of the nitrate pollution to the Cortland Homer Preble Aquifer Sole Source Aquifer….but pronounce that they will keep doing studies and tests to find out. 

The Syracuse DEC has secured grant money to help CAFOs bordering on
Skaneateles Lake to comply with their CAFO regulations and to clean up their acts. Skaneateles Lake is the water source for Syracuse. An engineer for the DEC in Syracuse, Mr. Cook, tells me that perceptions that large amounts of grant money are still available to help other CAFOs comply with their regulations are erroneous.

A test well was drilled into the lower aquifer at a location in Preble to test various aspects of water flow, water quality and nitrate pollution of the lower aquifer. This test well was funded by a $10,000 grant and overseen by the Cortland County Health Department. Results of this test indicate that the lower aquifer is also polluted with nitrates. A “spot point sourceâ€? analysis was awaiting funding.  This test would prove the true source of the nitrate pollution to the aquifer here.  A scientist said that this test should satisfy those who still question the source of the nitrates.  It is understood generally by the agencies involved, although they won’t speak to the fact in public, that 90% of the nitrate pollution in the Preble area comes from past and present Ag. related sources.  I learned recently that funding for the “spot point sourceâ€? analysis failed to materialize.  Are we surprised?

At present, CAFO regulations that stipulate safe slurry spreading procedures for each operation and prohibit pollution to surface water are not being enforced by the Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation District, or the CAFO regulatory agency, the New York State DEC.  Individual Little York and Preble residents, the very victims of CAFO-generated nitrate pollution to their water supplies and of toxic aerial emissions from slurry spreading that causes breathing problems (the rapid proliferation over the last decade of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has raised concerns about health effects of aerial emissions from animal production and waste management systems. These aerial emissions are predominantly a mixture of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), ammonia (NH3), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and particulate matter (PM) (including bioaerosols)) and overall degradation of their quality of health and lives, must also shoulder the burden of making CAFO slurry spreading violation complaints to the DEC.  (Hydrogen sulfide, one of the gases emitted from manure lagoons, can cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, nervous system depression, loss of consciousness, and at high levels, death. Even low levels of hydrogen sulfide can cause irreversible damage to human health.)

Denial in epic proportions concerning CAFO pollution is “de rigueurâ€? for New York State officials whose responsibility should be to protect residents instead of the interests of Agribusiness.  Those responsible are the Commissioner of the DEC, the all powerful Ag Markets, politicians who have gone on squeaky clean CAFO tours, but have turned a blind eye to the huge health and environmental problems associated with CAFO pollution, the EPA, and those out there whose job it is to quiet the fact that something is very broken in a system that has allowed the CAFO monstrosities to proliferate in New York state without proper regulation and without laws to protect air quality, surface and ground water and basic quality of life. This is indeed a democracy issue because New York residents who live in the wind direction or water flow of CAFOs have a greatly diminished quality of life within the sanctuaries of their own homes and properties.

And if this weren’t bad enough, hog CAFOs have entered the Central New York State scene. Talk about Pork Barrel ethical issues!

Factory Farm manure spreading overwhelms school children.

They have really been spreading heavily for the last few days near Southern Cayuga Central School in the Polar Ridge area. At least one student noted that the odor is so severe that he could not even think about running track outdoors.
Six houses for sale in the area - probably more to come.

Federal Appeals Court Decision Undermines the Validity of NY
CAFO Permits

Syracuse, NY, April 18, 2005.  A citizen suit against one of the largest factory farms in New York, Willet Dairy in Cayuga County, has been filed in the federal district court in Syracuse. The dairy, started in 1979, reports housing 7,600 cows, none of which are pastured. The complaint charges Willet Dairy and its owners, Dennis and Scott Eldred, with violations of the zero discharge rule and water quality standards under the U.S. Clean Water Act, and with contaminating water wells and causing serious health problems among the seven plaintiffs. Manure and sediments from Willet’s crop fields have allegedly fouled a tributary of Salmon Creek, a designated trout stream.

“The Clean Water Act requires large factory farms to contain pollution from manure spreading fields,� said Gary Abraham, attorney for the plaintiffs in the case. “If they cannot, they are subject to citizen enforcement actions, including substantial fines and requirements to improve operations to ensure manure contamination is fully contained in their own fields.�

Factory farms, operations that confine hundreds of animals in large barns, have increasingly displaced smaller, more sustainable farms. Factory farms are required to obtain a state Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) Permit for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). This is a discharge permit issued pursuant to New York’s Environmental Conservation Law and the federal Clean Water Act.

There are over 1,000 permitted CAFOs in New York State. The Sierra Club, Atlantic Chapter, which is not a party to the legal action, has received numerous odor and water quality complaints from CAFO neighbors. It has recorded numerous instances of failure by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to respond to citizen complaints about CAFOs.

“We are very concerned that the DEC and the New York State Department of Health (DOH) appear to be looking the other way while these huge factory farms foul drinking water supplies and our streams, lakes and rivers with manure�, said Yvonne Tasker-Rothenberg, Chair of the Atlantic Chapter’s Farm and Food Committee.

In New York, the DEC issues CAFO permits.  These permits require CAFOs to prevent discharge of nutrients, or manure, but due to a secrecy clause in the law, allows the CAFO to withhold their plans to prevent discharge, a “comprehensive nutrient management planâ€? from the public and even from the DEC.  In most cases only a one-page certification that the CAFO’s management plan is accurate is sent to the DEC.  The Willet Dairy nutrient management plan is 3,000 pages long. Until the lawsuit, this plan was kept out of the public eye.

In New York the regulation of CAFO’s is about to become more complicated.  A recent decision in federal court has the potential to invalidate New York’s CAFO permits due to the secrecy of the permit

On Feb. 28 a three-judge panel of the federal appellate court for the 2nd Circuit Court ruled that U.S Environmental Protection Agency rules governing concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) violate the Clean Water Act. In Waterkeeper Alliance v. EPA, the court found that the permitting rules did not insure that CAFOs would be held accountable for discharging animal wastes in the nation’s waterways. The court determined that the rules illegally allowed permitting authorities to issue permits without allowing the public to review the terms of CAFO nutrient management plans to manage and limit pollution.

See:
http://www.waterkeeper.org/mainarticledetails.aspx?articleid=170

“Our investigation found that you hold animals under conditions which are
so inadequate that diseased and/or medicated animals bearing potentially
harmful drug residues in edible tissues are likely to enter the food
supply.”

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
New York District
Food & Drug Administration
300 Pearl Street, Suite 100
Buffalo, NY 14202

February 23,2005
WARNING LETTER NYK 2005-06

CERTIFIED MAIL
RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED

Dennis H. Eldred, Owner
Willet Dairy, LP
329 Route 34
Locke, New York 13092

Dear Mr. Eldred:

An inspection of your dairy farm operations was conducted December
28-30, 2004 by Investigator William P. Chilton. The inspection confirmed
that a calf you offered for slaughter was adulterated within the meaning
of Section 402(a)(2)(C)(ii) and 402(a)(4) of the Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act); and you have caused animal drugs to become
adulterated within the meaning of Section 501(a)(5).

On or about October 18, 2004 a bull calf identified with sale tag M847
was delivered by Willet’s Dairy truck to xxxxx (blacked out) xxxxx.  The
animal was transported to xxxxx (blacked out) xxxxx where it was
slaughtered for human food, October 20,2004.  No tolerance has been
established for sulfamethazine in edible tissues of calves.

Our investigation found that you hold animals under conditions which are
so inadequate that diseased and/or medicated animals bearing potentially
harmful drug residues in edible tissues are likely to enter the food
supply. For example, you lack a system for assuring: (1) that animals
have been treated only with drugs which have been approved for use in
those species; (2) that drugs are used in a manner not contrary to the
directionscontained in the labeling; and (3) that animals medicated by
you have been withheld from slaughter for appropriate periods of time to
permit depletion of potentially hazardous residues of drugs from edible
tissues. Foods from animals held under such conditions are adulterated.

Our investigation revealed that you adulterated the drug Sulmet brand of
sulfamethazine sodium 12.5% within the meaning of Section 50 1 (a)(5) of
the Act when you used the drug in bull calves less than one month old
for which it is not approved. Furthermore, you failed to observe the
required ten-day withdrawal period. The directions for approved use
concerning both species and withdrawal time appear in product labeling
for the drug, Sulmet.
It is your responsibility to assure your operations are in compliance
with the requirements of the Act. As a dairy farmer, you are the
individual who introduces (or offers for introduction) the adulterated
animal into interstate commerce. It is not necessary for you to
personally ship an animal into interstate commerce to be responsible for
a violation of the Act.

You should notify this office in writing, within fifteen (15) working
days of receipt of this letter, of the specific steps you have taken to
correct the noted violations, including an explanation of each step
taken to prevent the recurrence of similar violations. If corrective
action cannot be completed within fifteen (15) working days, please
state the reason for the delay and the time by which the corrections
will be completed. Correspondence should be directed to Compliance
Officer William J. Thompson, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, at the
above address, by telephone, 716-55l-4461
(3124).

Sincerely yours,

Jerome G. Woyshner
District Director

Rumor has it that a chicken CAFO will be inflicted on Tioga Community.

A Tioga County neighbor notified us that there are plans to build a large scale chicken farm in New York’s southern tier Tioga County. The farm would grow and ship 30,000 live chickens a month to New York City. They talk about a capacity of 180,000 chickens. They offer to build the facility (three large barns) at a cost of $2M, contract with the farmer, and expect to creat 10 low paying jobs per facility.
This area is part of the Susquehanna River watershed- one of the 10 most endangered rivers in the United States.

What will it cost New York taxpayers to clean up the aquifer in Cortland County?

THINK TANK QUESTIONS WATER QUALITY AND TAXPAYER COSTS FROM CAFOS

An Iowa-based think tank issued a report recently stating that the large amount of animal waste produced by CAFOs can have serious long-term consequences for human health as well as broader socioeconomic effects. The report focuses on the impact of CAFOs in Iowa, but also generalizes many of the findings to CAFOs throughout the US. The human health impacts discussed in the report include nutrients, ammonia, pathogens, antibiotics, hormones, and other elements from animal waste that show up in groundwater, and therefore human drinking water. Underscoring the report from Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Policy Project study also cites several other research studies in which local economies are hurt by the introduction and growth of CAFOs in the area. Moreover, the author also shows evidence of remediation costs falling on taxpayers, including $60 million of public money spent in Kansas to remove or contain nitrogen in the groundwater caused by CAFOs. Finally, the report includes the degradation in quality of life often experienced by neighbors of CAFOs because of noxious odors, limited access to the outdoors, and other issues.

FROM: Farmed Animal Watch

Former livestock farmer follows his best selling book with a film.

I just got done watching the the new documentary “Mad
Cowboy”. Based on Howard Lyman’s book of the same name, it
is phenomenal! It came out on DVD recently and of course I
had to order it. It tells Howard’s story, and follows him on
a journey throughout the US and the UK as he focuses on
about 10% environmental impact, 30% health, and 60% ethical
issues concerning eating meat. He interviews activists,
philosophers, and even agricultural business people.
Reviewed by “Shawn”

Author James Howard Kunstler predicts the end of industrial agriculture in The Long Emergency

“Food production is going to be an enormous problem in the Long Emergency. As industrial agriculture fails due to a scarcity of oil- and gas-based inputs, we will certainly have to grow more of our food closer to where we live, and do it on a smaller scale. The American economy of the mid-twenty-first century may actually center on agriculture, not information, not high tech, not “services” like real estate sales or hawking cheeseburgers to tourists. Farming. This is no doubt a startling, radical idea, and it raises extremely difficult questions about the reallocation of land and the nature of work. The relentless subdividing of land in the late twentieth century has destroyed the contiguity and integrity of the rural landscape in most places. The process of readjustment is apt to be disorderly and improvisational. Food production will necessarily be much more labor-intensive than it has been for decades. We can anticipate the re-formation of a native-born American farm-laboring class. It will be composed largely of the aforementioned economic losers who had to relinquish their grip on the American dream. These masses of disentitled people may enter into quasi-feudal social relations with those who own land in exchange for food and physical security. But their sense of grievance will remain fresh, and if mistreated they may simply seize that land.”
from The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16693.shtml

The Cleveland, Ohio Fox 8 I-Team recently aired an exclusive expose on Mercy for Animals’ undercover investigation at Ohio Fresh Eggs, the state’s largest “Animal Care Certified” (ACC) egg factory farm.
The eye opening story was seen by over 160,000 viewers in the Cleveland area.

Click here to view the Fox 8 I-Team story.
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/fox8acc.asp

Gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer has accepted $11,000 from agricultural interests including $500 from the Farm Bureau. Interestingly, the Farm Bureau is listed under agriculture but studies by the National Wildlife Federation show that the Bureau is primarily an insurance company and that most of its so-called members are purchasers of insurance and not really farmers. Politicians don’t know that and they figure that the Bureau speaks for farmers. The Bureau speaks for agri-business.
Will Mr. Spitzer take his marching orders from agri-business proponents at the Farm Bureau or will he meet with the real farmers?
And when will the attorney general’s office investigate the Farm Bureau’s business practices?

Central New York resident Erik Marcus spoke to an enthusiastic audience in Central New York this past week and treated them to advance copies of his new book, Meat Market: Animals, Ethics and Money.

Erik described his own epiphany regarding how farmed animals are raised by agribusiness and his decision to stop eating all animal foods.

His book gives a brief overview of animal agriculture. The bulk of the book describes methods for dismantlement of the animal agriculture system.
This is the first activist book we have seen which critiques some of the rationales used for criticizing animal food production and consumption. He also critiques selected strategies for dismantling the system.

He strongly suggests that the mega animal agriculture operations may well be in decline due to their own heavy-handed response to criticism. The mega operations are “utterly dependent on the miseries associated with confining animals at the lowest possible cost.�
Given that many people are horrified when they see pictures of factory farm and slaughterhouse operations, the industry is compelled to hide the “unsavory aspects� from the public. Under the guise of terror prevention, industry advocates have lobbied lawmakers to prohibit photographing animals at factory farms and slaughterhouses (even the media is prohibited). They have also advocated legislation that fines anyone who “disrupts� an operation and they have passed strict anti-trespassing laws. These laws are designed to hide the hideous conditions in industrial dairies, egg farms, chicken, pig, veal and fois gras operations. When people see graphic photographs and video of factory farm conditions, they are outraged. The graphic images frequently inspire people to forgo eating animal food products and to press for reform.

Marcus includes personal narratives from effective advocates for dismantlement.
Overall, Meat Market is a quick and inspiring read. We recommend the book to everyone who feels frustration and outrage over the current animal production system. You will certainly find a variety of possible activities, which will help you “do something about it.�
For more information, see Erik’s website: http://www.erikmarcus.com

We have seen a report from a Washington County neighbor that factory farms are a big problem in Salem. There are more than 6000 cows now. The farms are spreading manure in a flood plain and there is runoff into the Battenkill. People in Salem have contacted the Region 5 DEC office. Reports from across New York State indicate that the DEC is not responsive to environmental violations caused by factory farms.

Think Your 99 cent Hamburger Is Cheap?

      If you do, you’re not seeing all the costs, according to writer and “food detective” Michael Pollan, who spoke to a large crowd in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union on Wednesday.
      Pollan, author of “The Botany of Desire” and several articles for The New York Times Magazine, said the industrial processes that bring food to our plates have financial, social, ecological and health ramifications that aren’t reflected in the low cost of food. But there are other food systems that have benefits instead of costs to society, Pollan said, and consumers have the power to help create a better kind of food system.

Pollen points out the role of academics in supporting the failed industrial model. In Iowa it’s Iowa State University.
Here in New York, we have Peter Wright and the misguided souls at Cornell.
See:
http://www.amestrib.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14261208&BRD=2035&PAG=461&dept_id=238101&rfi=6