tagged w/ Environmental Working Group
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The New York Times
Photo: Bill Hammitt on his farm near Portsmouth, Iowa, where he has terraced the land, refrained from tilling and taken other measures to curb soil erosion.
PART ONE...
April 12, 2011
High Prices Sow Seeds of Erosion
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
When prices for corn and soybeans surged last fall, Bill Hammitt, a farmer in the fertile hill country of western Iowa, began to see the bulldozers come out, clearing steep hillsides of trees and pastureland to make way for more acres of the state’s staple crops. Now, as spring planting begins, with the chance of drenching rains, Mr. Hammitt worries that such steep ground is at high risk for soil erosion — a farmland scourge that feels as distant to most Americans as tales of the Dust Bowl and Woody Guthrie ballads.
Long in decline, erosion is once again rearing as a threat because of an aggressive push to plant on more land, changing weather patterns and inadequate enforcement of protections, scientists and environmentalists say.
“There’s a lot of land being converted into row crop in this area that never has been farmed before,” said Mr. Hammitt, 59, explaining that the bulldozed land was too steep and costly to farm to be profitable in years of ordinary prices. “It brings more highly erodible land into production because they’re out to make more money on every acre.”
Now, research by scientists at Iowa State University provides evidence that erosion in some parts of the state is occurring at levels far beyond government estimates. It is being exacerbated, they say, by severe storms, which have occurred more often in recent years, possibly because of broader climate shifts.
“The thing that’s really smacking us now are the high-intensity, high-volume rainstorms that we’re getting,” said Richard M. Cruse, an agronomy professor at Iowa State who directs the Iowa Daily Erosion Project. “In a variety of locations, we’re losing topsoil considerably faster — 10 to as much as 50 times faster — than it’s forming.”
Erosion can do major damage to water quality, silting streams and lakes and dumping fertilizers and pesticides into the water supply. Fertilizer runoff is responsible for a vast “dead zone,” an oxygen-depleted region where little or no sea life can exist, in the Gulf of Mexico. And because it washes away rich topsoil, erosion can threaten crop yields. Significant gains were made in combating erosion in the 1980s and early 1990s, as the federal government began to require that farmers receiving agricultural subsidies carry out individually tailored soil conservation plans.
Those plans often included measures such as terracing steep ground or sowing buffer strips with perennial grasses to stabilize areas prone to erosion, such as the edges of fields near streams or borders between crops.
Many farmers, such as Mr. Hammitt, who is on the board of the Harrison County soil and water conservation district, also do little or no plowing and leave crop residues on harvested fields, techniques that reduce runoff.
But environmentalists claim that enforcement of conservation plans by the United States Department of Agriculture is not as strict as it should be and that the gains in fighting erosion have stalled or are being undercut.
U.S.D.A. data shows that the amount of farmland erosion nationwide from water fell substantially from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, then largely stagnated.
Enforcement is needed more than ever, environmentalists say, because high crop prices provide a strong incentive for farmers to plant as much ground as possible and to take fewer protective measures like grass buffer strips.
CONTINUED...
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/13/business/erosion/erosion-articleLarge.jpgThe New York Times
Photo: Bill Hammitt on his farm near Portsmouth, Iowa, where he... more
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Consumers and activists alike tend to be nervous about big corporations taking over organic brands. Many wonder, how can we make organics available to a larger audience at cheaper prices while maintaining the standards on which organics were founded?
These are questions the OrganicNation.tv crew brought to Ken Cook, the President of Environmental Working Group (EWG) during our visit to Organic Valley's Kickapoo Country Fair.Consumers and activists alike tend to be nervous about big corporations taking over... more
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Grades based on EWG analysis of brand transparency (water source, treatment, testing) and rigor of treatment.
Until the federal Food and Drug Administration cracks down on water bottlers, use EWG’s 'What’s in My Bottled Water guide' http://www.ewg.org/health/report/bottledwater-scorecard/search to find brands with high scores for disclosing full water source, treatment and quality and that use advanced treatment methods to remove a broad range of pollutants.
STUDY RESULTS:
An 18-month Environmental Working Group investigation of bottled water labels and websites has found that:
Only 2 bottled waters disclose water sources and treatment methods on their labels and offer a recent water quality test report on their websites.
These best performers are:
* Ozarka Drinking Water
* Penta Ultra-Purified Water
Just 18% of bottled waters disclose quality reports with contaminant testing results. Among them, all 8 Nestlé domestic brands surveyed:
Poland Spring
Nestlé Pure Life
Arrowhead
Calistoga
Deer Park
Ice Mountain
Ozarka
Zephyrhills
NONE of the top 10 U.S. domestic bottled water brands label specific water sources and treatment methods for all their products.
The EWG is a team of composed of scientists, engineers, policy experts, lawyers and computer programmers.The EWG research government data, legal documents, scientific studies and performs their own laboratory tests to expose threats to your health and the environment, and to find solutions. EWG research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know.
The EWG is a 5-Year, top-rated 4-STAR charity.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=8564Grades based on EWG analysis of brand transparency (water source, treatment, testing)... more
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On The Hook: Commercial Fishing Reaps Billions
Already over-exploited fishstocks continue to be depleted. The Us taxpayers provide commercial fishing subsidies that contribute to overfishing, environmental pollution and climate change,.
U.S. taxpayers doled out more than $6.4 billion in subsidies to the commercial fishing industry between 1996 - 2004, possibly accelerating the ongoing collapse of fish stocks worldwide and adding to the devastation of large ocean fish species.
U.S. subsidies, calculated for the first time by Renee Sharp, director of Environmental Working Group's California Office and renowned fisheries economist Ussif Rahid Sumaila, director of the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia, amounted to 21% of the $31 billion U.S. commercial fish harvest between 1996 - 2004.
Some kinds of subsidies can be good, if they encourage conservation and careful management of fishery stocks etc. But, there is general international consensus that some other kinds of subsidies can contribute significantly to the depletion of ocean fish.
The Sharp-Sumaila study published in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management and supported by the Lenfest Ocean Program has determined that direct federal and state subsidies to commercial fishing operations totaled $6.4 billion and averaged $713 million annually between 1996 - 2004.
50% more boats than needed to bring in the fish...
There is ample evidence that the U.S. commercial fishing fleet has over-exploited marine fish stocks, in some cases to the danger point. An April 2008 report entitled “Excess Harvesting Capacity in U.S. Fisheries” and published by the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) found that 12 of 25 U.S. commercial fishing operations it examined had 50% more boats than needed to bring in each operation’s total fish catch for the year. Having too many boats is one component of overcapacity.
The logical result of overcapacity is overfishing, meaning, that more fish are harvested than can be naturally replaced. Reports on the current status of U.S. fish stocks are bleak. According to NMFS data, in 1997, 32% of the nation’s 269 monitored fish stocks were considered over-fished, meaning seriously depleted. In 2007, a decade later, 24% of 190 monitored fish stocks were still categorized as over-fished, and another 17% were deemed subject to overfishing.
The global situation is similar: In 2004, the last year for which subsidy data were available, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that the proportion of over-exploited and depleted world fishery stocks approached 25%, up from 10% in the mid-1970s.
44% of Federal & State subsidies support fuel costs.
Although fishery management failures have long been recognized to play a key role in the growing problem of overfishing and overcapacity, more recently a consensus has emerged that government subsidies to the fishing industry are also an important contributor
Fishing subsidies also have significant environmental impacts that stretch beyond the sea. EWG’s calculations showed that fully 44 percent of federal and state subsidies between 1996 and 2004 went for fuel for fishing fleets.
Supporting fuel costs has may not have only helped promote the needless expansion of commercial fishing operations, it has also likely caused wasteful fuel consumption, air and water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate global warming.On The Hook: Commercial Fishing Reaps Billions
Already over-exploited fishstocks... more
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Environmental Protections Rolled Back as Western Drilling Surges |
Unlike other industries, BIG OIL & GAS enjoy waivers under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Resource & Conservation & Recovery Act, the Superfund Act, the Emergency Planning & Community Right to Know Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Oil and natural gas companies have drilled almost 120,000 wells in the West since 2000, mostly for natural gas, and nearly 270,000 since 1980, according to industry records analyzed by Environmental Working Group. Yet drilling companies enjoy exemptions under most major federal environmental laws.
Oil and natural gas operations have industrialized the Western landscape, punching thousands of wells on pristine lands, injecting toxic chemicals, consuming millions of gallons of water, clawing out pits for their hazardous waste and slashing the ground for sprawling road networks. Every well carries with it the potential for serious environmental degradation.Environmental Protections Rolled Back as Western Drilling Surges |
Unlike other... more
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WOW... this is an absolute disgrace.
Perchlorate, a hazardous chemical in rocket fuel, has been found at potentially dangerous levels in powdered infant formula, according to a study [PDF] by a group of Centers for Disease Control scientists. The study, published last month by The Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, has intensified the years-long debate about whether or how the federal government should regulate perchlorate in the nation’s drinking water.
According to the CDC, perchlorate exposure can damage the thyroid, which can hinder brain development among infants. For nearly a decade, Democratic members of Congress, the Department of Defense, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency have been fighting about how much perchlorate in water is too much.
In the new study, CDC scientists tested 15 brands of infant formula and found perchlorate in all of them. The names of the brands weren’t revealed because the CDC says the study “was not designed to compare brands.” But the study does say that the formulas with the highest perchlorate levels are the most popular. The most contaminated brands were lactose-based as opposed to soy-based and accounted for 87% of the infant formulas on the market in 2000, the latest data available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The study points out that when perchlorate-contaminated powdered formula is mixed with water that also contains traces of the chemical, as many drinking water sources around the country do, the final concoction can become particularly harmful to babies.
“As this unprecedented study demonstrates, infants fed cow’s milk- based powdered formula could be exposed to perchlorate from two sources – tap water and formula. That suggests that millions of American babies are potentially at risk,” said Anila Jacob, a physician and a senior scientist with Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that posted the study on its Web site. http://www.ewg.org/report/CDC-Scientists-Find-Rocket-Fuel-Chemical-In-Infant-Formula
....WOW... this is an absolute disgrace.
Perchlorate, a hazardous chemical in rocket... more
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