In late summer, I would swim and stream-walk a small section of the Raccoon River. While sedimented for decades now, the water was clear in the shallows. For a few years now, the water is pea-green from edge-to-edge. For decades and worse now, this water has strongly contributed to a vast hypoxia zone in the Gulf.

In the 1980s, I wrote about the wisdom of the river, focusing on the Des Moines River as a living, very open metaphor for the essential streaming dynamic of the universe that is within us as well in the streaming of our body metabolism and thought.


Monday, September 11, 2017

Why No Public Health Rights? Why Only Ag Rights For An Abusive Form Of Land Exploitation?



[Kinseth:  The farmers of old are not the farmers of today.  Where there once was a farm there is a factory.  Please, not just a partial-penny tax as an answer because it will not dent the issue.   And look deeply at who proposes such “solutions” and prevents any other directions?  Why no standards on soil retention and chemical application and application tax, and no monitoring of compliance and fines for non-compliance?  Who makes sure no one will take a peek? What exactly do the laws and proposals to clean water protect?  Dirty money, not water, not public health first, and way down the line are the rights or legal standing of land and water.  All of the water solutions are about profit and disguising abuse so intense and only increasing to be no more than blatant, totally visible--nothing hidden about it--land rape for pure self-interest and abuse of public health.  Get out on the farm of today and Iowa values are money not morality.  See those tight corn rows [planting density due to seed modifications requiring more chemical application] and drainage ditches and chemical applicators.

[Your 2 Cents Worth Comments #12 [Des Moines Register]

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The EPA says nine Iowa lakes had beach closings or health advisories in July, while Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, South Dakota and Missouri had a total of zero.  Big Ag chatters about progress, but our water is still horrible.

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The Gulf Dead Zone is predicted to be much larger than usual this summer.  And one reason is the creek down the road, which is mostly polluted farm tile drainage water headed for the Mississippi.

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Researchers already know what kinds of conservation reduce farm pollution.

We want action, not more excuses and unjustified boasting about teeensy-weensy progress.

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It would be nice if one of the biggest Gulf dead zones in history would cause Iowa’s spineless officials to finally set standards and goals to reduce farm pollution, but it won’t.  Look out below, more nitrates on the way.

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If you live in rural Iowa, the Iowa Legislature only cars about you if you’re a farmer.  You’ll learn that the hard way if a hog lot is ever proposed as your new neighbor, but it’s better to know it from the outset.

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We can ow have no trust whatever for the DNR, along with Reynolds, Ernst, King, Grassley, Trump, most farmers, and all the rest of the dumbbells in the corporate world.  Money, money, money.  Climate change deniers, you are in this bunch too.  What a bunch of idiots.  Get off our planet, you twits.


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