In the 60s, when the fines for industrial pollution were so small that the polluters never even paused; our government vowed to change all that. They did — they removed the laws.
Nowadays, with Industrial Agriculture polluting the all groundwater that they haven’t sucked dry; what advice does our government give to the rural poor? Mix bottled water with your well water to bring it below the maximum health limit levels. Thanks!
The bottom line is [if they still use “bottom line”] that if you don’t take responsibility for your family’s health, no one will. In their “wrong place at the wrong time” – “fall through the cracks” way; Authorities have more important things to worry about than the people.
I live in an Ag Ghetto. I call it an Ag Ghetto because the local policy is one of containment: contain the poverty, contain the crime, contain the drugs. The deputies patrol the borders of the Ag Zone and only enter when called, write a report, and leave. A kid was tossed onto the road outside my house while playing a game where they stand on the truck of a car as it drives around. It’s the sort of games they allow kids to play in the Ag Ghetto. He landed on his head. He died.
The Ag Zone is no Old MacDonald’s Farm; it more like “Fire Down Below”: people use the land as a dumping ground, buy off the residents futures with next to nothing, while telling them they’re lucky to get anything at all — and the residents know who calls the shots at the sheriff’s dept. and the regulatory offices.
“You Know You Live near a Factory Farm When Your Kids Go Fishing with a Pool Skimmer”
In Rural America the biggest threat to the health and well-being of the community is the same activity that once strengthened and nurtured it — farming. Industrial farming is rolling the dice against a dystopian future of environmental meltdown, antibiotic-resistant pathogens, and genetically modified organisms in a race to quickly amass wealth. Using a simple picture-book style, and the buoyancy of humor, this book navigates the flood of destructive farming practices that have already engulfed the rural community, and are spreading.
Print and eBook available at
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble.com
eBook available at
Kobo
Apple
And other retailers worldwide
A preview of the second book in the Factory Farm series:
“The Factory Farm Fun Book”
Over a hundred pages of jokes, riddles, games and activities, mazes, poems, sing-a-longs, connect-the dots, humorous stories and more!
Escape from the Factory Farm board game from the “Factory Farm Fun Book”
Herbicide Drift Maze from the “Factory Farm Fun Book”
GMO Corn Maze photo-spread from the “Factory Farm Fun Book”
How Many Toxic Gas Plumes [are escaping from this manure pit?] game from the “Factory Farm Fun Book”
Pin the Tail on the Legislator party game from the “Factory Farm Fun Book”
Corporate Pushback Balloon Relay game from the “Factory Farm Fun Book”
Factory Farm Days article from the “Factory Farm Fun Book”
Politicians, bureaucrats, and agricultural interests hold hands in committees, while putting on an endless dog and pony show of ineffectual voluntary fixes and do-nothing oversight.
10 years of articles in the Auburn Citizen show that efforts to abate agricultural pollution are at a standstill — the only difference is the date of the article.
August 4, 2017 — Algae blooms close Taughannock Falls State Park, the number of toxic algae blooms in New York is up 25 percent this week, and the presence of toxic blue-green algae in Dryden Lake is confirmed by the DEC.
This isn’t the beginning of some apocalyptic eco-thriller – it’s the reality that people in Tompkins County, and all over the country will have to get used to as the fallout from 30 years of unrestricted agricultural activity has turned toxic Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) into this summer’s biggest blockbuster.
The influence of rich and powerful interests in maintaining the status quo in the face of an ever increasing destruction of the environment, is nowhere better seen than in Tompkins County’s handling of agricultural pollution.
The Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan’s representation of environmental issues and policies is a careful dance around the facts — Facts that paint a very different picture of the sources of pollution in the county, and expose an elitist policy making agenda.
