[url=http://www.americanrivers.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AMR_MER2006:3ecce]American Rivers[/url:3ecce]
let us hear it for overapplication of pesticides and fertilizers and fungicides and all those other unnecessary poisons. Be sure to let cattle graze right up to that shoreline so that the stream or lake is ruined. Continue to allow those big corporations to emit raw sewage and chemicals into the waters.
the gods weep.
“Give me ambiguity or give me something else”
Gardenfish, again all these problems start at the local level. The failure of local citizens to inform themselves and VOTE is the root cause. Do not blame ‘corportations,’ some who do more to solve envirnomental problems than they get credit for, for allowing regulations and laws which should be stopped at the local level in the first place.
It is always easy to blame someone else; start at home. Stop sending money to some national organization, get involved at the local level. That is where change happens.
LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL
see Local Watershed Council for an example of local “power” and action
On my “home” river, about 15 miles up stream from here, is a flood control damn build and operated by the Army Corp of Engineers.
They own/control all the river side land for 10-12 miles above the damn.
It’s a nice area, some recreational lands around the impoundment with agricultural fields up stream.
The problem is the Army Corp seems to have no problem with the farmers planting right up to the river bank. Pesticides, fertilizers, etc, have only inches before they join the river flow.
Down stream in “my” area the river turns green from the run-off in mid-summer. Black flowing algea grows from the rocks.
The Army Corp is pretty set in their ways and can not be reasoned with or voted against.
A very sad situation because in all other ways “my” river has come a long way from it’s industrial past.
“The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life”
Dud, please, don’t take this wrong. If you are right, then something can be done. This is the hard part, finding the right attorney. It does make a difference. There is always something that can be done. It may not seem like it, and I sure as hell am not saying you have not done, or tried, or searched or whatever. Just, don’t quit or give up or accept defeat. If it is important to you, then it is important to someone else too. I have seen many impossible things accomplisher over the years that just ‘could not be done.’ Have some faith and keep the pressure on. 
Clean Air and Water, is a right of all citizens, I disagree with government agencies, that allowing discharging pollution into our air or water.
Recently the Federal Government gave the Power Plants 10 years to reduce their emissions of Sulfur levels into the air. Minnesota gave the same Power Plants within Minnesota only 5 years, and set a the allowable emissions at half of the Federal level of emissions.
In the early days before the Federal Clean Water Act, Minnesota setup their own Clean Water Act, that was stricter than the Federal Act. The Federal Supreme Court ruled that States have the inherent right to exceed Federal Standards of Air and Water legislation. ~Parnelli
Out west of you Parnelli we have a row of coal fired power plants going up in SD, which has extremely relaxed standards compared to MN. Big Stone II is in the EIS stage and my river group organization (curemnriver.org) is working deligently to convince the powers to be to clamp down on both mercury and carbon dioxide emissions. We realize there is little we or most Minnesotans can do, for the EIS is for the power grid distribution and not the power plants themselves. Those EIS’s for the power plants are being done in South Dakota and our input has little, if any, bearing. Our hope is to increase access for renewables on the gird at the expense of coal. This is just one of supposedly several coal-powered electrical generation plans planned in the Dakotas, and they’re being built there because of the relaxed standards. JGW
[This message has been edited by white43 (edited 06 May 2006).]