Bush lets factory farms gut the Clean Water Act

[achtung_circus]

From a Food Safety, Animal Welfare, Animal Issues newsletter to which I subscribe:

Bush lets factory farms gut the Clean Water Act
30.Oct.06
Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)
Kim Knowles

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2006/Oct/20061030Comm006.asp

Kim Knowles, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, writes that on its 25th anniversary, former Vice President Al Gore praised the Clean Water Act as one of America’s most important environmental laws. The vice president recognized clean water as a "precious natural resource" that forms the very "fabric of life itself."
Among its many victories, the CWA has kept billions of pounds of pollutants out of our nation’s waters and has slowed the reckless loss of our wetlands. Now the act is 34, and, to our dismay, we lack a vice president to sing its praises. Instead, our current leadership appears intent on taking back important clean water victories.
Under President George W. Bush’s leadership, the EPA has proposed rules that allow factory farms - the source of huge quantities of fecal waste in northern and southwestern Missouri - to police themselves. Under current CWA rules, the largest of these farms need a federal permit because there is a very real danger that animal waste will contaminate our rivers. The EPA now wants factory farms to decide for themselves whether they need a permit at all.
The proposal is particularly frightening given the latest deadly outbreak of E. coli in spinach and the well-known fact that livestock are a common carrier of these deadly bacteria. This "free ride" for factory farms is just one of the administration’s many assaults on the CWA.
In its 34th year, let’s not let the Bush administration weaken the CWA. Let us recognize the importance of maintaining and even strengthening the act, and together, let us sing its praises.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

1. oops here's another one that slipped through the crack to page 6

I guess whoever pushed this OP out of sight, so fast that no one could read it, doesn't like drinking water. Maybe Bush is trolling DU. I hear he'd rather drink liquor. lol

[wiggs]

2. Crimes Against Nature -- RFKJr -- talks about this a lot. nt

[w4rma]

3. Make huge profits. And don't clean up after yourself. Then leave and do the

same thing elsewhere.