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Feb. 24, 1999
"This CAFO fighting is getting too easy here in Missouri." -- Scott Dye, Missouri Rural Outreach Organizer
CONTENTS:
TAKE ACTION: TYPHOID FEVER -- CRUCIAL MOMENT FOR TIER 2 AUTO POLLUTION STANDARDS
1. BIG PIG PROPOSAL IN MISSOURI BITES THE DUST
2. WORKING ASSETS MESSAGE HIGHLIGHTS CAFOS
TAKE ACTION--Crucial moment for Tier 2 auto pollution standards. Keep those postcards coming!
It's official, the new Tier 2 auto pollution standards are at the White House Office of Management and Budget for Review. While the proposed standards came out of the EPA worthy of "two and a half cheers," there is still plenty of time for the auto and oil industries to drag out the process and weaken the regulations. And, you can bet that's their plan.
Now more than ever the quality of our children's air rests in the hands of Vice President Gore and President Clinton. Now more than ever we have to keep those postcards coming.
The only way to make sure that the new regulations don't get weakened as they go through OMB's cost-benefit analysis is to send a loud, clear message that we demand clean air for our kids and our environment.
Step 1: ORDER POSTCARDS
Step 2: FLOOD the Vice President's Office with postcards!
If you haven't yet participated in the postcard campaign for strong Auto pollution standards but were thinking of getting involved, NOW IS THE TIME. If you've already sent a postcard consider sending a few to your friends to send in. By keeping a steady stream of cards coming, we'll prove that support for clean air is REAL and that it's not going to fade with time. The postcards are FREE and we'll send you as many as you think you can distribute.
To order or to get more information: e-mail michelle.artz@sierraclub.org or call 202-547-1141.
THANKS.
SIERRA CLUB HELPS RURAL MISSOURIANS BEAT BIG PIG
This CAFO fighting is getting too easy here in Missouri. Another proposed Continental Grain Company contract 2500 head finishing operation aborted their plans on Friday, in the face of a furious onslaught of citizen protest instigated by the Sierra Club.
But the credit truly goes to those stalwart rural folk of Gentry County, who first learned just one week ago that their community had been targeted. They immediately sought help among our farmer friends, who steered them our way. We shot them some ideas and they roared into action, mounting a furious textbook campaign:
1. Circulate a petition against the proposed siting. (They had over 200 signatures within three days, creating a general buzz in the community about the project.)
2. Organize! (They formed a local group and determined its leaders. They did their homework, checking into the proposed local contractor, educating themselves about Continental's other operations, and using maps to identify all of the homes (and potential group members) within a 1/4, a 1/2, one and then two miles of the proposed facility.)
3. Attempt to lure the company/operator into an informal public meeting (read ambush) to present the proposed project to the public. (The company had committed to sending a rep to the meeting.) 4. Stack the meeting with anti-CAFO speakers and good academics. (We have the luxury of two excellent University of Mo. ag economists who are willing to present their talk.)
5. Inform the company of the speakers. (They know a beating will be likely.)
6. Confront the company. (The group met with the contract operator who blew them off. They then focused dozens of calls and letters of protest to the corporate offices of PSF-Continental in Kansas City and New York City.)
7. Show the company the community's long-term resolve. (They sent the company their petition and an adapted version of our form letter which states that neighboring landowners are going to have their land appraised before the operation is built, and after one year's operation, and that the company will be held legally responsible for any loss of property value and quality of life.)
Just one week into the campaign the company PR flack called the local group leaders to inform them that they would not pursue the proposed operation "at this time". Clearly the company had been stunned by the abrupt, focused fervor of the citizens opposition, were rattled to learn of Sierra's involvement, and sensed a brutal public beating ahead.
The company spokesman also urged the group to call off the upcoming public meeting, withdrawing their proposed speaker. The newly formed group didn't bite, they're forging ahead, and we're very pleased to announce that we will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming public meeting of our new friends-Concerns Citizens of Gentry County.
The 150 member group is representative of the entire community, but is primarily younger family farmers, in the under forty age group. That warms the heart of this ag coordinator.
WORKING ASSETS ASKS CUSTOMERS TO TAKE ACTION ON ANIMAL FACTORIES
Working Assets is including the following message in its customers' February phone bills:
"Corporate-run hog factories, whose operations produce 116 million tons of manure every year, have become a nationwide threat to public health. These massive manure `lagoons' often overflow, leaching pig waste into groundwater and spilling disease-causing bacteria into rivers. The Environmental Protection Agency, after stalling for decades, is taking steps to curb pollution caused by hog factories. But before regulations were released, the EPA cut a deal allowing the pork industry to hire their own inspectors to certify that they are not violating the Clean Water Act. Sounds like the fox is guarding the hen house.
"Call EPA Administrator Carol Browner at 202/260-4700 and urge her to impose a moratorium on new factory farms until touch, new standards are implemented."
Working Assets estimated that the message will generate around 30,000 calls and letters to Administrator Browner over the next month.
Thanks, Working Assets!
"...we've got a lot of fruits and vegetables imported from countries where we're warned not to eat them or to drink the water. The question is, why is it safe to eat it when it's imported?" Caroline Smith DeWaal, Center for Science in the Public Interest
CONTENTS:
TAKE ACTION: TYPHOID FEVER -- SOUTH FLORIDA'S LATEST IMPORT
1. HISTORIC LANDS FUNDING BILL INTRODUCED
2. PANEL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS TO OVERSEE EVERGLADES RESTORATION PLAN
3. REP. BERNIE SANDERS'S "DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER" ON WTO ASSESSMENT ROUND
TAKE ACTION!
Typhoid Fever: South Florida's Latest Import
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials have traced a recent outbreak of typhoid fever in South Florida to a frozen fruit drink imported from Guatemala. So far, 13 people have been hospitalized since mid-December.
Typhoid is spread when feces from an infected person contaminates food or drink. Symptoms include sustained fever and headaches, loss of appetite, low heart rate, and diarrhea or constipation. Relapses are common. But don't worry: fatalities are less than 1 percent with antibiotic treatment.
The disease is extremely rare in the United States, with no more than 10 or 20 cases in South Florida annually. But this outbreak attracted the attention of local public health officials in Palm Beach County because none of the victims had recently traveled abroad.
"We've never seen typhoid fever before in Palm Beach county with people who haven't traveled outside the country," Dr. Jean Malecki, county health director, told Cox News Service. "This is very unusual in the United States, and it causes us concern."
This typhoid outbreak is just the latest in a growing string of health incidents linked to imported food. Over the last several years, thousands have been stricken with cyclospora, a waterborne parasite usually confined to developing countries, after consuming raspberries imported from Guatemala. In 1997, over 300 Michigan schoolchildren were sickened with hepatitis A after eating strawberries imported from Mexico. Some of the children were sick for weeks with sever fever, vomiting, stomach ache, and cramps.
The rise in food safety incidents coincides with a rise in imports. Since the 1980s, food imports have doubled, but federal safety inspections on our borders have dropped to less than half of what they were five years ago. Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have spurred the food trade, in part by limiting border obstacles such as inspections.
Former US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor recently admitted to The New York Times "a tension between the two goals of safety and trade. You want to open markets but not lower standards. And that's easy to say, but very, very difficult to carry out."
Now he tells us. Thanks a lot, Mickey!
Not content with the health problems caused by its free-trade-in-food policies, the Clinton Administration plans a new round of agricultural talks in the WTO, to be launched at Summit in Seattle next November. Among the items up for negotiation is an arcane area called "sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards." In plain English, that would be food safety. The WTO works by limiting domestic regulations to foster trade, so if the WTO gets its hands on more of our food safety standards, more people are likely to get sick.
TAKE ACTION
The Sierra Club thinks it would make a lot more sense to first review existing trade rules and then repair the damage done to our food safety and environmental protections before EVEN THINKING ABOUT more free-for-all trade rules. Fortunately, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) read our minds. He's asking his colleagues in the US House of Representatives to join him in a stern letter to President Clinton and to US Trade Representative Charlene Barshevsky urging an assessment round at the WTO Ministerial this November, 1999 in Seattle.
TAKE ACTION: Please call your Representative's office today. Ask for the trade staffer and urge them to have their boss sign "The Sanders letter on the WTO Assessment Round." If they need more information, they can contact Brendan Smith in Sanders' office at 202-225-4115. (Rep. Sanders' letter follows at the end of today's SC-ACTION).
1. HISTORIC LANDS FUNDING BILL INTRODUCED
Today, Representative George Miller and Senator Barbara Boxer (both D-CA) introduced their bill to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund and provide other much-needed funding, natural resource protection and restoration. The bill promises to be an invaluable tool for improving conservation and recreation programs at the local, state and federal levels, and for preserving farmland and restoring fish, wildlife and marine resources.
Here is the Club's official statement of support for the Miller/Boxer bill:
"The Sierra Club strongly supports the legislation being introduced today by Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative George Miller to protect America's natural resources into the 21st century. Their new initiative will provide full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and will also support other critical land protection and restoration programs.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund was a promise made to the American people more than 30 years ago, a promise that goes unfulfilled year after year. Under the LWCF, revenues from off-shore oil drilling are supposed to provide a steady source of funding to preserve irreplaceable lands of natural beauty and unique recreational value.' But since the 1980's, most of this revenue has simply disappeared into the Treasury. There are outstanding needs for urgent land acquisitions in states all across the country, including inholdings in the Mojave and Joshua Tree National Parks which would help fulfill the promise of the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, and lands critical to the successful restoration of Everglades National Park.
The Boxer/Miller bill is particularly welcome as a positive alternative to a bill recently introduced by Senators Frank Murkowski and Mary Landrieu (S.25) and by Reps. Don Young and John Dingell (H.R. 701). Although these bills share the goal of funding important natural resource protection and wildlife programs, they do so at the expense of our coastal environment. The Sierra Club is strongly opposed to these bills in their current form because they would encourage increased oil drilling by providing financial payments to states based in part on the amount of drilling off their coasts.
We applaud Senator Boxer and Representative Miller for their on-going efforts to protect America's natural resources against irresponsible development, and for their new initiative to provide full and permanent funding for land protection and acquisition in the 21st century. On behalf of the half-million members of the Sierra Club, I thank you."
The Boxer/Miller bills have not been assigned an official number yet, but please look for a "take action" opportunity in this Thursday's SC-Action.
2. PANEL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS TO OVERSEE EVERGLADES RESTORATION PLAN
On Monday, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced an agreement with a panel of scientific experts on a plan for peer review of the proposed $8 billion Everglades Restoration "Restudy," an agreement that calls for an independent panel of scientists to oversee the Everglades restoration plan.
The restoration, perhaps the largest ever attempted, would be the first major overhaul of the drainage system and calls for creating 251,000 acres of reservoirs, marshes, quarries and well fields to store hundreds of billions of gallons of water each year for farms, cities and the Everglades.
The federally funded panel will be composed of 10 to 12 scientists who will represent "a broad range of expertise, including biology, ecology, hydrology, agronomy and economics." Members will serve three to four years and must not be personally involved in South Florida research and monitoring.
This is a big victory for the Club and helps set the stage for major improvements in the Restudy proposal as it moves from the Army Corps of Engineers to Interior on April 1 and to Congress by July 1.
Congratulations go to Everglades Committee volunteers Barbara Lange, Craig Diamond, Rod Tirrell, Alan Farago, Mark Behar, Elaine Usherson and Richard Coleman for crafting Sierra's position and leading the campaign; Jonathan Ullman and Jim Price for staff support; Carl Pope for crucial backing of our effort and his conversations with Babbitt; and those of you among the national staff and volunteer leadership who have provided help and encouragement.
3. REP. BERNIE SANDERS'S "DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER" ON WTO ASSESSMENT ROUND
"Letter to President Clinton and Charlene Barshefsky from Members of Congress demanding an assessment round at the WTO Ministerial in November, 1999."
March 1, 1999
Dear President Clinton:
We write regarding the upcoming 1999 Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The United States' hosting of the WTO's third ministerial meeting comes at a key time given the many important trade and investment issues facing Congress. We urge the Administration to advocate for an agenda for the WTO Ministerial that focuses on two tasks:
* Assessing impacts of the WTO on environment, labor and human rights standards, as well as the level of economic and social equality of each participating country; and
* Engaging in a public debate on how international trade rules can be shaped so that ordinary people benefit from trade-an issue which you yourself raised in the State of the Union Address.
If priority attention is not given to these questions, the American public and many in Congress will oppose a new round of WTO negotiations and any agreements that are reached at this round.
Congress ratified the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations and the creation of the WTO based on specific assurances from the Administration. These included protection of U.S. federal and sub-federal laws, vigilant enforcement of WTO transparency and support of sustainable development and worker rights. With the arrival of the 5th anniversary of the WTO, many of us in Congress question performance of the WTO in these areas. Certainly, before embarking on a set of expansive new negotiations, it is prudent to asses how the current rules are functioning.
Specifically, the Administration should address the following areas of concern:
Economic Impacts: The Administration has stated that it is unable to properly respond to the burgeoning U.S. trade deficit and recent surge in imports in the steel and other sectors because the preferred mechanisms for redress are not in accordance with WTO trade laws. This suggests that the WTO may make it more difficult for governments to promote fair trade.
Impacts on Democracy and Sovereignty: As demonstrated by the recent gasoline and shrimp-turtle cases, challenges to US law before the WTO are increasingly mandating substantive modification in US health and environmental regulations. This same trend is occurring at state and local levels, as demonstrated by foreign governments challenges to state divestiture laws.
Environmental Impacts: With alarming consistency, the WTO has ruled against environmental and health laws. This "perfect" anti-environmental record implies that the WTO has a structural bias against health and environmental safeguards.
Worker Rights Impacts: The failure of the WTO to allow countries to link core worker rights to market access flies in the face of the values of the American public. It also threatens a race to the bottom in standards of living that could undercut the productivity and wage gains of workers in this country.
According to a recent poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal, 58 percent of Americans believe that foreign trade is harmful for the United States economy. Congress has rejected Administration requests for a renewal of Fast Track trade negotiating authority due to a concern about the current direction of United States trade policy. These concerns must be addressed. The WTO ministerial meeting provides an opportunity for an informed debate on what kind of trade rules would benefit the American public and ordinary people throughout the world. Ignoring this opportunity and attempting to launch new negotiations at the WTO at this time would be a serious mistake.
Your own words from the State of the Union Address express precisely the spirit in which we write today: "I think trade has divided us, and divided Americans outside this chamber, for too long. Somehow we have to find a common ground on which business and workers and environmentalists and farmers and government can stand together. I believe these are the things we ought to all agree on. So let me try." We agree that trade has divided our nation. The WTO ministerial provides the perfect opportunity to carefully asses current trade policy and find common ground.
Sincerely,
[Urge your Reps' office to call Brendan Smith in Sanders' office (202-225-4115) for more information.]
"We're the poster child for climate change in the U.S. Southern Louisiana is sinking at an incredible rate. Any raising of global sea levels is going to jeopardize our efforts to save and protect the coast." Len Bahr, executive assistant to Gov. Mike Foster Jr. commenting on projected sea level rise due to global warming.
CONTENTS:
TAKE ACTION: THE TIME HAS COME TO END COMMERCIAL LOGGING ON OUR
NATIONAL FORESTS - WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF YOUR NEWSPAPER!
1. FIGHTING SPRAWL IN TRACY, CALIFORNIA
2. AGREEMENT STOPS LOGGING IN BLACKWATER--AT LEAST FOR NOW
3. ATLANTA FEDERAL COURT OF APPEALS RULES LOGGING PLANS IN THE
CHATTAHOOCHEE NATIONAL FOREST ARE ILLEGAL
TAKE ACTION!
THE TIME HAS COME TO END COMMERCIAL LOGGING ON OUR NATIONAL FORESTS - WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF YOUR NEWSPAPER!
The US Forest Service commercial logging program continues to dig itself into a deeper hole and create more environmental and fiscal damage. The commercial logging program holds the legacy of a destructive network of clear-cuts and 440,000 miles of logging roads, the more than $2 BILLION lost by American taxpayers in the last six years, and the long-term damage done to wildlife and fish habitat and clean drinking water sources.
Now, the waste, fraud and abuse perpetuated by the commercial logging program is chronicled in an investigative report by the Department of Agriculture's Inspector General. The report, released in early January, reviewed 12 timber sale environmental assessments from different regions of the country and found that the Forest Service allowed logging companies to illegally cut trees beyond timber sale boundaries, failed to require logging companies to act to reduce logging damage and failed to write logging contracts based on information in the environmental assessments. In the southeast region the Forest Service had to cancel several timber sales because they had not done the necessary monitoring for threatened and endangered species. The Forest Service still finds that the incentives to sell trees and retain the timber receipts outweigh and override its mission of "caring for the land and serving people." The commercial timber program is that perverse incentive and, clearly, its time to go has arrived.
TAKE ACTION: You can help raise public support for ending the commercial logging program. Write a letter to the editor of your newspaper calling for an end to this wasteful and destructive program.
1. FIGHTING SPRAWL IN TRACY, CALIFORNIA
On Wednesday February 17th, over 80 concerned citizens turned out to a 2 hour community forum on growth and development in the Tracy, California. The forum was organized by the Sierra Club.
Tracy's citizens have a lot to be concerned about. The city of Tracy has projected a 9 percent growth rate--a rate that would allow the construction of 1500 new homes a year. This is shockingly high in comparison to the 1.4 to 1.8 percent growth rate projected for the rest of the state. A growth rate of 2 percent is said to be high--9% is astronomical. Naturally, the local residents are angry enough to take want to take action to combat Tracy's rapid residential growth.
An informal petition insisting that the city council to be more responsive to the citizens of Tracy rather than being so developer-friendly was passed around the audience at the forum.
Petitioners are also asking that city's growth management ordinance be revised.
Before the meeting ended, an attendee took a blank page of the petition and made copies. He came back and passed them out to almost everyone who was there. Citizens made a commitment to make copies of the petition themselves and get at least 100 of their friends and neighbors to sign the petition. One attendee committed to gathering 500 signatures. They will present the petition to the city council at the next city council meeting in early March.
One attendee thanked the Sierra Club for coming down there and pulling out "the big guns" to help them with their growth problems. Another forum is being planned for sometime in March.
Tracy's residents are making themselves heard!
2. AGREEMENT STOPS LOGGING IN BLACKWATER--AT LEAST FOR NOW FROM WV EPEC ORGANIZER, JIM SCONYERS
Agreement Stops Logging in Blackwater - For Now
The West Virginia Sierra Club and Allegheny Wood Products signed an agreement February 18 ending logging and development on the 3000 acre tract AWP bought after it was sold by Allegheny Power in early 1997.
The Canyon has been the focus of continuous contention since the sale to AWP. Sierra Club and other environmental groups protested the sale and subsequent logging of the Canyon, maintaining that it is far too valuable for its stunning scenic vistas, quality recreation opportunities, and wildlife habitat.
West Virginia Sierra Club had earlier filed the required 60 day notice that it intended to sue AWP for violation of the federal Endangered Species Act in its operations in the Canyon. Once the waiting period expired in mid-January, a lawsuit over the Cheat Mountain salamander, Virginia northern flying squirrel, Indiana bat, and Virginia big-eared bat seemed imminent. AWP expressed interest in discussing a possible agreement that would avoid the suit.
Under the agreement, described as a "standstill agreement" by Jim Dougherty, Sierra Club's attorney, logging and development in the 3000 acre tract halt immediately. AWP will enter discussions with the Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for protecting endangered species. In return Sierra Club will not initiate lawsuits under the ESA. AWP will give 60 days notice of any change in plans to renew logging or development, at which time the Club will expect to press forward with legal action.
The agreement applies to the entire 3000 acre tract. This includes areas where logging had begun, as well as the 700 acre parcel being considered for a land swap with the Forest Service, the Lindy Point area, and the section abutting Blackwater Falls State Park where building lot stakes had been placed.
According to Dougherty, "This ought to be seen as a win-win situation. Both sides had to give in order to reach this agreement."
Jim Sconyers, West Virginia Chapter Sierra Club conservation chair, stated, "We're pleased by this agreement. It stops the logging. And it is the first recognition by the company that there are important public values in Blackwater Canyon."
Sconyers went on to add, "We realize this is not the solution of the Blackwater Canyon problem. We fully expect to be working harder than ever to achieve the goal we have always pursued - public ownership of the Blackwater Canyon."
According to records in the West Virginia Division of Forestry,
Allegheny Wood Products has filed a notice that it intends to log an additional small parcel outside of the 3000 acre tract covered by this agreement. As before, Sierra Club attorney Dougherty today sent the required 60 day letter informing AWP of the Club's intention to sue over logging in this parcel and any other land in the entire Canyon.
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