EPA Administrator - No To Regulating Corn Belt Farm Runoff - Give Voluntary Controls Time To Work

[hatrack]

Washington, D.C. — The head of the Environmental Protection Agency ruled out for now regulating runoff from farms in the Mississippi River basin, saying voluntary measures should be given time to work.

Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who visited two Iowa farms Tuesday with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, said she assured a gathering of agricultural leaders that the agency had no plans to impose pollution regulations like those being used to clean up Chesapeake Bay. "I am ruling out the need for us to move directly to a regulatory mechanism when we have folks stepping up and are willing to do the conservation measures," she told reporters after the visits.

Jackson has been under fire for months from Republicans and agribusiness interests over environmental agency actions or rumors that the agency was going to issue regulations on a range of issues, including dust and pesticides as well as water pollution. Runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus from farms damages water quality in Iowa and elsewhere in the Mississippi basin and contributes to a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

A recent analysis of Iowa erosion data by the Environmental Working Group found that soil is being washed from the land at a much higher rate than government estimates had indicated or that can be sustained without harm to agricultural productivity.

EDIT

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110420/BUSINESS01/104200350/-1/GETPUBLISHED03wp-content/EPA-chief-has-no-plans-regulate-farm-runoff

[XemaSab]

1. And yet it would probably be illegal

if I sent her 20 lbs of dog shit. :P

[hatrack]

2. In fact, it would probably be deemed an act of terra . . .

Hope you like palm trees!

[XemaSab]

4. I always wanted to go to Cuba

:D

[aquart]

3. This is not regulation. This is enabling.

[abelenkpe]

5. +1000 nt

[abelenkpe]

6. Give Voluntary Controls Time To Work

:rofl:

yeah cause that's worked so well in the past. Voluntary controls lol! This from the EPA no less.

Man, this country is fucked.

[FBaggins]

7. "Voluntary" and "controls" don't seem to fit together n/t

[jwirr]

8. They took out all the trees along the rivers so they could have a few

more acres of crops. It is no surprise they are losing their land. Replant the trees! As to the water - back in 1958 my daughter was the victim of a pollution soup from farm runoff. She is severely disabled. It is too late to fix their water mess but they may still be able to save the aquifer. Kunstler is so correct - we need to recreate how we grow our food and not just because of oil depletion. But the chem farmers are not going to give up easily. As for my family we left the trees where they are and planted more and we learned the hard way about the chemicals.

[phantom power]

9. Oh, for fuck's sake

x(

[Nihil]

10. And that's the "head of the Environmental Protection Agency"?

Boy are you lot fucked or what?

:wow:


> Give Voluntary Controls Time To Work

I don't suppose she used to work in the SEC or other Financial body
a few years ago did she?

:rofl: