A dealer in plant fertilizers is getting top dollar for product that he gathers close to home. Fred Kight reports some gardeners are just bats for the nutrient:
Transcript
A dealer in plant fertilizers is getting top dollar for product that he gathers close to home. Fred
Kight reports some gardeners are just bats for the nutrient:
What sells for 14 dollars a pound, comes from church steeples and is a fantastic plant fertilizer?
It’s bat poop. Or, more properly, bat guano.
Matt Peters says he already was selling worm dung as a plant food.
When nearby church leaders called him about their bat dropping problems, he added the guano to
the fertilizer inventory of his Ohio business. Peters says some customers are attracted by the
novelty… while others just want healthy plants:
“Definitely in my own personal trials I’ve been amazed at the power of bat guano. I never knew
green could be so green.”
Peters says the original manufacturers, so to speak, of his guano eat mosquitoes.
Since mosquitoes are nitrogen-rich, so is the bat guano… and plants love nitrogen.
These loafs of bread were left in a park for
wildlife to eat (not recommended by biologists). Most table scraps end up
in a landfill. But a program in some cities is using table scraps from
restaurants to make rich compost. (Photo by Lester Graham)
As you sit down to a holiday dinner this season…
here’s something wild to think about…some of the produce on
your plate, or even the wine in your glass may have been
produced using food scraps from restaurants. How? The
leftovers are collected and turned into compost, a natural
fertilizer that’s increasingly popular among wine grape
growers and organic farmers. Tamara Keith
reports:
Transcript
As you sit down to a holiday dinner this season… here’s something wild to think about:
some of the produce on your plate, or even the wine in your glass may have been
produced using food scraps from restaurants. How? The leftovers are collected and
turned into compost, a natural fertilizer that’s increasingly popular among wine grape
growers and organic farmers. Tamara Keith reports:
The food goes from plates in upscale restaurants, to green waste bins picked up by a
recycling company. The leftovers are then trucked out a compost facility.
(sound of the big machines)
Here, at Jepson Prairie Organics, the waste is transformed from discernable food
items,
to dark lush humus. Greg Pryor is general manager of the facility in Northern
California.
“If you look closer it’s you’ll find fish, shellfish, there’s a leek right there,
and onion.”
Yard clippings and a little cardboard are mixed in for balance. It’s all ground up,
and
stuffed in large black bags, 200 feet long and 10 feet wide.
“Really about a week into the bag it starts to break down and it really loses its
identity.”
After 30 days, the compost is removed from the bags, and continues to break down for
another month or so. As bacteria go to work on the food scraps and clippings, they
generate heat, so even on a hot day steam rises up from the rows of compost. Pryor
started in the trash business almost 15 years ago and he says it has come a long way.
“All of this used to go into a landfill and it just wasn’t right. And to me
personally that’s
the biggest benefit is that it’s putting materials back to a beneficial re-use,
there’s just
nothing better.”
The end product is marketed as “four course compost” to vineyards and organic
vegetable farms.
(Mexican music coming from a truck)
Just a few miles away at Eatwell Farm, workers are snipping and tying off bunches of
organic arugula. That peppery green was grown in soil bolstered by four-course
compost. Farmer Nigel Walker says he applies a heavy coat of compost after every
harvest, sometimes as much as three times a year.
“And we just always do that. I don’t even have to. Roberto’s our tractor driver.
I don’t
even say ‘put compost on, Roberto.’ He just knows. We put compost on and then we
cultivate it in.”
In the past, Walker has used compost made from animal manure. It works fine, he says,
but he likes the idea this fertilizer comes from restaurants.
“It’s a great compost, we need a compost and we likes where it comes from, it’s pretty
simple.”
This time of year, the makers of four-course compost make a lot of deliveries to
California wine country, home to some of the nation’s premier wines. Linda Hale is
the
field supervisor for Madrone Vineyard Management in Sonoma County. She and her
employees look after 400 acres of wine grapes for wineries like Ravenswood, Sabastiani
and BR Cohn.
Hale says they use compost between the rows, to prepare the land for winter.
“Right after you harvest, you come in, you prep the ground, you put your compost in,
seed it and let the vines go to sleep for the winter. And that’s just your good night
medicine.”
Hale says the compost improves the vigor of the vines. Healthy soil, makes for
healthy
plants, and healthy plants she says are better able to fend off pests and disease.
And
Hale says, it prices out the same as synthetic liquid fertilizers – the current
industry
standard.
Plus, winemaker Tom Montgomery at the BR Cohn Winery says it’s kind of fun to think
about what might have gone into the compost.
“There’s probably a little filet in there, some veggie dishes, aso bucco…” (laughs)
Montgomery calls it fertilizer with pizzazz.
“I think it makes a difference to us. I’m not so sure that it makes a difference to
the
wine.”
Other cities, even other countries are starting to pick up on the food-to-field
idea. Soon a
group from Toronto will be touring the compost facilities to see if they can
replicate the
program in their city.
Two major manufacturers of fertilizer are cutting the amount of phosphorus in their products by half. Fred Kight reports the move should help reduce water pollution:
Transcript
Two major manufacturers of fertilizer are cutting the amount of phosphorus in their products by half. Fred Kight reports the move should help reduce water pollution:
Phosphorus is a major source of water pollution in many parts of the country. It can create algae blooms. When these blooms die off they rob the water of oxygen, often killing underwater plants and animals.
Scotts Miracle Gro is one of the companies cutting back on phosphorus. Rich Martinez is the chief environmental officer for Scotts. He says the problem occurs when the product doesn’t go where it’s intended:
“We did it as our part of contribution to a reduction in phosphorus losses – material moving off target that might end up in the water.”
Officials from Lebanon Seaboard say they’ll also reduce the amount of phosphorus in their fertilizers. Martinez says gardeners will probably see the new, lower phosphorus products on shelves by next spring.
Last month, more than 150 people fell sick from spinach tainted with E. coli bacteria. The spinach has been traced to a California-based produce company. While this means trouble for large-scale agricultural producers, Brian Bull reports the outbreak might help smaller, independent farmers:
Transcript
Last month, more than 150 people fell sick from spinach tainted with
the E. coli bacteria. The spinach has been traced to a California-
based produce company. While this means trouble for large-scale agricultural
producers, Brian Bull reports the outbreak might help smaller,
independent farmers:
Bill Warner owns an organic spinach farm. He sells his crop at local
farmers’ markets and restaurants in Wisconsin and to some restaurants
in Chicago. Warner says he thinks the E. coli incident will steer
consumers toward smaller, organic farms like his.
“We just will tell people that in every step of the way we
do, we’re eating our spinach. We drink the same well water that we
water with. So it may get people more back to, ‘Y’know we don’t want
the big conglomerate foods, let’s go back to buying from who we
know.'”
Warner says many, if not most, organic farmers are extra careful.
They don’t seal their spinach in bags, and don’t use manure in their
fertilizer. Instead, they use a vegetable-based compost and wash
their greens with clean well water. Warner says this helps alleviate
the risk of E. coli bacteria contamination.
There’s more evidence that small amounts of pharmaceuticals are finding their way into the environment and potentially causing harm. So, some communities are collecting unused drugs and destroying them. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
There’s more evidence that small amounts of pharmaceuticals are finding their way into
the environment and potentially causing harm . So, some communities are collecting
unused drugs and destroying them. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Sewage treatment plants can’t screen out all the medicines that either pass through the
body, or if unused, are flushed down the drain. Some studies have shown the
pharmaceuticals affect fish, or end up in fertilizer that’s put on lawns and gardens. So
some cities have started pharmaceutical collection days. Jean Zyla brought a grocery
bag full of old medicine to a site in Milwaukee:
“I believe very strongly in the environment, and preserving it, and
I wanna protect the citizens and the animal population and everything. I believe very
strongly in that!”
Pharmacists were on hand to examine the medicines and make sure that controlled
substances were taken in by police. The rest of the drugs are to go to an incinerator in
Texas.
Alan Roberson's pond traps sediment. Before the pond was built, silt washed into a creek and caused problems farther downstream. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Soil erosion from farmfields causes siltation in creeks, rivers and lakes. The soil particles also carry fertilizer and pesticide pollution with them. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Since the dust bowl days of the 1930s Depression, the government has been working with farmers to reduce erosion. Today, soil conservation is better. But fields still lose a lot of topsoil because not all farmers use the best conservation methods. Dirt is washed away by rain. That silt clogs up streams, rivers and lakes. But one region is trying to intercept the silt before it gets to the river system. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Since the dust bowl days of the 1930s Depression, the government has been working with
farmers to reduce erosion. Today, soil conservation is better. But fields still lose a lot of
topsoil because not all farmers use the best conservation methods. Dirt is washed away
by rain. That silt clogs up streams, rivers and lakes. But one region is trying to intercept
the silt before it gets to the river system. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Farm fields in all or part of 38 states drain into the Mississippi River. Some of the
tributaries of the Mississippi are so silted that dredges have to operate around the clock to keep river
shipping lanes open.
The Sangamon River in central Illinois is not big enough for shipping cargo, but it does
run into the man-made Decatur Lake. The city of Decatur gets its water from that lake
and often has to dredge it to keep the water inlets from clogging up.
Keith Alexander is the Director of Water Management for the city of Decatur, Illinois.
He says a little soil erosion on enough farms adds up:
“And the drainage area that runs into the lake is 925 square miles of some of the world’s
best topsoil. We have literally a half-a-million acres of corn and soybean fields that flow
into our lake that we use for drinking water purposes.”
Not only does the silt clog the lake, it also carries fertilizers and pesticides with it,
polluting the lake. The city has offered farmers financial incentives to reduce soil
erosion. But it hasn’t gotten enough participation from farmers to solve the problem. So,
the City of Decatur decided to try another approach. They would offer money to landowners to build ponds. Those ponds would be located in key drainage areas next
to farm fields.
Shannon Allen is a watershed specialist with the Macon County Soil and Water
Conservation District. He says it turned out to be a pretty popular program:
“The landowners wanted it for recreational purposes, obviously fish, maybe swimming
or whatever. We’re putting them in so we can collect sediment from the farm fields
above them so they don’t go into the river system.”
Shannon Allen says the ponds work a lot better at keeping silt out of creeks and rivers and lakes
than other methods to reduce erosion.
“Basically ponds collect 90% of the silt. And, so anytime you can put up a pond, you’re
doing better than a grassed waterway or a terrace that don’t reduce sediment loads by that
much.”
The city offers up to 5,000 dollars to landowners, but that’s well short of the actual cost. A typical pond
can cost 20 to 25,000 dollars to build. But landowners have been taking the city’s offer.
Alan Roberson owns a few acres at the bottom of a sloping corn field. About 42 acres
drains onto his property and then into a creek. He says when he moved there, there was
just a big ditch where stormwater from the neighboring farm fields washed a bigger and
bigger gully, carrying sediment to the creek:
“There was places eight, ten feet deep. We’ve lived here almost 20 years and it just kept
getting deeper as it went along. I hated to even come down here and look at it because it
was getting so bad. So, I’m glad that program came along to take care of it. As you can
see, it’s not doing that anymore.”
Roberson took advantage of the city’s pond program. Where the gully used to be, a carpet
of green lawn now borders a picturesque little pond.
Alan Roberson says the pond has a pipe in the bottom of it, kind of like a bathtub plug. It
was part of the design required to get the matching funds from the city. When the pond
fills up with silt, Roberson will be able to drain it and dig out the soil:
(Sound of water trickling)
“See this valve down here? You can actually pull that up. It could very well be 20 years
from now they’ll get enough silt in here where a person will have to bring it down. But
like I said, it’s designed to do that.”
That silt is some of the richest dirt in the corn belt and could be sold back to farmers or
used for gardens or flower beds. The landowner will have to pay the cost of digging it
out, but it’s that much more silt that won’t have to be dredged from the lakes or the rivers
that feed them, where people get their public water supply.
With skyrocketing crude oil prices much of the nation’s attention has turned toward alternative fuels. While many people are focused on ethanol production, one small town is looking at turning waste from humans and hogs into electricity. In a few months, the town will break ground on a 10-million dollar processing plant. It hopes to become the first town in the nation to run completely off renewable resources. The GLRC’s LaToya Dennis reports:
Transcript
With skyrocketing crude oil prices much of the nation’s attention has turned toward
alternative fuels. While many people are focused on ethanol production, one small town
is looking at turning waste from humans and hogs into electricity. In a few months, the
town will break ground on a 10 million dollar processing plant. It hopes to become the
first town in the nation to run completely off renewable resources. The GLRC’s LaToya
Dennis reports:
To get where we’re going, you have to pass through small town after small town and
acres and acres of cornfields. Reynolds, Indiana is a farm town of about 500 people. It’s
hard to find on most maps. And it’s pretty easy to overlook. After all, there’s only one gas
station and three restaurants. But what Reynolds is doing is hard to overlook. Charlie
Van Voorst has lived there for a long time and is now the town president. He says the town is
going to provide its own electricity and it’s not going to burn fossil fuels like coal or
natural gas.
“Town board meetings went from talking about the neighbor’s dog in your yard to now
talking about million dollar decisions about what we’re building.”
What the town of Reynolds is building is a new power plant powered by the by-products
of the surrounding farms, chiefly, pig poop. The plant will use technology to pull
methane and other gases from animal and human waste. The gases will then power
engines and steam turbines. Coming out on the other end is electricity, and leftover solids,
which can be used for fertilizer.
(Sound of pigs)
Within just a few miles there are around 150 thousand pigs. That makes for a lot of
waste:
“Well, this is the bacon.”
Bill Schroeder is a local pig farmer. He’s standing in the middle of a thousand hogs.
They’re about knee high and weigh around 300 pounds each. They’re constantly eating
and pooping.
“It don’t smell to me, does it smell to you. When you walked in here, did you smell?”
Actually, it did smell, but Schroeder thinks it smells like money. He says he’s willing to
give the waste his pigs produce to the town to turn into electricity. After the waste is
processed, farmers will get a higher quality fertilizer back for their fields. But Schroeder
says some farmers still might hesitate because they’re not being paid for their pig waste.
“There should be return. Anytime you invest money, you expect a return. I mean if
you’ve got a CD in the bank you expect a return on that CD. It’s no different from
investment in machinery, hog buildings or anything else.”
Obviously, some of the financial incentives still have to be worked out, but Reynolds
town officials say there are good reasons besides money to take the town off the existing
power grid. Right now, Reynolds gets its energy from coal. That puts a lot of carbon into
the air. Methane processing produces less carbon dioxide than coal.
Jody Snodgrass is managing director for Rose Energy. That’s the company building the
processing plant. He says the project has another environmental benefit. It reduces the
amount methane from pig manure that’s released into the atmosphere because it’s
captured and used to make electricity.
“The increase of methane causes increased cloud formation. Also causes decreased ozone
layer and basically contributes to global warming as does carbon dioxide and several
other compounds. And if you can reduce those or eliminate those, that obviously is a plus
for the environment.”
That’s the reason the town of Reynolds is getting the support of the state in its effort to
become energy independent. Although everyone’s not on board yet, town president Charlie Van
Voorst is excited about what’s to come. He says small town farming communities haven’t
seen a development this big in more than 100 years:
“Oh, my goodness. Since I’ve grown up, golly. I suppose you could talk about the –
something to this magnitude would be when electricity came into our community.”
Town officials hope Reynolds is powered by pig poop and other alternative fuels by
2008. They say if things go well, their town could become the model for other small farm
towns across the country.
For the GLRC, I’m LaToya Dennis.
HOST TAG: This piece was originally produced for NPR’s Next Generation
Radio.
Frank Baffi's barn in southern Michigan (photo by Mark Brush)
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
There are fewer farmers raising pigs, cows and chickens these days.
But the amount of meat being produced in the U.S. continues to increase.
So livestock farms haven’t exactly disappeared. They’ve just gotten bigger.
In the third part of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush reports these big operations have kept food costs down, but those cheap prices come with consequences:
Transcript
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
There are fewer farmers raising pigs, cows and chickens these days.
But the amount of meat being produced in the U.S. continues to increase.
So livestock farms haven’t exactly disappeared. They’ve just gotten bigger.
In the third part of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush reports these big operations have kept food costs down, but those cheap prices come
with consequences:
When you picture a typical farm, chances are you probably think of a farm just like Frank
Baffi’s.
(Sound of farm)
He grows corn and oats on his land. He’s got chickens, a couple of horses, two ducks,
about 30 beef cows. And in this fading red barn, he’s got pigs:
(Sound of claps)
“Hey Pig! C’mon! Get up!”
(Sound of pigs)
In fact, the pigs have been the most profitable thing he’s raised on this farm. Baffi says
he used to sell more than fifty thousand dollars worth of pigs every year. It was enough
to make a living on.
(Sound of pigs)
But as time went on, selling pigs became less profitable. In the 1980s, his expenses went
up and the price he could get for his pigs went down. Baffi says he was faced with a
decision. It was the same decision that many small livestock farmers faced at the time:
“I think it was a whole trend that if you weren’t big you had to get out. It was if you had
20 cows it was you gotta be milkin’ 30, or if you were milking 30 it was oh, you gotta be
milkin’ 100. The reason they weren’t making any money is that they’re not making
enough money for what they sell.”
Frank Baffi blames the drop in prices on the increase in global trade. He says US
producers started to compete with operations overseas, where expenses can often be
cheaper. To keep up, producers in the US got more efficient, and as they did so, prices
continued to drop. Baffi says he tried to get bigger, but he just didn’t have enough
money.
But just down the road there’s a pig farm that is making a profit. Frank Baffi’s neighbor
is Bruce Barton. His dad started the family in the hog business in the 1950s. Barton says
early on his Dad could see what was coming:
“He pretty much expanded because he could see that small farmers were struggling to
survive and ya know we had buy the feed in larger lots you sell your hogs in larger lots.
There was going to be less margin for each hog. You just had to have more, more of
them.”
The Bartons raised about 11 pigs when the started out. Now they raise about 100,000.
That may seem like a lot, but their operation is small compared to those that raise over a
million hogs a year.
The size of these big farms trouble many environmentalists. These farms are forced to
deal with large volumes of manure. On average one pig can generate close to two tons of
manure a year. Multiply that by one million and you get the picture. Smaller farms can
spread the manure as fertilizer on their land without much problem and large farms can
use the manure too. It’s just that they need a lot of land to spread the manure on. If they
put too much on a field, it can pollute streams and drinking water wells, and researchers
say, these farms are only going to get bigger.
Jim MacDonald researches farming trends for the US Department of Agriculture. He
says small farmers can make a go of it if they’re able to find a niche market, like
producing organic meat and milk. But MacDonald says the demand for these niche
products is still tiny compared to the demand for things like chicken nuggets and hot
dogs:
“The overall trend so far, I think, continues to be towards larger operations producing
what we might call generic or commodity like products and their prices continue to fall.”
Prices are falling because these farms continue to get bigger and more efficient. That
means fewer and fewer people are farming. So the idyllic picture we have of the small
farmer is fading.
(Sound of Frank’s farm up)
Last year, Frank Baffi lost more than a thousand dollars on his farm. He mainly relies on
his social security check for his income. A row of empty metal crates line his barn:
“This is where I’d have pigs and this is where they would have their babies. There
probably all used up but I just haven’t had the heart to tear them out. Because I always
thought that I could at least get back to where I was. And the way it looks, you know, the
profitability of this thing, it don’t look like I’m going to go there.”
So the choices you make at the grocery store influence how farms are changing. It’s only
normal: most of us pick the cheaper product. But some people who live near these large
facilities say consumers don’t know the full cost of their choices.
Settlers dug ditches and straightened rivers to drain the fields they needed for planting. (photo by Mark Brush)
Today, we wrap up our series on pollution in the heartland.
To farm in the nation’s heartland, people first had to drain the water from the land. In a lot of places, that meant dredging rivers to get them to move along faster and carry water off the fields. But straight, fast rivers aren’t healthy rivers. And the rushing water carries pesticides and fertilizers off of fields and deposits them downstream. But in some places, farmers are starting to repair rivers. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the final story in our week-long series:
Transcript
Today, we wrap up our series on pollution in the heartland. To farm in the nation’s
heartland, people first had to drain the water from the land. In a lot of places, that meant
dredging rivers to get them to move along faster and carry water off the fields. But
straight, fast rivers aren’t healthy rivers. And the rushing water carries pesticides and
fertilizers off of fields and deposits them downstream. But in some places, farmers are
starting to repair rivers. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the final story in our week-long series:
From an airplane, the land below it looks like it was drawn in geometry class. Fields
of corn and soybeans look almost like perfect squares. Rivers seem as straight as a ruler’s
edge.
When rivers have their way, they’re unruly. They have lots of twists and bends, but people have straightened a lot of rivers and streams to make it easier to grow crops
and raise animals. European settlers forging their way West got stuck in huge swamps.
The mosquitoes were terrible. But the settlers’ chances of raising food in the swampland
were even worse.
“In order to reclaim that land, muckland, for raising vegetable crops, they had to drain it.”
Barb Cook owns a farm here in fertile southwest Michigan. Her grandfather farmed here
in the early 1900s, back when the rivers were being straightened.
(sound of river)
Cook’s standing on the bank of the Dowagiac River. Right now it’s as straight as a canal
and it’s moving fast. But it’s about to get some of its curves back.
Barb Cook says she was skeptical when she heard about the plan to coax the river back to
its original path.
“Well, they want to put the wiggles back. Well, why? Were they trying to hoodwink
anyone or were their objectives pure? And I got involved and felt they were really truly
trying to improve things.”
Cook’s now the vice president of the group. It calls itself MEANDRS. It’s made up of
farmers and biologists and fishermen. People who all have a stake in what happens to the
river.
They’re carving out one of the curves the river used to follow.
Jay Wesley is a biologist with the Department of Natural Resources. He says even
though this new meander isn’t connected to the river yet, little springs are bubbling up.
“We’ve actually even seen trout in here since this first part of the project’s been done.
They’ve come up through the culvert from the river and have found their way up here.
So it’s pretty cold, high quality water.”
That’s exciting news for fishermen. A river fed by cold groundwater can be a mecca for
trout. The pools and riffles sculpted into the new meander will give fish places to hide.
These small signs of hope are a pretty big deal. This project is a very long labor of
love 12 years in the making.
That’s because there are lots of hurdles. For one thing, meander restorations are
expensive. Half a million dollars at the low end.
There are piles of paperwork.
And some farmers worry that restoring meanders will flood their fields.
In this project, the MEANDRS group surveyed nearby farmers early on about their
concerns and included them in the planning process. Bill Westraight is the President of
MEANDRS. He’s also a farmer who owns land along the river.
“I think what I say holds more weight with farmers than if somebody had come down and
was mandating that they participate in some way.”
Westraight says they had some major critics in the beginning. But he says they’ve gotten
almost all the neighbors on board. He says it was crucial that they gave everyone a say.
They also commissioned feasibility studies to make sure upstream farmers wouldn’t be
flooded.
All these hurdles mean that projects like these aren’t very common.
Andrew Fahlund is with the nonprofit group American Rivers. He says big projects like
meander restorations almost always need government funding. And that funding’s been
cut dramatically over the past few years. Fahlund says those cuts are short-sighted
because healthier rivers can actually save money in the long run.
“One of the reasons you get such an economic benefit from river restoration is that you
reduce the costs of having to treat water, filter
that water and clean it up for human consumption.”
(river sound up under)
The MEANDRS group says there’s no way they can restore the entire river. But they
hope mending just this small section will help revive the river a bit.
The group points out that this type of restoration won’t work everywhere. They say in
many places, channelized rivers are still crucial for keeping fields drained.
Farmer Barb Cook says even now, she sees this project as an experiment. In a few
months, she’ll get to see whether all her hard work will pan out, when they’ll try to force
water from the straight channel into the new meander.
“As you look at the stream behind us, it’s quite a volume of water. Water has its own
way. Mother Nature has something to say about this too. She may say no.”
Cook says nothing ever runs smoothly. But she says they’ll just be flexible and this time
around, let the river choose its course.
A bill before the U-S House of Representatives would stop state and local governments from passing their own restrictions on chemicals. We have more from the GLRC’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
A bill before the US House of Representatives would stop state and local
governments from passing their own restrictions on chemicals. We have more
from the GLRC’s Rick Pluta:
California recently passed a law that would ban the use of a fire retardant that’s been
linked to neurological disorders, and other states are looking at passing regulations that
are stricter than federal rules governing fertilizers, pesticides, and industrial chemicals.
Democratic Representative John Dingell of Michigan says all of those could be sidelined
by the bill before Congress:
“In other words, it is a wall not only against existing law, but it is a wall against the states enacting additional laws which would make it safe for people.”
He says the bill would also require environmental regulators to perform a cost-benefit
analysis as part of their decisions, when the health of the public should be their top
concern.
Supporters say the United States needs a single standard governing pesticides and
chemicals to comply with an international treaty.
