EPA Targeting Chesapeake Bay Farmers

Bay cleanup could cost farmers


Act would step up protections for bay, cause stricter regulations

By AMY TRENT

Published: October 04, 2010

Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay could cost local farmers more than just money.

“If you’re a farmer now, and you’re barely making it, and this regulation comes along, you’ll have to get out,” said Bill Nance, a farmer in Bedford. “There’s a good number of (local) farmers who may have to get out of farming because of this legislation.”

U.S Senate Bill 1816, The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2010, steps up the protections for the bay by applying new, stricter regulations and extending the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency. The bill will go to the full Senate in the coming days.

The entire Chesapeake Bay watershed is overburdened

by nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment. The nitrogen and phosphorous kill the grasses below the surface and suck oxygen from the water, creating dead zones. Oysters and other wildlife that used to thrive now struggle to survive.

This pollution comes from agriculture as well as air pollution, storm-water runoff, sewage and other factors.

Last week, the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation delivered 18,000 letters from farmers protesting the bill to Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb.

“Even without the letters, your Farm Bureau leadership has been crystal clear on how you feel about the bill,” Warner told farmers in a Senate conference room Thursday, according to a news release about the event.

Read More

I’ve recently been highlighting some of the things that the EPA is doing that will severely impact the ability of family farmers and ranchers to grow food.  Their only goal seems to be increased regulations regardless of what it does to the people in this country.  In order for our country to remain great, an abundant, reliable food supply must be grown right here.  Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be a concern of this federal agency. 

Give Up Coal? No, Let's Not

Give up coal? No, let’s not

By Hasso Hering, Commentary
Posted: Sunday, September 20, 2009 3:00 am

The Sierra Club is trying to get students at universities including Oregon State to agitate against the use of coal as an energy source. The campaign is misguided. Let's hope it fails.

The organization has launched what it calls a coal-free campus campaign. There's no coal at Oregon State, so the campaign has won before it started. But if they mean they don't want colleges to buy electricity generated from coal, OSU would have to give up buying from Pacific Power.

Pacific has sources of alternative energy, but by far most of its supply, some 70 percent according to one recent brochure, comes from burning coal, mostly in Wyoming.

Coal has environmental drawbacks, but so do other forms of generating vast amounts of electricity. Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee notes that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles in the desert Southwest with solar collectors. Other federal energy goals call for 186,000 50-story windmills, covering an area the size of West Virginia. Alexander calls this a "massive intrusion into the natural landscape." By comparison, coal plants and the mines on which they depend occupy only a few square miles each. Read More

There are many environmentalists that would try to tell you it’s impossible to use coal energy and not destroy the planet. However, there is technology to deal with many of these environmental issues. It’s irresponsible to advocate for the elimination of a energy source that powers half the country without first having an equally affordable system ready to replace it. There is no doubt that our society will evolve into using different forms of energy, but it shouldn’t be done if it is going to bankrupt our nation and leave us with massive amounts of people that can't afford electricity.