Also, school vouchers are already costing more than they 'predicted,' The Sierra Club petitions the EPA to strip DNR authority of waterways, and Elon Musk sucks.
A few things to clear the air over the DNR, maximum fine is $10,000, to collect anymore they have to go to court, they very seldom do that. If a spill occurs and you report it as such, the fine is usually cut in half, most don't bother and take their chances since there is so little monitoring of the water. We have in effect this business of "Non-Point Source Pollution" which gives farmers a pass to do whatever they want, or do nothing. It might have been acceptable when farming was mixed and not so concentrated, but when you have 8,000 hogs in one building and four or five buildings, even run off from liquid manure being sprayed in a field that is to wet to absorb the manure is going to simply run off into the nearest drainage or tile line leading to a drainage. That manure is so concentrated and full of ammonia you know what it is going to do, but with no monitoring and no watchdogs beyond the public, is it any wonder why are surface water is so terrible? Have a look at Lake Darling, the DNR went to great lengths to clean up that mess, drained the lake, put in retention ponds, and refilled the lake. Today it is as bad as it was before they did anything! You can't swim in it, the fish tou catch may or may not be fit to eat, and the lake is covered with green algae! You mentioned the major spill on the Nisnhabotna River, but a few weeks later was a second spill on a creek that feeds the Wapsi, Again 20 miles of total fish kill and the source remains unknown! This is the second occurance and this one worse than the last! It appears not to be manure and whatever killed the fish wrent straight to the bottm killing all of the game and larger fish with no source of the poison! Meanwhile the legislature threatens to shut down all water monitoring because it simply dispproves their "volunteer program" to stop the loss of nitrogen and soil isn't working even a little bit and in ten years has gotten worse, not better! So the question I have isthis the sort of thing that could create a proceeding to impeach the governor and anyone responsible for this malfeasence? Clearly, something needs to be done on several levels and many different directions, but this alone should be enough for an impeachment I would think!
Totally agree. If our leaders don't think it's important enough for the citizens to have clean water they need to be gone. We've seen time and time again what 'self-monitoring' ends up doing.
A few things to clear the air over the DNR, maximum fine is $10,000, to collect anymore they have to go to court, they very seldom do that. If a spill occurs and you report it as such, the fine is usually cut in half, most don't bother and take their chances since there is so little monitoring of the water. We have in effect this business of "Non-Point Source Pollution" which gives farmers a pass to do whatever they want, or do nothing. It might have been acceptable when farming was mixed and not so concentrated, but when you have 8,000 hogs in one building and four or five buildings, even run off from liquid manure being sprayed in a field that is to wet to absorb the manure is going to simply run off into the nearest drainage or tile line leading to a drainage. That manure is so concentrated and full of ammonia you know what it is going to do, but with no monitoring and no watchdogs beyond the public, is it any wonder why are surface water is so terrible? Have a look at Lake Darling, the DNR went to great lengths to clean up that mess, drained the lake, put in retention ponds, and refilled the lake. Today it is as bad as it was before they did anything! You can't swim in it, the fish tou catch may or may not be fit to eat, and the lake is covered with green algae! You mentioned the major spill on the Nisnhabotna River, but a few weeks later was a second spill on a creek that feeds the Wapsi, Again 20 miles of total fish kill and the source remains unknown! This is the second occurance and this one worse than the last! It appears not to be manure and whatever killed the fish wrent straight to the bottm killing all of the game and larger fish with no source of the poison! Meanwhile the legislature threatens to shut down all water monitoring because it simply dispproves their "volunteer program" to stop the loss of nitrogen and soil isn't working even a little bit and in ten years has gotten worse, not better! So the question I have isthis the sort of thing that could create a proceeding to impeach the governor and anyone responsible for this malfeasence? Clearly, something needs to be done on several levels and many different directions, but this alone should be enough for an impeachment I would think!
Totally agree. If our leaders don't think it's important enough for the citizens to have clean water they need to be gone. We've seen time and time again what 'self-monitoring' ends up doing.