Water Pollution Caused by Industrial Cattle Farms - Open Letter by John Klein, Lime Lake resident

Bruce Washburn  - CAFO Staff

Michigan Department of Environmental Quality

The spring of 2016 is now upon us. Spreading of CAFO waste will soon begin and our waters, both above and below ground, are once again being attacked.

I sent a report to you and the MDEQ late last summer that reported the finding of cyanobacteria and microcystin in the waters of Lime Lake in Wright Township of Hillsdale County. DNA tracking for Bovine resulted positive in the DNA sampling. (Which by the way Bruce, deer are not part of the Bovine family as you stated last November in our meeting. Whitetail deer are a member of the Cervidae family.)

As you well know as stated in the report I sent, there is only one real source of the Bovine DNA in the Lime Lake watershed. There is the CAFO located about ½ mile uphill from Lime Lake. I believe this problem needs to be addressed before Lime Lake becomes the Lake Erie or Grand Lake St. Mary's in Ohio. And that is not to overlook the possibility of swine waste also entering the watershed as there is a swine CAFO also in the watershed.

I stated at our meeting that there is an opportunity here to eliminate the CAFO waste entering Lime Lake, both from field applications of  CAFO waste, spray irrigation of CAFO waste and release of the stormwater pond which may contain high levels of phosphorous. I even offered to partner with the MDEQ to solve this issue through testing and possibly some financial help. 

I have not heard from you and therefore feel that this problem has followed the same protocol that MDEQ has been using since 2011. And that is to deny that there is a problem and hope it will go away. In this case, I assure you it will not go away.

MDEQ ignored obvious warnings in Flint and the problem only escalated. I strongly feel that this is the  case here in our rural area. We know surface and groundwater have been contaminated all over the country from CAFO waste disposal practices, even from those practices that are not violating any law. We can no longer ignore the obvious warnings that current practices will provide very bad results. Our health and health of future generations is at stake.

Everyone leaves a legacy. The current MDEQ Drinking Water Division has already embedded its legacy in the Flint tragedy under the abysmal guidance of Governor Snyder and former MDEQ head Dan Wyant. I hope that you and those MDEQ staff that monitor CAFOs would like to leave a better legacy. 

I believe it's time for MDEQ to step up to the plate and acknowledge that CAFO waste is a danger to both surface and groundwater. It's time that the safety and health of real people wins over economic development.  It's time to begin aggressive stream testing for e.coli and dissolved reactive phosphorous. It's time to require groundwater monitoring. It's time.

I would like to know if you or any members of the MDEQ have any plans to address this Lime Lake problem and the problem as a whole.

John Klein

Lime Lake resident

VIDEO: Kathie's ONE100 Award - 100%

VIDEO: Kathie's ONE100 Award - 100%

Dear Future Generations: Sorry

Bayer and Syngenta pesticides endanger tens of thousands in Punjab (India)

ECCHR demands investigations by FAO and WHO

“Foreign companies come with their pesticides and say they will double production. They do not think about the harms to human beings in the country,” a farmer reported when being interviewed as part of a survey carried out on the use of pesticides in Punjab (India) in March 2015. The farmer’s testimony is part of a video on possible legal action on highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs).

Read the entire story clicking on the below link:
http://www.ecchr.eu/en/our_work/business-and-human-rights/pesticides.html

EPA Decides to Ignore Citizen Comments about Savoy's Injection Well Permit

The entire file can be downloaded in PDF format here.

I am considering appealing against this decision within the next 3 weeks.

150,000 penguins die after giant iceberg renders colony landlocked | World news | The Guardian

Horrible side effect of man-made climate change. Innocent creatures pay the bill. Who is morally and ethically responsible?



150,000 penguins die after giant iceberg renders colony landlocked | World news | The Guardian

Pure Michigan - Really?: State agency plans to monitor dioxane plume in Ann Arbor

By - Associated Press - Friday, February 5, 2016
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality will closely monitor a dioxane plume that’s been slowly expanding in Ann Arbor as it moves closer to the Huron River, according to the agency.

Currently, agency officials are limited by state law and court orders on what they can do from an enforcement standpoint. The department can’t force Pall Corp., which dumped large amounts of the chemical into the environment from 1966 to 1986, to do a full-scale cleanup, and the pollution is still spreading despite ongoing pump-and-treat remediation efforts to reduce the amount of dioxane in the groundwater.

 ...
Under current state law and court orders, the plume is allowed to continue to spread and contaminate more groundwater and eventually reach the Huron River.


A map produced by MLive showing Ann Arbor's underground dioxane plume, based on the county's interpretation of monitoring well data in 2013, and more recently based on newer data from the third quarter of 2015 as mapped by Roger Rayle, co-founder and chairman of Scio Residents for Safe Water. Officials monitoring the plume say it's still spreading.

Read the full story here.

For me the biggest "take home message" of this article is to realize that we can NOT depend on the current laws and legislation to protect the health of the planet and its people. We have to ENFORCE much stricter laws to ensure that corporations like the Pall Corp in this case, Tecumseh Product, the Adrian car interior manufacturer Dura, who sold the plant to an LLC that essentially scrapped the more valuable components of the building and left a mess of asbestos pollution behind, and the asbestos companies in this nation that poisoned thousands if not millions of miners, builders and home residents can get away with their CRIMINAL and UNETHICAL conduct and can be FORCED- if necessary - to cleanup their mess and re-tribute some of the damage they have done to this planet! Grandfathering-in old sins and putting the burden of proof to the victims of environmental crime are MEDIEVAL practices - any country that does not step up to modern ethical standards and enforces stricter laws on CRIMES against humanity and the planet is unworthy to call themselves civilized! People and the Environment are not externalities that can be written off by accounting!!!!


More info on this unbelievable criminal conduct committed by the Pall Corp. here