Category Archives: Environment

IOWA’S WATER WOES

Posted on February 19, 2006 by bfiamollyreagan

 IOWA'S WATER WOES Last Sunday, February 12th, the headlines of the Des Moines Register read: 'NO CLEAR SOLUTIONS TO STATE'S TAINTED WATER' This article by Perry Beeman/Register staff writer goes on to say that recreation and more businesses would come … Continue reading →

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SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY: Global Climate Change

Posted on February 12, 2006 by bfialindathieman

  SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY: Global Climate Change by Molly Regan Although “Slip Slidin’ Away” is the title of a great song by one of my top three all-time favorite singers, Paul Simon, it also describes the current conditions of most … Continue reading →

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EPA SAYS ALL IS FORGIVEN FOR SOME ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIORS’ AIR POLLUTION SINS

Posted on February 5, 2006 by bfiamollyreagan

EPA SAYS ALL IS FORGIVEN FOR SOME ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIORS' AIR POLLUTION SINS This week's IOWA Public TV program “Market To Market” just reported: “In what's being hailed as a major step forward, the US Environmental Protection Agency kicked off … Continue reading →

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Reprocessing Is Not the “Solution” to the Nuclear Waste Problem

Posted on February 1, 2006 by bfiacarolinevernon

  Reprocessing Is Not the “Solution”
to the Nuclear Waste Problem

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

This program is central to the Bush administration’s efforts to jump-start the moribund nuclear power industry.

Statement of Mary Olson, NIRS Campaign to Stop Reprocessing. Director of NIRS southeast office:

“[George W.] Bush’s misguided obsession with nuclear power has reached a critical and dangerous juncture. The administration has been desperate to find a nuclear waste solution in order to resuscitate the moribund and unpopular nuclear power industry by moving forward quickly on the scientifically-flawed Yucca Mountain waste dump in Nevada. Instead it has found itself spinning its wheels in the mire of Yucca Mountain’s geologic instability and the scandal of covering up these data. Faced with an industry impatient to move its on-site waste, the administration is now clutching at a new nuclear straw.”

“Its latest scheme is reprocessing of irradiated commercial fuel, one of the dirtiest and most proliferation-vulnerable processes in the nuclear fuel chain. Abandoned in this country for more than 30 years, countries where it has been done – including Britain, France and Russia – are now reaping its hideous environmental legacy of contamination and disease.”

“The price tag in dollars – as well as in health impacts – will be enormous if this country is allowed to venture back down the reprocessing road. The only U.S. commercial reprocessing site ever to operate – in West Valley, New York – is projected to cost more than $5 billion to clean up despite reprocessing only a fraction of the waste sent there between 1966 and 1972. Now Congress has awarded the U.S. Department of Energy $50 million of our money to set this debacle in motion once again although the totals are likely to reach the hundreds of billions of dollars.”

“The existing nuclear reactors around the globe are already sitting-duck terrorist targets. Separating plutonium from nuclear power waste fuel – as reprocessing does – simply sets up new and inviting opportunities for terrorists to seize fissile, bomb-capable materials.  Support for a reprocessing program makes a mockery of statements coming out of this administration that protecting the American people from terrorism is paramount.  Instead, it will put more Americans in harm’s way.”

Reprocessing Is Not the “Solution” to the Nuclear Waste Problem

The Radioactive Waste Burden

Splitting atoms to make electricity has created an enormous problem: waste containing 95% of the toxic radioactivity produced during the Atomic Age. Nuclear weapons production, industrial activity, research and medicine combined, create only 5% of this problem.
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Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate GM Soy Diet

Posted on January 27, 2006 by bfialindathieman

Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate GM Soy Diet

By Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception

The Russian scientist planned a simple experiment to see if eating genetically modified (GM) soy might influence offspring. What she got, however, was an astounding result that may threaten a multi-billion dollar industry.

Irina Ermakova, a leading scientist at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), added GM soy flour (5-7 grams) to the diet of female rats. Other females were fed non-GM soy or no soy at all. The experimental diet began two weeks before the rats conceived and continued through pregnancy and nursing.

Ermakova's first surprise came when her pregnant rats started giving birth. Some pups from GM-fed mothers were quite a bit smaller. After 2 weeks, 36% of them weighed less than 20 grams compared to about 6% from the other groups.

But the real shock came when the rats started dying. Within three weeks, 25 of the 45 (55.6%) rats from the GM soy group died compared to only 3 of 33 (9%) from the non-GM soy group and 3 of 44 (6.8%) from the non-soy controls.

Ermakova preserved several major organs from the mother rats and offspring, drew up designs for a detailed organ analysis, created plans to repeat and expand the feeding trial, and promptly ran out of research money. The $70,000 needed was not expected to arrive for a year. Therefore, when she was invited to present her research at a symposium organized by the National Association for Genetic Security, Ermakova wrote 'PRELIMINARY STUDIES' on the top of her paper. She presented it on October 10, 2005 at a session devoted to the risks of GM food.

Her findings are hardly welcome by an industry already steeped in controversy.

GM Soy's Divisive Past

The soy she was testing was Monsanto's Roundup Ready variety. Its DNA has bacterial genes added that allow the soy plant to survive applications of Monsanto's 'Roundup' brand herbicide. About 85% of the soy grown in the US is Roundup Ready. Since soy derivatives, including oil, flour and lecithin, are found in the majority of processed foods sold in the US, many Americans eat ingredients derived from Roundup Ready soy everyday.

The FDA does not require any safety tests on genetically modified foods. If Monsanto or other biotech companies declare their foods safe, the agency has no further questions. The rationale for this hands-off position is a sentence in the FDA's 1992 policy that states, “The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”[1] The statement, it turns out, was deceptive. Documents made public from a lawsuit years later revealed that the FDA's own experts agreed that GM foods are different and might lead to hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases or nutritional problems. They had urged their superiors to require long-term safety studies, but were ignored. The person in charge of FDA policy was, conveniently, Monsanto's former attorney (and later their vice president). One FDA microbiologist described the GM food policy as “just a political document” without scientific basis, and warned that industry would “not do the tests that they would normally do” since the FDA didn't require any.[2] He was correct.

There have been less than 20 published, peer-reviewed animal feeding safety studies and no human clinical trials' in spite of the fact that millions of people eat GM soy, corn, cotton, or canola daily. There are no adequate tests on “biochemistry, immunology, tissue pathology, gut function, liver function and kidney function,”[3] and animal feeding studies are too short to adequately test for cancer, reproductive problems, or effects in the next generation. This makes Ermakova's research particularly significant. It's the first of its kind.

Past Studies Show Significant Effects

Other studies on Roundup Ready soy also raise serious questions. Research on the liver, the body's major de-toxifier, showed that rats fed GM soy developed misshapen nuclei and other cellular anomalies.[4] This indicates increased metabolic activity, probably resulting from a major insult to that organ. Rats also showed changes in the pancreas, including a huge drop in the production of a major enzyme (alpha-amylase),[5] which could inhibit digestion. Cooked GM soy contains about twice the amount of soy lectin, which can also block nutrient assimilation.[6] And one study showed that GM soy has 12-14% less isoflavones, which are touted as cancer fighting.[7]
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FALLON: Patty Judge Fundraising “Legal, but not Ethical”

Posted on January 26, 2006 by bfialindathieman

FALLON: Patty Judge Fundraising “Legal, but not Ethical” Rep. Ed Fallon calls for Clean Elections law in Iowa and warns against the influence of corporate hog confinement operators State Representative and gubernatorial candidate Ed Fallon (D-Des Moines) held a press … Continue reading →

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OH, THAT SHORT TERM MEMORY!

Posted on January 26, 2006 by bfiamollyreagan

OH, THAT SHORT TERM MEMORY! From “The Onion”…'SCIENTIST HAS NAGGING FEELING HE LEFT PARTICLE ACCELERATOR ON' “Chicago – University of Chicago particle physicist Matthew Sharp drove halfway home before he was struck with the fear that he'd left the Argonne … Continue reading →

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COW EXCAPES SLAUGHTER

Posted on January 15, 2006 by bfiamollyreagan

COW ESCAPES SLAUGHTER QuadCity Times GREAT FALLS, Mont. – A spirited cow that jumped a slaughterhouse gate and evaded capture for six hours may not be doomed after all.  Appeals to spare the life of the 1,200-pound heifer came from … Continue reading →

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IOWA’S MASTER MATRIX REVISTED/JANUARY 2006

Posted on January 8, 2006 by bfiamollyreagan

IOWA'S MASTER MATRIX REVISITED/ JANUARY 2006 It is about AIR, it is about WATER, and it is about your COMMUNITY. These are the three areas that the IOWA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES' MASTER MATRIX concentrates on.  Every January for the … Continue reading →

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IN IOWA, LIGHTENING IN THE SKY, CONFUSION ON THE GROUND

Posted on January 3, 2006 by bfiamollyreagan

  IN IOWA, LIGHTENING IN THE SKY, CONFUSION ON THE GROUND Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again; the beginning of a new January with unusual phenomena happening.  On Monday morning, January 2nd at 6AM in Scott County, there … Continue reading →

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