Clean Air?

[Deb]

Cowman, I meant the Klapstein committee was made up of people with a vested interest in the livestock industry.

I agree with everything Gopher said. Gopher are you aware of the truckwash fiasco near Kipp? After breaking all kinds of laws, letting liquid manure run under the road and into the neighbor's land, pumping onto the same fields Fridays after 4:30 PM when he knew the gov't employees get off for the weekend, and pumping at night onto the back fields, and having the health region shut them down, NRCB has given them approval to enlarge their non-engineered lagoon and continue washing trucks (which he was doing anyway in secret in spite of the health region according to someone who overheard one of the employees). The NRCB said they weren't going to take into account the truck wash's "past history". The one neighbour who complained and had spent $15,000 of his own money on lawyers the past year said to the NRCB that he understood how people like Weibo Ludwig could get so frustrated after following the proper procedure and still get screwed, that he'd want to go blow up an oil pump or whatever. For this, the NRCB had the RCMP arrest the neighbour to the truckwash was arrested last Thursday I think it was, and fingerprinted. If he wasn't mad before, he's sick with rage now but has decided to sell his place because the "stink" literally and figurtively, will never go away.

If anyone is interested, there is a one-day conference in Red Deer on April 12th and the invitation says, "If you are concerned with the Provincial Government takeover of Confined Feeding Operation in Alberta, then please join us."

The speakers will be: Lisa Bechthold, Roger Epp (political science prof and editor of Writing Off the Rural West; Andrew Nikiforuk (wrote the Weibo Ludwig and oil industry book); Brian Kennedy (former Alb Agr ILO engineer); Dr. Paul Lewis (retired entomology prof and S.A. Env. Group president); Brian Mason (ND part; Ken Nicol (head of AB Liberal Party); Brian Bietz (NRCB rep, CFO approvals).

Registration is $30 and for more info call Sue Pearson at 403-347-3299 or Lisa Bechthold at 403-867-2999.

[rodbradshaw]

The conference Red Deer might be good if it was scientifically based but it is just going to be a bitch session. If people had used some common sense and not had everyone for 10-20 miles appealing developements the municipalities would still be in control.
For example a development permit was turned down (later approved with unrealistic conditions)for a weaner barn to be built next door to the worlds largest petrochemical plant. The farmer had a section of land and the barn was to be built in the middle of the section. Even with all the proper planning farmers were opposing it.

This group is going to rally everyone to their cause and then reel in horror when the pressure is turned up and their so called family farm is reclassified as a CFO (remember two dairy cows is a CFO)and they don't meet the criteria and have to quite farming. Remember there are more teachers in the government caucus than their are farmers and rural issues will not be decided by level headed discussion. Beware of who you go to bed with as they may not be there to support you and keep you warm!
The other thing that I have against this group is the fact that they oppose a development because of its ownership. Those pigs are Canadian, they are going to be raised by Canadian workers, fed Canadian grain and they are going to pay Canadian taxes, They are going to be slaughtered in Canada and exported to foreign countries and help our balance of trade. What is the difference to a similar sized development that is being done in three or four phases in the same area?

If this group succeeds it will mean we might as well pack our bags and sell to the horsey set as cowman calls them.

[cakadu]

We've been told that these CFO's are safe, environmentally friendly etc. etc. without there being any benchmarking/scientific evidence to tell us if they in fact are safe, so why should going and listening to this group be any different?

It would be interesting to hear what they have to say and then balance it against the "pro" viewpoint. I would like to think that people in the audience, myself included, would be astute enough to know manure when they heard it. How do we know what their message is, unless we actually go and hear it. We've certainly been hearing enough about the other side.

As in all things, let people hear the information and let them decide what they'll believe and won't believe.

[cowman]

I am sure it will be a great little bash the government sort of thing and yes Linda it will probably be quite informative. I guess my question is "What's the point?". The dirty deed is done. The government was quite clear that it intended to have a lot more pig barns in this province. And it brought in the legislation to allow this to happen.Do you really believe they care about a bunch of "green activists"??? Better to keep your $30 and donate it to "Save the Rainforest".
Now as in anything, there is how it is supposed to work in theory and how it really works. You can be assured that there will be no pig barns near Calgary, Edmonton or within 10 miles of any MLAs home. Or if you have a neighbor who has some pull or influence you are safe. But Foremost? Hardisty? I would suggest to you that is the place to have them? And we hear a lot of bitching about feedlot alley but really isn't that a good place to build it? Would you rather have the feedlots lining the Edmonton/Calgary corridor? Do you think that would ever happen? Now according to the act, in theory it could happen...but it won't!

[Deb]

I can almost guarantee that the "green activists" will be mostly people struggling to keep their small family farms and others will be people who want to keep their quality of life. They are the kind of people who are being negatively affected by someone else's private property rights! And don't say the livestock indistry has the Code of Practice and Minimum Distance Separation. When you have 5 or 6 feedlots and hog cesspools surrounding you at the MDS, MDS means didly squat. When your well that was fine for decades suddenly is full of E-coli a few years after an ILO moves in and plasters the land with manure, what can you do? They'll just say you can't prove it was the overapplication of manure.

[cowman]

Deb: How many wells have been contaminated down in feedlot alley? Seriously, I do not know?
And how do we go about deciding what is acceptable? Do we accept the best science around or do we go running around like Chicken Little yelling the sky is falling? While our economy stagnates. It is all well and good to be "green" when we have a comfortable income and lifestyle. But for the guy who needs to put food on the table for his kids that hog barn job might look pretty good.
Hey, I have a great idea!!! Instead of letting that lousy no good capitalist subdivide that Waterton land and build all those ugly monstrosities on it we could put one big huge mega pig barn on it...tastefully done of course? And just think how that pig manure would green up those old hills!!! I bet the elk would just love that!

[rodbradshaw]

Had a story related to me the other day and I believe that it sums up human nature. A friend had the opportunity to visit a relative on Pender Island. It has become the place to moce to but the people that moved their 10 years ago want to shut the gates and stop anyone else from moving there.
This not much different that Deb, who enjoys the tranquility of the Waterton area but does not want to share it with anyone else. Deb, did you ever think that maybe some of your neighbours thought the same thing about you before they got to know you?
The world is changing and man is the wildcard in the equation. When other species over run their habitate, disease or predators increase in response. Not so with man, wars and the odd plague have slowed the increases but there has never been a decrease in our population. We have to change how we do things and to produce the food to satisfy the people's expectations we can no longer slaughter 5-6 year old steers. Modern agriculture is here to stay, we must minimalize the effects it has on the enviroment and must put strict standards on it. These standards must be enforced. There must also be common sense used in enfocing them. When I was in England, we visited a dairy farm that the operator had pulled all the cows out of the operation because the Rivers Authority (UK enviroment department of the day) had levied a fine on him for a contractor allowing silage juice to run into a dry ditch. This same farm had a Slurry Store that had a panel removed so that it could not be used for manure storage. I have never seen a nicer cement job and wondered where the crack was that was supposedly the polluting culprit.A side story, Professor at U of Guelph says that maure storages are better than lagoons because if the cement cracks the manure will seal off the crack. The friend that related the story says if thats the case clay lined lagoons would be better as the clay won't crack and if it does the manure will seal it.

We must be vary careful in making statements about contaminating wells. Yes wells can get contaminated but it may be due to their design and it may be the runoff form the the wintering area of the family farm. Under the Enviromental farm plan, all wells must be above ground level, so wells in pits no longer are considered safe because of runoff. This is what happened in Walkerton, the casing was compromised. The farmer that was supposedly the source of the contamination was a model farm. It is always easier to point the finger at someone else but remember there is 3 pointing back.