In another dose of denial about agriculture’s harmful impacts on the environment, the Brown County Commission deflects concerns raised by a constituent about agriculture polluting Richmond Lake:
In other discussion, commissioners heard from Richmond Lake resident Patty Black Tracy who expressed concerns about water quality in the north bay of the lake and noted specific concerns about agricultural runoff from nearby operations.
Commissioner Mike Wiese, who also serves on the James River Valley Development District Board, said the district might be able to help with the establishment of a holding structure, but cleanup of the lake is a much bigger issue.
Commissioner Dennis Feickert said that while there is agricultural runoff, there’s also a tremendous amount of water that flows into the lake from the north.
Commissioners also suggested that Black Tracy reach out to the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources [Elisa Sand, “Three Agencies Submit Proposals to Book Brown County Fair Entertainment,” Aberdeen News, updated 2022.06.09].
Nobody on the Brown County Commission signaled a desire to take action on an issue affecting quality of water and life in Brown County. Commissioner Wiese at least suggested his other board might be able to take some action. Commissioner Feickert seems to want to shift the blame by noting all the runoff to the north, but you know what’s to the north of Richmond Lake? More agriculture! In the ultimate buck-passing, the commission suggests residents concerned about ag pollution take it up with the ag-inudstry-captured Department of Agriculture (and Natural Resources).
Water quality in the James River watershed, of which Richmond Lake is a part, and throughout South Dakota suffers from significant pollution from agriculture, yet state officials decline to enforce regulations to prevent runoff or punish agricultural polluters. That refusal to address water quality apparently extends to local level, where commissioners like those in Brown County shrug at water pollution as the price of surviving on an undiversified economy dependent on inudstrial farming
Will reverse osmosis make water run uphill from whence it came?
Red states have no interest in saving resources for future generations and are devoid of solutions.
What’s a little cancer Cory? Everybody’s gotta go sometime. Like I always say, get out before closing time.
I am pretty much over caring whether Republicans are killing Republicans especially in my home state. Besides, East River is doomed so we might as well admit it.
Well..people naturally prize a pristine lake environment and, in South Dakota, for some unfathomable reason, people expect when they buy expensive lake property that it will be, if not pristine, protected from pollution. Sorry, there are very, very few clean lakes in Eastern South Dakota, the vast majority being green by the fourth of July and ” turning over” soon after. The only sorta clean lake I can think of is Buffalo Lake up on the Indian Reservation north of Waubay. I believe it still has high water quality but it’s been years since I’ve been there. We haven’t had a strong, persistent advocate for clean lakes since Tony Dean (DuCharme) passed away. Eastern South Dakota and its shallow glacial lakes have turned into a sump.
Still produce some absolute monster fish, though ;)
Given the political leadership from SD congressmen on down, this is not a surprise. True colors shown here by thune and rounds.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fourteen-republicans-voted-against-bill-expanding-care-for-war-veterans
The Big Ag overlords have hooked their rowcropper serfs on an infinite loop of farm chemical addiction that ensures minimal manual labor and work time with an artificial floor for profits propped up on the backs of taxpayers. What do we get in return? Land barons who exist simultaneously as welfare kings and queens, hollowed out rural communities populated mostly by embittered brain drain residue, a toxified landscape saturated by farm chemicals, a government-mandated “renewable” fuel that spews even more GHGs than oil-based gasoline, frankenfood that is a major contributor to an ongoing and growing nationwide health crisis–all forcefully perpetuated by morally bankrupt politicians, mainly from the traitorous death cult formerly known as the Republican Party. The relatively unchecked negative externalities of our current system are killing us and the world we live in.
South Dakota is now doing their darndest to become unlivable like north west Iowa. All the towns in SD have pretty much become ghost towns and farmers farming 10,000 acres are common. Not a chicken or chicken egg or a hog can be raised without being contracted to a vertically integrated multinational. We import beef from 16 countries and when our beef goes to market it gets slaughtered by four companies. Two of which are foreign. Those same companies control much of the imported beef and own much of what is being fed out in this country.
The trend isn’t going to change without the support and activism of city dwellers. The same ones that keep buying the propaganda from the controlled press and think that the food they eat produced by modern ag is healthy. Breast cancer has gone from 1 in 12 women a few years ago to less than 1 in 8. Farmers get Non Hodgkin Lymphoma 6 times the national average. Cancer has moved up to be the number two killer. We fund 6.5 billion in annual cancer research while we think nothing of spending 50 billion in Ukraine.
We don’t need the kind of agriculture we have in this country. We could produce healthier food and not turn rural America into a waste land full of ghost towns but the driver seems to be the “Cheap Food at Any Cost” program that we get with any new farm bill.
Clyde
“Breast cancer has gone from 1 in 12 women a few years ago to less than 1 in 8.”
Do you have a source from which you are piling these figures? Please provide. Also, If you have a specific source, does it indeed correlate the increase with agricultural pesticide use?
[ “pulling up” and not “piling up” unless the universal mind of spellchecker knows more than I, and perhaps it does]
I believe that SD state law precludes anyone from serving on more than one board/commission concurrently. Mr Wiese should resign from one or the other.
I meant to indicate that being on more than one board/commission with taxing authority is against state code.
Dave FN
https://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/breast-cancer/statistics
here are some interesting stats: the incidence of breast cancer diagnoses is going up by a half percent every year but the survival rates are going up, too. So many factors are involved, like early detection. A close friend of mine had a prophylactic mastectomy because of her genetics and yet the pathology report showed breast cancer was already in the there, undetected. The screenings for gene mutations & breast cancer (I had a contrast mammogram myself just yesterday, because of my genes) could alone account for an increase in diagnoses. Throw in an increase in risk factors, like delays and reductions in childbearing and breast feeding, and it’s not surprising more cases are being diagnosed.
I’ve known the breast cancer info for some time and don’t remember exactly where I got it from. When I brought the subject up with my doctor he said that the cause is likely “environmental”. The fact is that if you don’t look you are not going to find.
Many countries around the world have banned pesticides that we use daily. Not long ago I read that almost anything you eat now contains glyphosate. The fact that farmers are six times more likely to come down with Non Hodgkin Lymphoma ought to tell the public that if we are getting it from the way we produce food, likely they have a higher incidence by eating that food.
The interest in our food policy is, as I mentioned, CHEAP food. The FDA has been gutted and all that this country is interested in is not finding any problems in the food and keeping it CHEAP. That masks just how poor we have really become. Some of you will remember that in the inflationary 1970’s we came up with a “market basket” of food to gauge what inflation was doing. Since then we have substituted steak for ‘ground’ steak and that would be imported. Eat organic if you can.
We, on the other hand, are engaged in totally chemical agriculture because we have to comply with anti erosion policy and have to produce as cheaply as we can to stay competitive. Don’t see that US ag policy really gives us a choice.
Undoubtedly, the detection of breast cancer is better than it was in the 1970’s from where the 1 in 12 figure was, if I remember correctly, but I believe the incidence is much higher as well.
Interesting observation, Barry, about incompatible offices. However, I don’t see anything in SDCL Chapter 46A-3B establishing that water development district board members can’t also serve on county commission, and none of the many criteria for incompatibility listed by the SD Municipal League appear to apply to Mike Wiese’s situation. Can anyone find statute or AG opinion that would apply?
Plus, Al Novstrup’s 2019 SB 77 (now in SDCL 12-6-3) allows candidates for water development district director to run for any other public office at the same time. That law by itself doesn’t say one can serve in both WDD office and county office, but Sen. Novstrup’s intent appeared to be to allow dual service.
Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about the pollution from industrial agriculture if we just continued the way we’re going, letting all the farms consolidate into big operations with less population, have everyone move to towns, and let the chemicals pile up here in the factory-food wasteland. No more Richmond Lake homes; we’ve got farming to do!
But s*** always runs downhill. All those chemicals wash away into the streams and rivers, get into the drinking water downstream, and poison all the folks who moved to town.
Unconvinced the way to fight this is to cite unsourced figures rather than concrete sources. That said, publications (sources) are far from univocal and the findings of any given study depend on the constraints of that study which likely do not pertain to another study which comes up with different conclusions—as anyone familiar with the glyphosate literature knows. Simplistic statements claiming this-or-that are therefore easily contested and fraught with difficulty from the get-go.
We all want clean water—the myth of purity aside—and it would be perhaps best to insist on that alone, and vocally. How to best back up that demand considering the mass of conflicting studies and parties with commensurate interests remains an open and on-going question.
“Chemicals” as a blanket demon is unlikely to have much purchase in the minds of those making policy decisions who have highly specialized chemical knowledge and are splitters and not lumpers.
DaveFN–understand completely with your point that totally clean water in public waterways is most probably a misnomer….I meant water that is “clean” enough to swim in if not drink. And I guess swim in without suffering “swimmer’s itch” or absorbing dangerous amounts of mercury or other chemicals…the fish should also be free of serious contamination and be able to be consumed without long term health risk.
Arlo Blundt
My comments were in reference to Clyde who did not produce concrete references for his cited figures, as well as to Algebra who cited cancer statistics dissociated from environmental causative literature references, the latter which are under discussion.
No less worse is Larry Kurtz who in a subsequent post of Cory’s, yokes conspiratorial jet trail hogwash long since debunked with valid health claims of veterans who suffered real effects from military service.
Too many undermine the cause by their weak, invalid, and simply bogus arguments and attempts which they can’t or don’t take pains to substantiate or research, or which they use to none up their foolish, conspiracy theories. Progressives prove to be not immune to such recourse.