Friday, August 28, 2015

Editorial - Incremental attacks on agriculture continue


A look at the predicament faced by some Yakima Valley, Wash., dairies should give pause to dairy operators across the nation.

More importantly, all farmers and ranchers would do well to closely monitor the emerging picture of how environmental special interests use the legal system to attack agriculture.

Last week, we commented on how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shrugged off transgressions in which it participates. The 3 million gallons of mine waste that EPA contractors dumped into rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah was met with the comment that it’s really not that big a deal and that it’ll clear itself up.

Contrast that with the Yakima Valley, where five dairies have followed state-approved nutrient management plans only to be dragged into court by EPA-allied environmental groups to test a new legal theory. Under this theory, manure from cattle is industrial waste and, as such, it falls under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

These groups got a judge to fall for that argument — the first time since Congress passed the law nearly 40 years ago.

Should his ruling stand, all forms of havoc could be aimed at agriculture. If manure is industrial waste, it might follow under this warped interpretation that all sorts of byproducts could be similarly identified.

This is another example of incremental environmentalism, in which activists will never, ever say that enough is enough. They will always want more. This cycle will continue until the targeted business finds it impossible to continue.

This tactic was explained to us many years ago, and ever since we have seen it used against businesses, farmers, ranchers, developers, miners, the timber industry — any group unfortunate enough to find itself in the environmentalists’ cross hairs.

They also specialize in suing federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, which seem to spend as much time and money on defending themselves against lawsuits as they do managing federal lands and taking care of other important jobs, including fighting wildfires.

Armed with poorly written laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the RCRA, environmental groups march into court seeking more and more and more.

If they lose, they appeal, hoping to eventually find a judge who will go along with them. If they win, they pop open the champagne, collect a check from the government — if a federal agency was sued — and send out pleas for more money to help them continue their fight to “save” the environment.

They will never give up...


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