The peach orchards at Mitcham Farms, near the north Louisiana city of
Ruston, have survived winter freezes, droughts and dangerous hail
storms, but they evidently will not survive the Environmental Protection
Agency and its regulations. The family-owned business, established in 1946 and featured in tourism magazines, is Louisiana’s largest peach orchard,
according to its website, but owner Joe Mitcham expects he’ll close up shop in only a few years. The federal government’s banning of a chemical in 2005 known as
methyl bromide, used to treat diseased peach trees, has really given him
no choice, as most of his trees won’t survive without it. Many of Mitcham’s trees have already died. The EPA claims using this chemical threatens the earth’s ozone layer. Mitcham told Watchdog the federal regulations have also forced him to downsize his business from 60 employees to 20...
more
OK, to be fair, let's listen to the EPA experts:
EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones told Watchdog on Wednesday that many of the
agency’s experts on the subject of methyl bromide are “out of the
office this week.”
Just another business down the drain? No, it affects an entire community:
The peach orchards remain a huge tourism draw, Mitcham said. “This will have an impact with the loss of jobs and the loss of
income of selling the fruit here because we have so many customers
coming from out of state, especially Texas,” Mitcham said. “Half the
vehicles I saw coming through here on July 4 were Texas license plates.
The loss of that economy coming through Ruston will be pretty major.”
Congress keeps funding these characters and you see the results. The EPA needs to be "out of the office" for much longer than a week.
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