Local Bloggers

This is weird, but probably just a function of division of government powers. I’ve seen local office holder doing battle before, but typically not with firearms:

A judge has begun carrying a gun at work after ordering a court employee to stay away from him. Miami County [Ohio] Municipal Court Judge Mel Kemmer filed an order last month banning bailiff Scott Niesley from his courtroom and chambers, his assistant’s office or anywhere else the judge is in the courthouse.

Mysterious death of starlings reported in February in Randolph County near the Union-Go Dairy was instigated by the dairy, and was completely “legal:”

The use of starlicide on a flock of 20,000 starlings infesting Union-Go Dairy followed label instructions and did not violate the Indiana pesticide use and application law, the state chemist’s office has ruled. On Feb. 14, dozens of dead starlings dropped out of trees at the residence of Allen Hutchison, a neighbor of the dairy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had applied starlicide at Union-Go, a concentrated animal feeding operation, the day before.

The Bush administration is fighting against a natural beef producer’s plan to test all of their cows for mad cow disease - instead of the 1% of cows tested under USDA guidelines:

The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

Link. The government says that there is no science showing additional testing assures that the meat is any safer, and may generate false positives that would scare consumers. The real issue is that other producers don’t want a specialty label like Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to be able to advertise 100% testing - giving it a market edge.

Maxwell Farms’ trouble with transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) infections at one of its Randolph County pig facilities hit the news this week, prompting a post, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, from Karen Myers on WAHM.

Bike commuting gets noticed on the eve of Bike to Work Day (I bike in most days, but not Fridays - have to get the kids to school): Muncie’s Star Press: Biking to Work and the front page of the Indy Star: A New Spin on Commuting. Video:

I'll be speaking this Saturday the 17th at a free event held at Morrisson-Reeves Library, on "The Internet as a Political Tool" - how the Internet continues to change the world of politics and what it means for local citizens. The talk starts at 10 AM in the Bard Room. If you're interested [...]

Animal rights groups, who gained national headlines for the undercover video of a “downer cow” being mistreated at a slaughter plant are trying to follow up with chickens: Mercy for Chickens is an undercover video shot in a California egg house. So far, the response has not been there - chickens aren’t cute and fuzzy . . . .

Animal “extremist” groups, while often well intentioned, often adopt tactics and positions that undercut the effort to bring more reasoned review of the issues involved in factory agriculture: The extremists provide the AG industry with the brush to paint the entire anti-factory farm movement with.

For example, Growing IN Agriculture (GINA) is a web site funded by the Indiana Soybean Alliance and the soybean checkoff with the purpose of promoting Indiana agriculture in general, and factory farming in particular. The site has a Myths & Facts section that rebuts each and every concern you have ever had about factory farming, from the myth that factory farms are putting small family farms out of business, to the myth that factory farms are not regulated by the state:

FACT:  The livestock industry is highly regulated by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of the Indiana State Chemist, and the state Board of Animal Health.

Not only that, but in other good CAFO news: Large Livestock Farms Prove Responsible is the title of the article by Tom J. Bechman in the Indiana Prairie Farmer about Maxwell Foods effort to contain a manure spill into Martindale Creek in Randolph County. Martindale Creek is on IDEM’s current list of impaired waterways for E. Coli (2006 list) as well as the proposed 2008 list (Microsoft Excel file: Draft 2008 Integrated Report: Categories 4 and 5 (Proposed) [XLS]).

Marcia Oddi over at the Indiana Law Blog always has good continuing coverage of how the state of Indiana makes its laws, court decisions and other “public records” available to the public. This is an area that has undergone significant change with the rise of the internet. Today, she gives a preview of one of her Res Gestae articles, this time on the sorry state of the state provided online version of the Indiana Code, a version which is so out of date, inaccurate, and lacking of basic features, that we attorneys have no option but to purchase access to the code from Lexis or Westlaw (Wait, that couldn’t be the point, could it?).

Read Marcia’s coverage: How much can you rely on what is in the Indiana Code? Marcia already warned us off of the online Indiana Administrative Code.

On the same general subject, Marcia also posted an update on the Indiana Supreme Court’s effort to provide “free”* online access to trial court case information, called JTAC.

[* “free” meaning that hundreds of millions of additional dollars will be charged to those who file cases in trial courts so that online access can be provided without charge]

Marcia’s recent coverage of the effectiveness of this provision of online records can be found here: Update on Supreme Court’s case management system plans.

Indiana is far from alone in its struggles with providing electronic access to public records. All states have confronted the issue to some degree, creating a patchwork quilt of public access laws across the country. One state, Oregon, has even gone to the extremes in claiming that its laws are copyrighted and baring secondary publication:

The State of Oregon is sending out cease and desist letters to sites like Justia and Public.Resource.Org that have been posting copies of Oregon laws, known as the Oregon Revised Statutes.

Carl Malamud via boingboing.

UPDATE: Marcia contacted me with a clarification on her new article, which in my mind makes the issue even more distressing:

This new article looks at problems that transcend the medium used for publication – these new, insofar as these discussions are concerned, problems exist with both the online and the printed versions of the Indiana Code.

In other words, no matter whether you look at an online or printed version of the Indiana Code, there is stuff that you need to know that was in an Enrolled Act, but is not in the Indiana Code. Part I looks at simple sections that are left out, In Part 1 I give an example - the law requiring defibrillators in health clubs - was passed in 2007 and has been in the Code as the law since July 1, 2007. However, a provision that is not in the Code provides that the defibrillator requirement is not applicable until July 1, 2008.

The Gary Post-Tribune has run a long series of articles calling IDEM to account for its varied short comings. Gitte Laasby continues this process today, covering the BP Plant permit:

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management refuses to answer certain questions about the timing of a public hearing on BP’s air permit.

Among them: Who at IDEM was responsible for ignoring state law and providing inadequate notice of the hearing?

As the Post-Tribune revealed in April, IDEM’s chief of the permits branch of the Office of Air Quality, Matt Stuckey, e-mailed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in January to ask how long was the required notice. He was told state law applies.

State law specifies it’s 30 days, but IDEM scheduled a hearing with 18 to 20 days notice.

Now IDEM won’t say who at the agency made the call to ignore state law.

Link.

Last week, the Palladium-Item - Richmond's daily paper - launched an updated website. Here's my initial review: Good: The site clearly continues the paper's commitment to encouraging conversations and interaction between people who track what's going on in the community. As I did in 2006, I commend them for this. The abuse reporting system in the [...]

Well, I’ve been out for a week, so let’s catch up:

First off, as Doug Masson says, VOTE!

On the CAFO Front, the PEW Center’s long-awaited report came out last week, the PDF is here: report. Big agriculture has been criticizing the report for months before it was released. From the looks of the report, they have cause to be concerned. . . .

Union County is looking at CAFO regulations more carefully in light of local uproar over a new dairy: Pal Item coverage.

Meanwhile, Randolph county is stuck in navel gazing mode while CAFO’s proliferate across it: Will Fourth Randolph CAFO Committee Make a Difference is the title of a piece in the Star Press by Joy Leiker:

The creation of this latest committee was announced Monday as commissioners gave reports on areas they had been asked to study in January, the same day they approved a CAFO moratorium. Following legal challenges, the moratorium was lifted two months later after the county conceded it never had the legal authority to impose a moratorium in the first place.

This group, like at least two others in the past, will include both proponents and opponents of CAFOs, specifically, representatives of Farm Bureau and Environmentally Concerned Citizens of Randolph County. But this new committee also will include a county commissioner.

“We’re not going to reach an agreement just sitting here,” Commissioner Kathy Beumer said, noting that a commissioner should join the discussion, and negotiations, since ultimately a county ordinance will need commission approval.

Last week Ms. Leiker reported on CAFO’s role in local politics: CAFOs Rule Randolph Commissioners Race.

Watch "Bible History # 1" in the following playlist:

The "pros and cons of a global distributed network" edition: Do you depend on Gmail or Google Calendar? Did you know they're not ready for production use yet? The Rockridge Institute, a progressive think tank (THE progressive think tank for many) abruptly closes its doors because there wasn't enough money coming in. But as a [...]

dear blog readers — this blog is on holiday until the last of May, first of June, more or less.

Enjoy the lovely spring weather wherever you are.

See you back here in June.

- J

IDEM clears backlog of 263 wastewater permits, nets award from the EPA:

IDEM received a two-gold-star award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one of eight states in the nation. IDEM received the award for addressing the historical permit backlog and prioritizing issuing permits. The goals were achieved two years in a row, in 2006 and 2007.

(Post-Tribune). The lesson - crank the permits out.

In Michigan, the Sierra Club won a victory at the Michigan Court of Appeals:

The case, Sierra Club Mackinac Chapter v. Department of Environmental Quality, dealt with large farming entities known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, and the manner in which the DEQ issues permits for the use of manure as a fertilizer. There are 198 CAFOs in the state of Michigan, facilities where farmers raise and feed thousands of pigs or cows at a time, or upwards of 100,000 chickens or more. Such facilities generate an enormous amount of manure and farmers often try to reduce the amount they have to dispose of by using that manure as fertilizer on nearby pastures and farmland.

(Michigan Messenger story by Ed Brayton). The decision agreed with the Club’s contention that the public has the right to access not only the original proposal in the permit process, but also the Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP), so the public can see what the farms are doing with the manure.

Also in Michigan, check out the Michigan DEQ’s Statement of its Case against mega-dairy Vreba-Hoff filed last month. In it, the DEQ lists several violations and lists thousands of dollars in fines the environmental enforcer is seeking against the dairy for alleged violations of a prior consent decree.

The Union of Concerned Scientists just release a report raising issue with the way Congress has streamed billions of dollars into the pockets of big agriculture concerns - leading directly to the bloom of factory farming around the nation. The report, CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of CAFOS, claims that the federal farm bills have shifted the true costs of these mega farms to local governments and communities who have to deal with the byproducts:

Misguided federal farm policies have encouraged the growth of massive confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, by shifting billions of dollars in environmental, health and economic costs to taxpayers and communities, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). As a result, CAFOs now produce most of the nation’s beef, pork, chicken, dairy and eggs, even though there are more sophisticated and efficient farms in operation.

“CAFOs aren’t the natural result of agricultural progress, nor are they the result of rational planning or market forces,” said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist in UCS’s Food and Environment Program and author of the report. “Ill-advised policies created them, and it will take new policies to replace them with more sustainable, environmentally friendly production methods.”

The PEW report is due to come out next week.