Protecting Water Quality Makes Sense

The Joplin Globe, Sunday, July 24, 2005, proclaimed that Protecting Water Quality Makes Sense. 'The states of Missouri and Oklahoma have good reason for worry that chicken litter can forever change the water quality of their streams and rivers. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has filed a lawsuit against 14 poultry companies in Arkansas to seek money to handle the cleanup of polluted waterways.'
'The poultry industry, which unsuccessfully tried to get Oklahoma lawmakers to block Edmondson's suit, are worried that their costs could run into the millions of dollars.'
'The chicken industry is big business, contributing $2 billion annually to the economy. A lawsuit might radically change that if the industry loses. A more satisfactory approach would be for the poultry industry and the state of Oklahoma to find common ground for developing a long-term, mutually workable solution.'
http://www.joplinglobe.com/archives/story.php?story_id=106007

Wouldn't it be nice (not to mention strategic, efficient and a great use of tax payers dollars) if Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson met with Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline to collaborate on developing a coordinated solution to the accelerating contamination of our creeks, streams, rivers, tributaries and rivers. Doesn't it make sense that each State be talking with the other with regard to new and existing operating permits, and water discharge violations within the poultry industry. It all comes back to the watershed concept, what happens upstream always ends up downstream, too. The Joplin Globe article is underscoring the concept that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

'As a cautionary tale, we would suggest that the states take a look at Northeast Oklahoma and the 40-square-mile Tar Creek Superfund site. The environmental hazards created by the abandoned lead and zinc mines - concentrations of lead damaging to children under 6; mountains of chats from which winds whip heavy metal-laden dust to cover the land; the potential for contamination of water, air and soil; and the prospect of dangerous cave-ins - did not happen overnight. It took decades of neglect.

Lead mining was a vital industry at the turn of the century and throughout World War II. Had mine and smelter owners been better stewards of the land or had federal and state governments taken a more active role at the time in protecting and restoring the environment, Northeast Oklahoma might be a vastly different place today. Such hindsight can provide the platform for taking steps to protect the environment today from other industries that can cause serious damage.'