Poison Spring (43 page)

Authors: E. G. Vallianatos

BOOK: Poison Spring

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8
Michael Antoniou et al., “Roundup and Birth Defects: Is the Public Being Kept in the Dark?”
Earth Open Source
, June 2011; Carey Gillam, “Roundup Herbicide Research Shows Plant, Soil Problems,”
Reuters
, August 12, 2011.

9
Carol Glatz, “GM Crops Breed Economic Dependence, a New Form of Slavery,”
Catholic News Service
, January 5, 2012.

10
May 2, 2011, letter to Huber from Gregory Parham, Administrator of APHIS, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

11
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=ENmc9kHnvbo.

12
Huber met with Parham in the summer of 2011. Parham promised he might fund research proposals from Huber.

13
Don Huber letter, July 31, 2011.

14
Don M. Huber, “The effects of glyphosate (Roundup) on soils, crops and consumers” (presentation to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology, House of Commons, UK, November 1, 2011).

15
Huber email to the author, August 2, 2012.

16
Carolyn Lochhead, “Genetically Modified Crops’ Results Raise Concern,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, April 30, 2012.

17
Ian Macleod, “ ‘Big Farma’ Companies Seek Federal Approval of 2,4-D-resistant corn, soybean seeds,”
Ottawa Citizen
, May 12, 2012.

18
Michael Antoniou, Claire Robinson, and John Fagan, “Genetically-Modified Organisms, Myths and Truths: An Evidence-Based Examination of the Claims Made for Safety and Efficacy of Genetically Modified Crops,”
Earth Open Source
, June 2012. See also Charles M. Benbrook, “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the U.S.—the First Sixteen Years,”
Environmental Sciences Europe
, September 28, 2012.

19
Center for Biological Diversity, “Lawsuit Initiated to Protect Hundreds of Endangered Species from Pesticide Impacts,” January 28, 2010; Center for Biological Diversity, “Notice of Violation of the Endangered Species Act Related to the Registration of Pesticides,” January 27, 2010.

20
Peter Galvin et al., “Ensure Pesticide Evaluations Protect Endangered Wildlife and Human Health,” Letter to Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator, Washington, DC, early 2011.

21
Center for Biological Diversity, “Landmark Lawsuit Filed to Protect Hundreds of Rare Species from Pesticides,” January 20, 2011. See http://www.biologicaldiver sity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/pdfs/Jan_?27_?2010_?ESA_?NOI_?CBD.pdf.

22
In the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division,
Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America, Plaintiffs, v. Environmental Protection Agency and Lisa Jackson, Administrator, U.S. EPA, Defendants
, Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, January 19, 2011.

23
The former commissioner of environmental protection in New Jersey, Jackson was “not a viable candidate for redeeming a battered, politicized EPA,” Jeff Ruch, director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, wrote to Obama. Jackson embraced “a highly politicized approach to environmental decision-making that resulted in suppression of scientific information, issuance of gag orders restricting disclosures and threats against professional staff members who dared to voice concerns.” See Ruch letter to Obama, December 5, 2008.

24
In the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division,
Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America, Plaintiffs, v. Environmental Protection Agency and Lisa Jackson, Administrator, U.S. EPA, Defendants
, Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, January 19, 2011.

25
Peter Galvin et al., “Ensure Pesticide Evaluations Protect Endangered Wildlife and Human Health,” letter to Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator, Washington, DC, early 2011.

26
Kieran Suckling, “Help Stop Dangerous Pesticides from Killing Wildlife” (Center for Biological Diversity, September 27, 2011). Sadly, it wasn’t just Obama’s EPA ignoring endangered species. In fact, in January 2012, the Fish and Wildlife Service solicited comments on whether or not it should sharply limit the number of threatened animals and plants receiving any government protection under the Endangered Species Act. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, such a proposal “ignores entire populations of imperiled species.” Center for Biological Diversity, January 23, 2012.

27
Lisa P. Jackson, “Too Dirty to Fail?”
Los Angeles Times
, October 21, 2011.

28
Environmental Integrity Project press release: “Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Texas are top states in terms of toxic power plant air pollution,” Washington, DC, December 7, 2011.

29
Associated Press, “House approves bill to delay, scrap EPA rules,” Washington, DC, September 24, 2011.

30
John M. Broder, “Re-election Strategy Is Tied to a Shift on Smog,”
New York Times
, November 16, 2011.

31
Editorial in
New York Times,
May 27, 2012. Obama was elected with the Senate under Democratic control. Yet his indecisiveness, and his apparent ignorance about the country’s environmental challenges, compromised the few promises he made to control the corporate abuse of public health and the natural world. It’s not as if the environment was somewhere outside the public’s gaze during his tenure: in 2010, BP poisoned the Gulf of Mexico, and a year later, Japan experienced the catastrophic Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown. Suzanne Goldenberg, “Obama Administration Criticized over Failure to Disclose Coal Dump Locations,”
The Guardian
, June 18, 2009.

32
“Poisoned Places,” Center for Public Integrity, November 7, 2011.

33
Mark Guarino, “New EPA Guidelines on Soot,”
Christian Science Monitor
, June 15, 2012.

34
Saundra Young, “Dirty 30 Want EPA Air Pollution Rule Repealed,” WTNH.com, June 14, 2012.

35
Mark Guarino, “New EPA guidelines on soot,”
Christian Science Monitor
, June 15, 2012.

Conclusion: Better Living and a Healthier Natural World Through Small Family Farms

1
Jerome A. Paulson et al., “Policy Statement Chemical-Management Policy: Prioritizing Children’s Health,”
Pediatrics
, April 25, 2011, 983–90.

2
Bob Herbert,
New York Times
(October 5, 2006).

3

Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation vs. United States Environmental Protection Agency
, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, No. 00-10381, EPA No. 65-02889, December 21, 2001.

4
Kate Sheppard, “For Pennsylvania’s Doctors, a Gag Order on Fracking Chemicals,”
Mother Jones
, March 13, 2012.

5
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water, “Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs” (Final, June 2004), ES-1.

6
Weston Wilson, “EPA Allows Hazardous Fluids to Be Injected into Ground Water: A report on EPA’s failure to protect America’s ground water from the impacts of oil and gas production” (October 8, 2004).

7
Josh Fox et al., “Affirming Gasland.” See http://one.gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking/affirming-gasland.

8
Written testimony of Theo Colborn before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, hearing on The Applicability of Federal Requirements to Protect Public Health and the Environment from Oil and Gas Development, October 31, 2007.

9
Ian Urbina, “Pressure Stifles Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas,”
New York Times
, March 4, 2011, A1, A14.

10
Fox et al., “Affirming Gasland,” 7, 9.

11
See Ian Urbina, “Pressure Limits Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas,”
New York Times
, March 3, 2011. See also Abrahm Lustgarten, “Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time,”
ProPublica
, December 8, 2011.

12
Abrahm Lustgarten, “Buried Secrets: Is Natural Gas Drilling Endangering U.S. Water Supplies?’’
ProPublica
, November 13, 2008.

13
Fox et al., “Affirming Gasland,” 6. See also Ian Urbina, “Pressure Limits Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas,”
New York Times
, March 3, 2011.

14
“Obama’s Support for Natural Gas Drilling ‘A Painful Moment’ for Communities Exposed to Fracking,”
Democracy Now!
February 2, 2012.

15
John M. Broder, “New Proposal on Fracking Gives Ground to Industry,”
New York Times
, May 4, 2012.

16
Sharon Hart, “An Approach to Solving Onion Production Problems in an Energy and Chemical Limited Future” (Department of Resource Development and Entomology, Michigan State University, February 1980). The report of Sharon Hart was part of an EPA-funded project at Michigan State University: “An Economic Analysis of an Agroecosystem for Pest Control,’’ May 1980. EPA Grant R806065020. Principal Investigators: Thomas C. Edens and Dean L. Haynes.

17
Don Paarlberg, “The Land Grant Colleges and the Structure Issue,” in
A Time to Choose: Summary Report on the Structure of Agriculture
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, January 1981), p. 129.

18
Memo from David Menotti to Jodie Bernstein, September 23, 1977.

A Note on the Authors

E. G. Vallianatos
is the author of five books, including
Harvest of Devastation
and
This Land Is Their Land
, as well as more than two hundred articles, including recent pieces in Alternet.org and Truth-Out.org. He is also a blogger for the
Huffington Post
. Vallianatos worked in risk evaluation at the EPA for twenty-five years and now lives in Claremont, California.

His coauthor,
McKay Jenkins
, has been writing about humans and the natural world for just as long. His most recent book,
What’s Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World
, was hailed as “a
Silent Spring
for the human body” by Richard Preston, author of
The Hot Zone
. Jenkins is the Cornelius Tilghman Professor of English, Journalism, and Environmental Humanities at the University of Delaware, where he has won the Excellence in Teaching Award.