Pollution In The Water: Lawsuits In The Air

[RestoreGore]

Imagine this loophole... you say you are using this waste for, "fertilizer," and can then get away with polluting our lakes and rivers for profit without having to pay for proper waste disposal... and you then do so willfully, knowing it may down the line seep into a drinking water supply that humans use thus making them sick or worse, and kill the aquatic life in that lake and river because there is little to no Federal regulation stopping you... EVIL. And just what the hell is it with these corporate tit sucking Republicans? Why do they HATE the environment so much? I say, fill up a huge dump truck with this "fertilizer" and dump it on Rep. Hall's lawn!

Good for Oklahoma. Let's sue them so much that they stay too busy in court to pollute our country. It is matters like this that people should be joining together to stand up against because it is blatant immorality. And please, Bush and his people are "Christians?" You don't tolerate this kind of defilement of "God's Earth" if you are one. I don't buy anything from Tyson foods, but I think a boycott of their products sounds like a pretty damn good idea. And Bush had the gall to stand up yesterday and say they don't do torture. What the hell is this? You are TORTURING OUR ENVIRONMENT.
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US: Pollution in the Water, Lawsuits in the Air

With Damage to Ecosystem Jeopardizing Tourist Industry, Oklahoma Fights Back

by Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post
August 28th, 2006

Every time the rain comes down, muddy water laden with phosphorus, arsenic and other contaminants flows into the Illinois River from chicken farms nearby and just across the border in Arkansas.Frustrated that nearly four years of talks failed to produce a solution, Oklahoma is now suing eight firms -- including Arkansas giant Tyson Foods Inc. -- on the grounds that the chicken waste applied to crops near the river contains hazardous chemicals that are damaging the ecosystem and jeopardizing the region's tourist industry.

"They're not fertilizing, they're dumping," said Drew Edmondson, an Oklahoma lawyer who filed the suit last year. "My concern is for the environment. My concern is for the lake and the river, which I'm watching being degraded before my eyes, literally." Across the country, states and localities are suing polluters outside their jurisdiction, and sometimes each other, in efforts to curb air and water contamination that respects no borders. They say they are forced to act because Congress and the Bush administration have failed to crack down on everything from storm water runoff to dumping of invasive aquatic species.

In some cases, there is little in the way of federal law or regulation. This is the case with the factory farms in Arkansas and Oklahoma. The administration is still sorting through which regulations apply to poultry, dairy and hog farmers, and existing rules don't apply to those who buy the waste for fertilizer. And some lawmakers, such as Rep. Ralph M. Hall (R-Tex.), are lobbying to permanently exempt these industries from even minimal federal oversight.

Other times the administration has blessed activities in one state that another state opposes: Virginia -- over Kentucky's objections -- plans to allow a strip mining company to discharge more than a billion gallons of briny water into a river just eight miles from where it flows into Kentucky. In others instances, the Bush administration has declined to take action, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's decision not to regulate ballast water from freighters that release invasive species into waterways.

continued at link.