Keeping up with Legislators

This page for capwiz is very useful for activists. I am on a list shown toward the bottom of the page called "Megavote." It sends me frequent updates on legislation in front of my federal Rep and Senators on any given week, & also what is coming up in the near future, so if you want to keep up with issues affecting you it will give you the essential info.

http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/home/

This past week I heard on the list that extension of unemployment and Cobra was passed by a huge majority. I congratulated Bond on supporting out of work Missourians. Senator McCaskill was not present for this vote.

pmb

Messy Business in Arrowrock

This story in the RFT hurts me. It took me back to a trip several years ago out to the Silver Mines area of the St. Francois River. That was the time that I found the water to be smelling of fecal matter. I had noted a huge passel of piglets nursing huge sows alongside the curvy road which I once loved when living out that way. Likely those pigs belonged to a farmer I had once known, who pulled me out of a ditch after an ice storm. Or maybe the farm had been sold to another person or family. My purpose was to visit the River, a healer of my spirit. A Forest Service trail runs along the river for two to three miles over moderately challenging terrain.

When Jay Nixon, during his candidacy for Governor, supported Koster (over Margaret Donelly) for Attorney General I had suspicions about this recent party switcher being described as an excellent prosecutor and a friend. Koster is, btw, from Harrisonville, MO., the small Cass Co seat, population around 8,000. His connection with farming is not specifically known to most of us, is it? But he is probably voting with the farmers.  Here is another approach to the problem that might help legislators and other power people to rethink the issue, from a farming publication. http://nationalhogfarmer.com/environmental-stewardship/01-environmental-steward-nominations-open/ Maybe the farmers are beginning to recognize, from articles like the one in the RFT and the one linked in that story to the Wall Street Journal, that public relations are as important as other particulars in running a business.

Another group, Missouri Alliance for Animal Legislation, which is working currently on a puppy mill issue, might be interested in exploring how to figure out what to do about the messy business of corporate farms. Corporate animal farming is disturbing as an issue of humane animal treatment as well as being environmentally nauseating.

Meanwhile, considering the puppy mill petition and how previous petitions have fared in our state, MO needs an amendment to its Constitution which rules out legislation that overturns public petition issues which are voted in by the citizenry. Our conservative legislative branch has in the recent past reversed both gun control laws and campaign finance reform that were voted into place on state wide ballot. Isn't that counter intuitive to the representatives and senators working for us?

The Sierra Club also has looked at the issue of CAFOs. http://www.sierraclub.org/faces/thomas_brown.asp 
 
Perhaps re-establishing democracy-- by voting sanity in-- will be a state by state process, like women's suffrage once was. Reducing the corporations back to their previous status under anti-trust laws may take longer than most of us can imagine, yet we older folks know it has to be done.

Oppose Missouri floodplain coal ash facility

The following is my note via a Sierra Club page to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=adv_bigpicture_omb&autologin=true

As a friend of Missouri's natural environment, I am writing on behalf of LEO [http://www.leomo.info/] which is seeking to prevent the building of a huge landfill for coal ash in the nearby Missouri River floodplain.

Ameren UE ought to be required to reverse this decision. As to what to do with such a collection of hazardous waste, citizens of every state ought to have a ready procedure for submitting objections, especially when the risk is to a major population's drinking water. St. Louis metro area is downriver from this site.

I note that at this web page [http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys/] fifty percent of the returned information from utility companies showed coal ash storage facilities that are less than 26 feet in height. Does the fact that Ameren UE's proposal is for a 100 foot high container (with 400 acres of area) suggest their own fear of environmental catastrophe, considering the site? Or is it a reflection of the total amount of coal ash they have or will have to discard? In any event, please rule this facility out by agreeing with local citizenry that it is too great a risk for such a susceptible environment, and the disposal problem ought to be submitted to the environmental science community for a far less objectionable solution.

This note will be copied by me to Missouri State officials and local friends.