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Misuse Of Law Could Possibly Be Toxic To Farmers

How do you need it if your home were suddenly announced a toxic waste site? 

Sound like some thing out of Ripley's "Believe it or Not!" ?? Yet in today's topsy-turvy world, that is exactly what some individuals are suggesting. You've reason to get worried, onto it if you have any land with horses, cattle, chickens and other livestock

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The proposal-being sent by a few of the homepage biggest environmental organizations-would provide all such village and state home underneath the so-called Superfund law for clearing up industrial waste web sites.

How come? They believe that animal waste-manure-is a "hazardous substance" and therefore every house with animals onto it ought to be described and treated just like industrial waste sites. The expense imposed on our farmers could be tremendous. Hundreds could be driven off their land. They're truly concerned.

The absurd thing is that Congress never intended the 1980 Superfund law to apply to farmers-or to animal waste. It had been supposed to tidy up industrial sites like Love Canal. But because plants were not specifically excluded, environmental groups are claiming the law pertains to them, too. And farmers already are being charged.

As an outcome, the country's major farming agencies have requested Congress to clarify-as a of urgency-that it never intended plants to be branded as Superfund toxic waste web sites. All it'd simply take is a simple variation.

But again-believe it or not-environmental teams, trial solicitors and some state attorneys general have now mounted a campaign urging Congress NOT to clarify what the law states! They really want it to keep confusing, so they can sue producers and drive them to stay. "If the activists succeed, farmers could face charges of many thousands of dollars and thousands of small farmers could be forced off their land," wrote author Steve Milloy, founder of JunkScience.com.

"The domestic livestock industry would be driven out of this state, the grain industry would be crippled, and communities and farm people would be devastated," warns Oklahoma Farm Bureau key Steve Kouplen. Gives Missouri cattleman Mike John, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, "If animal manure is officially declared a dangerous substance, just about any farm or ranch in the Usa could possibly be written down as a Toxic Superfund site."

That is plainly not what Congress intended. The question now's whether members of Congress will soon be willing to stand up to the lawyers and activists that are urging them to do nothing to fix the problem.