July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Quiet problem that needs our attention (11/12/07)
Editorial
The disconnect was enormous.
Last week, local farmers and emergency officials did a great job working together to contain a nasty spill of liquid hog manure after a tanker truck failed to make a turn. Through their efforts, most of the environmental damage that could have been done if the mess had made its way into area streams and ditches was avoided. They did a good enough job to win a round of applause from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
But only a few miles away, any casual observer could have witnessed this scene: Livestock - usually cows - grazing on the grass in a fenced pasture with a stream or creek running right down the middle.
The first scene gets the attention of emergency officials and makes page one, while the second only gets the attention of potential landscape painters who want to capture a bucolic moment.
Yet both pose a significant hazard to the environment.
It's easy to see with the overturned manure tanker. It's easy to ignore with fencing and farming practices that go back generations but are equally hazardous.
A fenced pasture with a stream or ditch or creek running through it is nothing more than a picturesque toilet. It's not nearly as dramatic as the overturned manure truck, but it works on the same principle: Livestock defecate close to or in a stream. Rainwater run-off sends even more manure into the flow.
The same problem, but with wildly different responses on the part of state government.
It's tough to be a farmer these days. It's complicated, more bureaucratic and far more corporate than any farmer's predecessors imagined.
But it would be nice, now and then, if the rules and regimens farmers have to deal with would at least be consistent. What's bad is bad. It ought to be that simple.
After all, manure is manure. And manure in a stream is manure in a stream.
If a leak of a tanker truck is a big deal, then it ought to be an equally big deal to keep livestock from grazing where their manure will contaminate the water downstream.
Is that too hard to figure out? - J.R.
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Last week, local farmers and emergency officials did a great job working together to contain a nasty spill of liquid hog manure after a tanker truck failed to make a turn. Through their efforts, most of the environmental damage that could have been done if the mess had made its way into area streams and ditches was avoided. They did a good enough job to win a round of applause from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
But only a few miles away, any casual observer could have witnessed this scene: Livestock - usually cows - grazing on the grass in a fenced pasture with a stream or creek running right down the middle.
The first scene gets the attention of emergency officials and makes page one, while the second only gets the attention of potential landscape painters who want to capture a bucolic moment.
Yet both pose a significant hazard to the environment.
It's easy to see with the overturned manure tanker. It's easy to ignore with fencing and farming practices that go back generations but are equally hazardous.
A fenced pasture with a stream or ditch or creek running through it is nothing more than a picturesque toilet. It's not nearly as dramatic as the overturned manure truck, but it works on the same principle: Livestock defecate close to or in a stream. Rainwater run-off sends even more manure into the flow.
The same problem, but with wildly different responses on the part of state government.
It's tough to be a farmer these days. It's complicated, more bureaucratic and far more corporate than any farmer's predecessors imagined.
But it would be nice, now and then, if the rules and regimens farmers have to deal with would at least be consistent. What's bad is bad. It ought to be that simple.
After all, manure is manure. And manure in a stream is manure in a stream.
If a leak of a tanker truck is a big deal, then it ought to be an equally big deal to keep livestock from grazing where their manure will contaminate the water downstream.
Is that too hard to figure out? - J.R.
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