Environmental Notebook

What's in the Water

A report by the Illinois Public Interest Research Group and the Environmental Working Group found that 7,299 pregnancies a year in Illinois are put at risk of miscarriage or birth defects because of heavily chlorinated water. In some areas, such as Kankakee, 76 percent of pregnancies were at risk. Chlorination byproducts have also been linked to 9,300 cases of bladder cancer a year, and to a dozen other cancers.

Chlorination is a good thing. What's bad is the pollution that forces overchlorination, leading to these health hazards. Corporate agribusiness is putting lives at risk. That's because the soil erosion and animal waste runoff from megafarms requires increased levels of chlorine to keep the water clean, and as a consequence endangers everyone.

CFAR Keeps Quiet

The Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research (CFAR), which receives $15 million from the state to promote corporate agriculture, continues to deny that its secrecy policies are designed to squelch dissent.

Last August by a 21-20 vote, CFAR passed a new confidentiality policy that prohibits anyone from disclosing any part of a research proposal. Coincidentally, this policy came after environmentalists helped stop a proposal for research to help Inwood megadairy (see Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Indy). The CFAR coalition includes ISU's Department of Agriculture, but 83% of all grants go to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CFAR spokesperson Kraig Wagenecht declares, "This statement was developed and approved by the membership as a rather routine type of statement which is common among funding entities. Its purpose was not for agribusiness, but for the intellectual rights of researchers. As the C-FAR programs have increased in scope and complexity over the past few years, it was felt that such a statement was necessary."

Not everyone agrees. "These are publicly funded universities and we are talking about taxpayer-provided research dollars. I think the public has a right to know what kinds of research these universities are proposing," said Randy Vogel, executive director of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance and a member of CFAR who opposed the proposal.

Welfare Farmers

In 1996, Congressional Republicans promised to end government farm subsidies with the Freedom to Farm Act. Instead, farm subsidies exploded during a period of depressed prices. The Environmental Working Group recently established a website (www.ewg.org) to list all recipients of farm subsidies. Illinois ranked second behind Iowa in the number of farms (47,711, or 65% of all farms) receiving subsidies. The subsidies are accelerating the consolidation of agriculture and the destruction of family farms because big agribusiness receives the biggest subsidies and uses government money to buy out smaller farms. In McLean County, recipients were handed out $171,005,022 from 1996-2000. Here's the top ten 10 of recipients just in McLean County:

Electronics Recycling Day, Feb. 16

The 1st computer & electronics drop-off recycling day will be held Sat. Feb. 16 at the Normal Public Works Facility on 1301 Warriner Street from 9 am to 12. They're collecting PCs & peripherals, working or damaged, stereos, VCRs, DVD players, TVs, radios, calculators & other business machines, fans, can openers, copiers, video cams, blenders, microwaves, typewriters, fax machines, phones, etc.

This begins a monthly collection for recycling. All donations to Central Illinois Access are tax deductible. The equipment will be repaired for the use of people with disabilities. Sponsors: Town of Normal, Central Illinois Access, and Ecology Action Center.