Follow Up on the News
The basis behind the FADs are simple: to meet federal Safe Drinking Water Act requirements for the drinking water of 8 million city dwellers based on the maintained purity of such water’s source in the Catskills watershed. as protected by land use regulations and careful stewardship practices.
The basis behind the politics of FAD renewals is equally simple, in the long run… to utilize the city’s fear of a costly filtration order to get it to pony up the funds for local economic enhancement programs, as well as the cost of such source protection means as home septic and municipal sewer systems, along with a myriad other programs.
After a particularly stressful review and behind-the-scenes negotiating process that included the involvement of powerful Congressmen and the state governor’s office, drawn into the fray because of new threats of development led by Dean Gitter’s long-promised Belleayre Resort, the EPA finally recently issued a draft FAD for New York City’s massive and complicated water system on April 12, with surprises for many.
Chief among them was the fact that the EPA, after thorough review of a revised long-term watershed protection plan that the New York City Department of Environmental Protection submitted to the feds last year, decided to extend its usual FAD approval time from five to ten years.
But also included in the carefully-worded determination was language that, despite clarifications to the opposite effect released by New York City since the FAD’s release, seems to indicate that the DEP will have to pay whatever it takes to ensure the building of municipal sewer systems in a series of targeted hamlets, Phoenicia and Boiceville included. As well as renewed commitments towards large infusions of cash into the region via city land acquisitions ($300 million), pumped-up educational programs, and a re-invigorated program aimed at renovating the region’s private septic systems..
At the same time, the draft FAD released by the EPA last week also includes a construction schedule for the city’s building of an ultraviolet light (UV) disinfection plant for Catskills water by August of 2012, as a supplement to its existing chlorine disinfection
In reaction to the draft FAD’s release, reactions have lined up along two basic camps, based on political party and regional location.
In the former case, State Senators John Bonacic and James Seward and Assemblymembers Clifford Crouch and Peter Lopez blasted the EPA’s waiver period extension from five to ten years, sharply characterizing the move as a means to give license to the DEP “to be a bully to the people of the Catskills.” As key issues, apart from the timing, they brought up the City’s reluctance to extend recreational use of its Upstate lands – meaning hunting, primarily – as well as create better flood controls through the creation of “voids” within its upstate reservoirs.
The Republican legislators meanwhile noted how the State Senate had passed an act seeking to rescind the City’s authority to regulate its watershed, without mentioining that act’s failure to muster any support in the state Assembly, and said they would be urging upstate towns to pass resolutions condemning the EPA’s FAD proposal.
Democrat Assembly members Aileen Gunther and Kevin Cahill simultaneously released a statement that urged cooperation between Upstate communities and the city during the FAD’s upcoming review and comment period, which lasts through May. On a more localized basis, Delaware County economic/industrial development director Glenn Nealis voiced dissatisfaction regarding the new FAD from his constituent area, which represents the largest geographic portion of the watershed. But he also said the fact of the FAD revealed growing problems within the region’s ability to function as a viable political entity, as it did when first fighting New York City regulatory changes a decade ago.
“Delaware County and the rest of the West of Hudson communities have gotten exactly what we deserve,” Nealis said of the growing FAD brouhaha. “We spent the whole time bickering among ourselves over who should be making comments and proposals and nobody got anything done. The Coalition of Watershed Towns dropped the ball and have been asleep at the switch.”
Officials and residents in Ulster County, meanwhile, said they saw the extension to ten years as an admission by all that no new major regulatory changes would be expected for that period of time. And they welcomed the new benefits inherent in the EPA’s waiver document.
So what will the benefits of the proposed new FAD be for local residents?
“The program will continue to support the rehabilitation or replacement of approximately 300 septic systems per year,” the FAD says of a popular component of the city’s watershed operations that have helped thousands fix septic systems already over the last decade. “A new initiative will evaluate the need for and feasibility of a septic cluster system program… and funding needs will be assessed to evaluate whether additional monies are required to address the identified needs.”
As for the community systems program, which ran into its first big obstacle this past winter when Phoenicia property owners voted against a proposed system with $17 million in promised city funding, it seems New York has been practically ordered to pay whatever it takes to make local communities offers they can’t refuse.
“NYCDEP will execute contract changes… that include funding levels sufficient to complete projects,” the FAD says in regards to Phoenicia, indirectly addressing property owner worries that there wouldn’t be enough on hand to avoid possible =cost overruns to be picked up by local communities. Similarly, Operations and Maintenance costs would also have to be covered.
According to DEP spokesman Ian MIchaels, though, “The new Filtration Avoidance Determination requires that the City maintain available funding for a possible infrastructure project in Phoenicia. It does not require that any such project take place. Participation in the New Infrastructure Program remains voluntary, and the EPA is fully aware of Phoenicia’s decision to not participate at this time.”
Talk about splitting hairs…
“While the DEP believes that a new wastewater plant in Phoenicia would be beneficial both for the town and for water quality, failure to construct a plant would not jeopardize filtration avoidance,” Michaels continued. “ Should there come a time when Phoenicia residents have another opportunity to join the New Infrastructure Program it would be under the same terms as previously offered.”
Alan Rosa, Executive Director of the Catskill Watershed Corporation, reiterated Michaels’ statement in a letter this week... noting monies refused from one project would be used on another, as if there were no EPA preference for cleaner downstream reservoirs.
In Boiceville, where a new project is to get voted on by the community May 8, “NYCDEP will provide sufficient funding to complete” such projects.
Apart from the wastewater projects and funding language, other key new areas in the FAD addressed the city’s need to address the turbidity, or general muddiness, of waters coming into and out of the Ashokan reservoir, a problem brought to a head in the past year via a successful lawsuit from Trout Unlimited and other organizations. With flooding also a concern, the city will implement a new long term plan for Stream Management throughout the Catskills, including research and riparian buffer protection programs to help stabilize streambanks. Continuing dredging of the Schoharie Reservoir, who had much-discussed dam repairs started in the last year, and future analysis of new ways of lowering turbidity levels (and possibly flood problems) at the Ashokan Reservoir are also expected by next winter.
Finally, a new waterfowl management program involving “avian population monitoring, avian harassment activities and avian deterrence” will be implemented over the coming years at various sites throughout the reservoir system, including the Ashokan.
The last time the EPA issued a FAD was in November, 2002, when deeper involvement with the city’s upstate monitoring partners, the Catskill Watershed Corporation and Watershed Agricultural Council – both set up via the negotiation process between New York and the CWT in the 1990s – was enhanced, along with added funds for watershed community wastewater treatment plants.
As part of its consideration for the new FAD, the EPA noted that among the recent and/or current issues it paid “significant attention” to were the various opinions within the Upstate community towards city land acquisition, recreational use of city-owned lands, ongoing partnership programs with other agencies within the watershed, and the Belleayre Resort project.
Regarding land acquisitions, acknowledgement was made for the belief among some that “continuation of the program could impede future growth,” tempered in the final run by a belief that such opposition could be softened by working with land trusts and other localized organizations to better identify possible lands for acquisition and always ensuring the “willing seller” basis for the program.
As for the Gitter project — which was raised within the FAD review process last summer when the developer invited EPA Regional Administrator Alan J. Steinberg to the Catskills to see what he was proposing, and then accelerated when Steinberg started hosting closed-door negotiations between Belleayre Resort proponents and opponents throughout the fall: “Widely divergent recommendations were provided about this project.”
To actually see the New York City filtration avoidance determination in its entirety, visit: www.epa.gov/Region2/water/nycshed/public.htm Written comments should be sent to New York City Watershed Team EPA Region 2, 290 Broadway, 28th Floor, New York, NY 10007, or by email to sweeney.philip@epa.gov. Comments will be accepted through May 31.
Resort Talks Unsettled
That, in turn, prompted one of the major parties in the negotiations – the Catskill Preservation Coalition representing a host of national, state and regional environmental organizations, to send out a press release noting that talks were continuing and that, as CPC Spokesperson Tom Alworth put it, “Contrary to rumors, there is no deal.”
The CPC release further noted that any understanding reached in the closed-door talks would be open for public review and comment, and that should an agreement not be reached, “the parties reserve their right to resume the adjudicatory process.”
The rumors, it turns out, started around the same time that a surprise statement was released from the usually non-partisan Coalition for Belleayre, a group of ski area enthusiasts who originally came together in the 1980s to protest and eventually stop a threatened state closing of its DEC-run Belleayre Ski Resort. They have more recently advocated, supported, and essentially run the Belleayre Music Festival each summer, as well as the fundraising Snowball gala each February.
“We strongly support the efforts of Governor Spitzer and Maurice Hinchey in effecting a timely, positive resolution of the controversy surrounding the Belleayre Resort Project,” their April 14 release read. “The solution has to address the needs of the local communities to have an economy that adds jobs for the present and provides a future for their children that does not force them to go elsewhere to build their lives. We understand this solution should include environmental controls that mitigate the effect of development but it must also provide the ability for this project to go forward in an economically viable manner. The time for a solution and for construction to begin is NOW!”
Justifying its movement off the proverbial bench, the Coalition’s press release noted, “In the past The Coalition for Belleayre has adopted a neutral stand on The Belleayre Resort Project because of the divisive nature of dispute.” More recently, the release went on, that stance was shifted by a downturn in the Catskills economy, heightened competition between Belleayre and other Northeast ski areas with greater amenities, and “the introduction of the probable integration of Belleayre Mountain Ski Center in the compromise solutions for a Belleayre Resort Project being discussed by governmental entities.”
It is that latter statement, sources are now saying, that caused CPC’s concern since it signaled that someone was letting out information from the gagged negotiations without authorization.
Did the release mean that the Coalition For Belleayre was backing the alternative Congressman Maurice Hinchey put forth two years ago, to forgo any development on the Resort’s eastern half and downscale its western ambitions, as well?
“We like a lot of what Maurice has said.” Coalition for Belleayre founder Joe Kelly replied. “Remember, the compromise has, how do I put this, progressed over the last year. Our position is to just do it.”
Asked if he had, as Kelly inferred, actually compromised his alternative to Gitter’s proposal in any way, Hinchey said this week that he had not.
“It hasn’t progressed at all,” he said. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I feel that any development on the eastern portion of that ridgeline will have a very serious adverse impact on the water quality of the New York City reservoir system, which cannot be gambled with.
Gitter has often derided what the Congressman put forth. But then he announced his own “compromise,” which effectively kept two parts to his resort, but only one golf course, last fall. Instead of the second, he would build a world-class medical spa retreat. And cut back on a few of the condo rooms.
Meanwhile, reports that a compromise has been discussed that includes a close tie-in between the resort and state-owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center was scoffed at by the heads of other privately-owned ski centers in the Catskills, who noted that there was already a movement afoot among Northeast ski businesses to petition the state to get out of an already highly competitive and endangered industry.
“They try giving themselves even more of an advantage and they’ll be hearing from lawyers,” said Hunter Mountain owner Orville Slutsky, known as the grandfather of local skiing. “Enough’s enough…”
Stay tuned…
Vietnam’s Legacy...
According to his wife, Patricia, he also got cancer as a result of his tour of duty and died In the Margaretville Memorial Hospital on July 29, 2000, at age 48, after his battle with the illness.
Many Vietnam veterans have succumbed to forms of cancer that many have attributed to the effects of Agent Orange, the nickname given to a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military during that war. Although lawsuits involving the chemical are still pending and the U.S. government has never actively acknowledged any culpability in its effects on soldiers in its employ, the US Department of Veterans Affairs has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, type II diabetes, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange as side effects of the herbicide.
On Monday, April 16th, in a service at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Walley’s name was honored posthumously during a ceremony to pay tribute to the men and women who died prematurely from noncombat injuries and emotional suffering caused directly by the Vietnam War, but who are not eligible to have their names inscribed on the Memorial, which is dedicated only to those who died in combat.
Patricia was at the ceremony.
“It was so cold, windy and raining, the whole time, but everyone - hundreds, young and old - braved the weather to honor our loved ones,” she said. “It was very moving, sad but beautiful all at the same time. We shed a lot of tears, most froze to our faces, but we all found some closure knowing our beloved were where they should be, right there with their buddies on the wall.”
Walley and 76 other casualties were honored as part of the ninth annual In Memory Day. The event was created by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
“The In Memory program serves to honor the thousands of service members and civilians who died as a result of the war, but who are not eligible to have their names inscribed on The Wall,” according to Jan C. Scruggs, the non-profit organizations founder and president. “The annual ceremony brings together families and friends who have lived through similar tragedies, allowing them to share stories and to start the process of healing.”
During the ceremony, family members read aloud their loved ones’ names in chronological order by date of death. Following the ceremony, participants laid tributes at the base of The Wall corresponding to the honorees’ dates of service in Vietnam, so that these Vietnam veterans come to rest near those comrades with whom they served.
With the addition of Walley and this year’s other honorees, more than 1,600 individuals are now honored in the In Memory Honor Roll.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial contains the names of 58,253 men and women who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces in the Vietnam War. The Memorial’s black granite walls have always stood to remember all of the nearly 3.5 million who participated in the divisive and controversial conflict.
“The Department of Defense developed very specific parameters that allow only the names of service members who died of injuries suffered in combat zones to be inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” Scruggs said. “The In Memory program recognizes those men and women who have died prematurely as a result of the Vietnam War, but who do not meet the criteria. Many of their deaths are a result of Agent Orange exposure and emotional wounds that never healed.”
The annual In Memory ceremony is held on the third Monday of April. That date was chosen specifically to coincide with Patriots Day, which commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord at the start of the Revolutionary War—the first time Americans fought for freedom and democracy.
In retrospect, the mysterious wave of deaths from acute renal failure and similar illnesses had begun to rise last year but failed to attract widespread attention until early March. Kidney failure has, in fact, been a leading cause of pet death for over a decade but the toll was rising dramatically in 2007. The first company to issue a recall notice, after it was observed that "routine" taste tests in February were killing one in six of their test animals, was the Canadian distributor, Menu Foods, who initially recalled over 60 million cans of "wet food."
At the time the recall was announced, an employee of the NY State Health Department confided that a rodent poison named ‘aminopterin’ had been detected in pet food samples by a state lab but, like so much else in this episode, the idea that folic acid-inhibiting rat poison (detected in only two samples, according to an early story on the recall), suggestive of other symptoms which should have been present but were not, could have contaminated 873 hundred tons of wheat gluten destined for pet food just didn’t add up even in a layman’s mind. Cornell University quickly entered the investigation but, like the FDA, failed to confirm the aminopterin traces.
Toward the end of the month, the new villain was announced to be the industrial chemical melamine, which was present in the urine of affected animals but, in none of the readily available studies, displayed anywhere near the toxicity levels that would account for the lethal results reported. Again, the idea that a chemical contaminant could infect so many tons of wheat protein also seemed unlikely, prompting suspicions that something else was going on.
Locally, the extent of the secrecy became evident last month when attempts to gauge the impact on pets of the Catskill-Hudson Valley region of the Food and Drug Administration’s national recall of some brands of dog and cat food were met with one of two typical responses from local veterinarians. If no deaths had been reported, area vets and animal hospitals would announce that they had performed some "blood work" for concerned pet owners but no fatalities had been recorded. Responses from other vets when asked about pet fatalities, however, were more along the lines of an ambiguous "We’re only dealing with the (pet) food (company) representatives and we can’t give out that information."
Since Menu Foods, as lawsuits began being filed in late March, announced that they would be responsible for veterinarian bills proven to associated with the recall, it would seem apparent that some sort of secrecy provision was attached these arrangements. Secrecy and misdirection, in fact, seemed to attend almost every aspect of the recall to the extent that, for weeks in March and early April, the FDA website’s recall page, which withheld vital information about the brand names involved at a critical time, played down the threat by listing pet fatalities in the teens- a number that was reflected in major media coverage until the Associated Press released their first story on the crisis, by Andrew Bridges, on April 9th, advancing an estimate of 39,000 injured animals.
Meanwhile, as websites maintained by veterinarian associations and pet-owner groups were posting deaths in the thousands by the end of March, National Public Radio ran a recall story in early April citing the FDA figure of 17. On the same day, 3,168 dead pets had been recorded in a survey by a pet-owner site.
As pet-owners scrambled to keep up with the new names being added to the recall list of over a hundred brands, some of them checking Internet listings twice a day because of media sluggishness on the issue, it was websites like Pet Connection, Itchmo, Howl911 and others which provided the most valuable insights and updates on what was really happening. Their message boards flowed with accounts from bereaved pet-owners- some of whom had just lost the most precious and dependable presence in their life- carefully detailing exactly what they had been feeding their pets, which symptoms developed and what actions they took. It was only by monitoring these heart-rending accounts that shoppers could anticipate the next brands to be recalled. In many cases, this saved animal lives.
The webpages of the PET FOOD companies themselves were generally defensive and, well, corporate- to a point that even the Financial Times ran a story advising them adopt a more sensitive and tempered approach. But denial held sway even as reports flooded in and brands like Alpo, produced by the Swiss corporation Nestlé, remained on the "safe" list, inflating sales until the company finally slipped out its recall announcement at a 4 AM weekend "press conference."
While the full scope of this story cannot even be approached in the space available in these pages, some urgent points still ignored in major media need to at least be touched upon. The heart of the story isn’t about PET FOOD companies or supermarkets but rather about corporate culture and the national news media which has, as part of that culture, been largely missing in action on these developments- just as it was on related issues leading up to this point. It is also about public agencies serving as little more than appendages of the industries they’re supposedly designed to regulate. It is also the sorry story of the corporate corruption of science by CEOs with their heads up their bottom lines.
The missing words in this crisis are ‘genetically modified.’ They are words Cornell, a GM-foods advocate closely associated with the leading biotech firm Monsanto, kept out of the discourse when it leaped in to assume its prominent role in the testing. Wheat gluten has never been demonstrated to be lethally toxic- nor has melamine. The same can not be said for genetically engineered wheat and that is the elephant in the room that stands behind the stalling and cover-up in this case. Aminopterin, an anti-metabolite which, aside from its brief and aborted career as a rodent toxin and cancer "drug", is more commonly used as a DNA-marker in genetic engineering through the bio-resistance it provokes. Melamine may have been illegally added to boost the protein readings of the product but that’s a question that avoids the central facts.
In the twists and turns of this saga, a Las Vegas firm called ChemNutra was named by Menu Foods as the primary supplier of the "contaminated" wheat gluten. ChemNutra, which according to their own website seems to qualify for the benefits allotted to a minority or woman-owned company though it handles tens of millions of dollars in nutraceutival chemicals a year, pointed the finger at XuZhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co Ltd, a Chinese trading firm that, in turn, denied involvement with the suspect gluten. ChemNutra’s owners, New York attorney Stephen S. Miller and his wife Sally Qing Miller, have mixed credentials. Sally has a degree in Food Chemical Engineering from Hanzhou Institute of Commerce in Hanzhou, China, a nation currently spending $500 million annually on biotechnical research. Stephen, who is testifying before Senator Richard Durbin’s Subcommittee on Agriculture as this is written, worked with the E.F. Hutton Group in the 1980s when it was led by Scott Pierce (brother-in-law of then-Vice President George Bush- an association which may help explain why the FDA delayed naming ChemNutra when it identified XuZhou) who entered guilty pleas to 2000 criminal counts of fraud as the brokerage firm disintegrated in the organized crime "Pizza Connection" drug money laundering scandal. (The firm’s remains survive under the Smith Barney-Citigroup banner).
During this decade, investment in emerging biotechnology soared as incentives developed under the administration’s urging and, by 1992, GM foods had been approved for human consumption by the FDA’s decision that its content was "substantially similar" to foods which are not genetically manipulated and, so, could enter the marketplace without specific safety testing.
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Due in large part to intensive lobbying and an aggressive Public Relations campaign to overcome consumer reluctance by Monsanto and other industry giants, engineered foods- even vegetables with human genes inserted did not have to be labeled in the American marketplace.
Bioscientists have recently produced an animal which is 85% sheep and 15% human. Lambchops, anyone?
The GM food industry seeks to overcome consumer hesitation to eat produce with cross-species genes by claiming widespread benefits to farmers and a promise to conquer world hunger. Each of their claims is countered by groups like the Soil Association (whose 68 page fact book, "Seeds of Doubt," can be downloaded free from their website), Greenpeace International, Science In Society, GMWatch, Network of Concerned Farmers and many other citizen and environmental groups. Those opposing the "GM revolution" commonly point out the industry’s failure to fulfill their glowing promises, characterize the introduction of GM crops as premature at best and projecting irreversible ecological damage and unprecedented monumental human disaster at worst. Farmers today are faced with concerns about cross pollination, market rejection and liability just for starters. New laws in Iraq dictate that farmers there cannot use their own seeds.The prime beneficiaries in all of this are seen as the biotech companies themselves, who can patent the lifeforms they create and profit at every stage of the food chain.
As co-president of Monsanto’s agricultural sector, Robert Fraley, proclaimed in 1996, "What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies; it’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain."
The renowned biochemist, Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, noted in a talk at the Franco-British Council Symposium in Paris, France on February 8, 2007: "...manipulation of scientific evidence appears to be the mainstay of the regulatory process. Both the FSA (Food Safety Authority) and the ACNFP (Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes) have been operating on the anti-precautionary principle. Not only do they require the public and genuinely independent scientists to prove there is a hazard, they have persistently ignored all evidence of hazards submitted to them and, instead, continue to misinform the public by citing highly flawed studies that claim to find no effect against the latest findings."
The same situation is present in the telecommunications field where the industry has a tight grip on both the research being conducted and the regulatory agencies. Despite massive evidence of physical effects from nonthermal radio frequency electromagnetic waves and numerous studies linking them to the current rise in maladies from cancer to chronic fatigue and autism, the billions available to the wireless industry have kept a lid on the threats to public health. Studies on the effects of electromagnetic frequencies on bees are finally gaining a bit of attention as Colony Collapse Disorder wipes out hives in electropolluted regions around the world. (Pollen from GM plants is also a suspect in this crisis threatening the food supply although the EMF factor is a more compelling answer to the mystery). Like the PET FOOD recall, many are taking the CCD phenomena as a wake-up call.
Since food industries create the standards for their own testing under our present system, it should not be surprising that Monsanto’s studies are favorable to their designs. But when Greenpeace Germany commissioned an independent study of Monsanto’s data on their transgenic corn MON863, approved for animal and human consumption on the basis of methods found wanting by independent scrutiny, the results were published in the peer-review journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology and a follow-up study was reported upon by David Gutierrez of the Campaign for Labeling of GM Foods on April 10, 2007:
"A variety of genetically modified corn that was approved for human consumption in 2006 caused signs of liver and kidney toxicity as well as hormonal changes in rats in a study performed by researchers from the independent Committee for Independent Research and Genetic Engineering at the University of Caen in France."
The Caen group found damage to the kidneys and livers of test animals as well as hormonal changes and blood abnormalities, possibly perforation of blood cells. GM food advocate Alex Avery of the Hudson Institute responded quickly by pointing out that the "studies have consistently found the variations occurred randomly," implying that they should then be of little concern. But while the intricacies of molecular biology may be complex, the foundation of the viability of GM food is rather simple and it was demonstrated by Dr. Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland in the first independent, non-industry studies of GM food in 1998 and the very problem isolated involves "randomness."
When Pusztai spoke publicly of his findings, he was dismissed by Aberdeen, which was later revealed to have received a $230,000 grant from Monsanto, and his work fiercely attacked. But when Pusztai sent the research protocols to 24 independent scientists in different countries, they verified his conclusions. "The data showed that rats fed the GE potatoes for 10 days suffered serious damage to the immune systems and various organs, including the kidney, stomach, spleen, and brain," wrote Dr. Richard Wolfson in Biotech News in May 1999.
"GM foods have been introduced on the back of just one published paper. Just one, in fifteen years of GM," Dr. Pusztai said in an interview. "It was written by a Monsanto scientist and published in 1996...I could take it apart in 10 seconds...the main problem is that the researchers appear to have done their utmost to find no problem."
The principle which entirely undermines the multi-billion dollar GM industry and potentially explains why some animals are stricken by the GM gluten (and not the incidentally present melamine) and why rice and corn gluten are also suspect is "substantial equivalence." Dr. Pusztai explains: "We had two transgenic lines of potato produced from the same gene insertion and the same growing conditions; we grew them together along with the parent plant. With our two lines of potato, which should have been substantially equivalent to each other, we found that one of the lines contained 20% less protein than the other. So the two lines were not substantially equivalent to each other. But we also found that these two lines were not substantially equivalent to their parent. This could not be predicted. It demonstrates that the unpredictability is inherent in the GM process on a case by case basis- and also at the level of every single GM plant created."
Although no one seems to have mentioned it, it would also appear to raise some questions about the intellectual property rights of the patent but that, of course, like a considerable weight of other evidence cannot be considered here.
As it stands, the $38 billion a year PET FOOD industry is dwarfed by the human market and many people are not aware that over 70% of processed foods they buy off grocery store shelves contains GM ingredients. They’d be doubly shocked to learn the percentage of foods, including frozen vegetables, are produced in China. In an already shaky economy, it’s small wonder that the FDA and the other players involved in the recall were determined to avoid the GM factor.
The PET FOOD crisis is an inevitable result of priorities misplaced in the corporate mind. They are priorities which will continue to terrorize shoppers until they are modified by the insertion of human principle. In the world of corporate think, it is conceivable to conjure self-justifying thoughts like- "How utterly contemptible of future generations to threaten this quarter’s profits when they only exist in theory...."
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This story is dedicated to Jizo, who died of renal failure in the early stages of the recall. We miss you, boy.
XXX
Who’s Getting A Million?
At press time Tuesday the CWC had plans to authorize a $1 million grant that evening to enter into a contract with the Catskill Water Discovery Center, slated for Arkville, to provide the funds over a four year period to hire an executive director and support staff to manage, raise funds and eventually construct the building and enclosed exhibits that will display the wonders of water to those that visit the facility.
The project is planned to occupy 44 acres of land along the Crossroads in Arkville be tween Route 28 and Route 30. It started as a New York City watershed museum funded by one million dollars of New York City money under the 1997 memorandum of agreement, but most of that money was lost after organizers failed to build the project within the agreed time frame. In 2004 it was announced that $5 million was needed to really do the job right and a major fund raising campaign was launched.
But along the way something happened. Funding proved elusive. They did raise $450,000, according to project spearhead Gary Gailes, but it was apparent that funding would flow more freely if the plans were expanded.
“The potential for significant support was identified. However, it was also clear that our focus—the development of the Catskill/Delaware Watershed and the issues of potable water—deserved deeper and broader exploration,” said Gailes at the time.
That exploration revealed startling information. 135 million people will die within 15 years from disease related to a lack of clean water. If all the earth’s water could fit into a one gallon jug, the amount that’s good enough to drink would be about one tablespoon. Two out of ten people worldwide don’t have access to any safe drinking water, and 3900 children under age five die everyday for lack thereof. In some parts of the US serious conflicts over water rights threaten economic and social disruption and in other countries armed conflicts over water have already begun.
In contrast, water issues differ locally. There’s so much of it that many landowners wish it would go away because it keeps them from using their land. Fresh pure water floods the region several times each year, wreaking havoc along stream banks. The region’s pristine supply is so plentiful the City of New York gives local communities millions annually to siphon it off for half the state’s population to drink.
When first brought forward, the current Water Discovery Center was a Watershed Museum proposed by local developer Dean Gitter to be situated on lands donated by Gailes and located near his proposed Belleayre resort, which has come under fire from environmentalists as a threat to New York City’s drinking water supply.
Theproject was later moved to Arkville after Gailes and others complained that Shandaken was not enthusiastic and supportive enough of the propsed regional attraction.
To award the $1 million grant Tuesday, the CWC board of Directors plans to form an alliance with the Water Discovery Center.
CWC’s economic development director, Michael Triolo, explained that the Alliance was his agency’s idea. Triolo said that CWC has supported the Museum project ever since it was announced ten years ago, but at the same time CWC now wanted to be able to keep watch on it’s investment.
Part of the deal is that CWC now has a seat on the Museums board of Directors and has veto power over spending.
“It’s one million dollars over four years,” Triolo said. “We want to watch how it is spent.”
