To the editor:
"Agribusiness" is attacking clean water in Kansas again. I'm talking about the biggies, like U.S. Premium Beef, Farmland Industries, Inc., Agriliance, L.L.C., Kansas Fertilizer and Chemical Assn., the Kansas Agriculture Aviation Assn., that insurance company the Farm Bureau and others. They are working hard to get bills through the Legislature that attack the Clean Water Act and the very premise that our surface water should be protected from those who dump their wastes in it.
The supporters of SB 204 and HB 2373 say we shouldn't try to regulate streams that often don't have regular water flow, or to try to ensure shallow streams are safe for swimming. Now, these streams, when they do have water flowing in them, will eventually reach a larger stream, and, as they say, "we all live downstream."
I'm not talking about the independent farmers in the state. Most farmers understand the importance of clean water and keeping soil and nutrients on the farm rather than sending it down the creek and some are working to be real stewards of the land, using water and soil friendly farming techniques. These are not folks behind these bills. Even Clyde Graeber, KDHE secretary, doesn't support them.
Much of the technical language in the bills hides the fact that all except a handfull of the largest rivers would be open to the dumping of pollutants, not just from agriculture but sewage treatment plants and industry as well.
Clean water is a public health issue. If the producers aren't willing to pay the costs of doing business, the alternative is paying the much larger costs of cleaning the water for downstream use, and the huge social costs of all the known and suspected health problems that stem from the pollutants we do not keep out of our water system.
Fortunately, we in Douglas County have enlightened representatives in Topeka and I have been assured by many of them that they will work to defeat this bill, but they all need to hear from us, their constituents, now. The governor needs to weigh in on this as well, should the bills make it through the full House and Senate.
Eileen Larson,
Lawrence
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