Day Seven: A wild Thanksgiving feast

Rose hips a-cookin’

(article continued from here)

I cracked black walnuts with a rock as chestnut-breaded venison sizzled in the pan, filling the room with a delectable scent. It tempted even me, a pesco-vegetarian who has rarely liked the flavor of mammal meat. Since it was roadkill, I couldn’t have moral objections to eating it, so I chose to taste it. Honestly, it was delicious. I never imagined that roadkill would be so tender. I ultimately spit it out because I didn’t want to risk sickening myself with meat after avoiding it for so long. My friends who ate it, though, considered it the highlight of the meal.

We also ate baked cattail roots; steamed wapato bulbs; oven-baked biscuits made of chestnut, acorn and dock seed flour with elderberries; roasted chestnuts; raw black walnuts; baked breaded mushrooms and boiled mustard greens. To drink, we had apple cider, lemonbalm tea, and Juniper beer.

Surrounded by forager friends whose heart-filled enthusiasm kept me going through all seven days, I couldn’t pick a more fitting finale for a week of wild food.

When I started on Friday, I was determined and optimistic, but I wasn’t sure what I was in for. As it turned out, the lessons I learned in May adequately prepared me to make it through. I didn’t waste any calories wandering around looking for food because I had scouted my neighborhood in advance. I wasn’t beholden to the bare trees because I stocked my pantry in advance, gathering stinging nettle over the summer and chestnuts and black walnuts in September and October. And I had the support of a tribe of forager friends who share the belief that survival is a cooperative endeavor. Together we gathered and processed more edibles more efficiently than I could have on my own. They also generously offered gifts of plant foods they had stumbled upon, like sumac and feral prunes. I could have continued another week, if I had wanted to to continue eating foods that were less palatable than I’d like.

In yesterday’s blog I wondered whether ancient indigenous people had different expectations for flavor and texture than we do now. They may have, however, there is also some evidence to suggest that they sometimes cultivated wild plants for flavor. It’s hard to know, but speculating is interesting.

I wanted to keep the project local enough to stay relevant to the realistic constraints of a survival situation, but if I had expanded the range of the project to include the coast, I could  have included sea salt, seaweed, and an abundance of fish and shellfish. Some friends did offer to give me fish they had caught in local rivers, but these were farm-raised fish that had been stocked in the waterways, and that didn’t exactly seem “wild.”

It can be difficult to define wild food. I tried to stick as much as possible to the indigenous diet here, but I also wanted to highlight non-native weeds and other plants that we don’t tend to think of as food, like rose hips. My aim was to reveal hidden abundance and show that the Earth feeds us naturally. We don’t have to dominate the land to get what we need. To paraphrase my friend Ariel Marguiles, “The sun warms the Earth and never once does it say, ‘But what did you ever do for me?’ ” The Earth gives us living gifts of food and medicine and asks nothing in return.

Agriculture brought overpopulation. Overpopulation threw the natural system out of balance, creating scarcity. And now, instead of cooperation, the world economy is based on competition, greed and domination.

Politicians propose wiping out the last remaining wilderness to build roads and drill for oil, because they don’t recognize nature’s inherent value to provide for us. They have forgotten that the Earth is a natural welfare system with free food, free housing and universal health care. Even environmentalists, much of the time, build their campaigns on sentimentality and aesthetics. Mankind has lost its way.

Fortunately, the world is filled with the vestiges of a more harmonious past. Wild plants are a link to what once was and what could be. To forage is a beautiful thing, for it is a proclamation that you remember where you came from, that you acknowledge another way.

Day Five: Oyster mushrooms and the wapato shimmy

Wapato bulbs

From north Portland we crossed a bridge over the Multnomah Channel to Sauvie Island, once known as Wapato Island. The picturesque land there is 26,000 acres of farms, hiking trails and wetlands bordered by the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. Along the way to a marshland called Catfish Slough, we gathered rose hips, delicious wild mustard greens and even oyster mushrooms.

In the fall and spring, you can find oyster mushrooms growing on dead trees, stumps and logs, especially on cottonwood, willow, alder and oak trees. Look for the distinctive gills, which run from the edges of the cap down through the stalk. Oyster mushrooms are sold commercially, but if you look for them, you can get them for free.

Oyster mushroom

Wapato was once a staple starch food of indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest, though it is rarely harvested anymore. When steamed, it has a sweet, nutty flavor. If it is growing in a shallow enough area, or if you have a canoe and a steady sense of balance, it can be possible to uproot wapato by pulling its stalk. But the fun way to get it is to dance in the water, loosening the muck it grows in to send the bulbs floating to the surface. This is the technique my friends from TrackersNW and I used, and we had a blast. Emily Porter dubbed it the “wapato shimmy.” Everyone was smiling even though our hands and feet were freezing. Wapato foraging was a joyous dance.

We waded into water as deep as our necks. Little air bubbles came streaming to the surface as we jumped around. According to wild food botanistJohn Kallas, the best technique is to stay in the same spot as you work, disturbing the mud for a good 15 minutes so the deeper bulbs have a chance to come up.

To stay warm, we wore wetsuits generously leant to us for free by Portland’s Next Adventure outdoor store.

Tony Deis paddled out in a kayak and filmed our adventure. You can watch the 45-second video of our wapato harvest he made on YouTube here.

Thanks to Bryce Ruddock of Milwaukie, Wisconsin, who wrote in to answer my dock seed question. I asked how to separate the tiny seeds from the chaff. His answer: Grind the seeds and the hulls together and add them to flour. I tried this today in chestnut-and-acorn flour pancakes, and it worked out great. Also, regarding the deer fat — I will not be eating it. As I wrote, I have not eaten meat in 11 years, other than seafood, and the stomach-churning gamey odor in this jar has not served to sway me from that path. Before I began this week, I was open to considering it because I was thinking of the unpleasant sensations I experienced in May when I didn’t have enough to eat. This time the nuts are getting me by just fine, fortunately.

Though Jan called this project a “vision quest for the universe,” I hadn’t seriously considered the implications until this evening. When I got back to my apartment around 6 p.m., I felt tired, weak and lightheaded. I was dizzy. My digestive system purged. My hands got cold and pale. At first I was a bit alarmed since it reminded me of the day I had to quit in May, but then I recognized that something non-physical was simultaneously going on. Energy surged in through my third eye and heart chakra. My vibrational state was changing. I realized that I had thought about the outward implications of foraging, but hadn’t looked inward.

How Foraging Can Set You Free

Published in EarthFirst! Journal, June 2009

For five days at the end of May, I lived exclusively on wild food in Portland, Oregon. There was no dumpster diving, nothing from gardens—instead, I ate weeds and wild plants growing in parks, wilderness areas, yards and sidewalks within the city limits. My purpose was to explore questions of sustainability and survival while indulging my desire to experience what it feels like to be a wild person in an urban environment in 2009.

Before this project began, I sometimes fantasized about being a feral hunter-gatherer. I thought of it as a romantic possibility suspended in the annals of eras past and perhaps awaiting me at some uncertain point in the future, post-collapse. After this experience I see that we can create the reality we want to live in right now. We are as free as we ever were. Our plant friends are still offering themselves as nourishment and medicine, beckoning us to rediscover our primal relationship with them, even in the city, even with all the concrete and asphalt.

This is not to say that we have enough wild land to support foraging exclusively, on a large scale, especially living in a city. Still, wild food can be a supplement to an otherwise-local diet, and knowing about it could save your life in a crisis. Besides, to eat a weed is to honor it—and your own wild nature—in a most intimate way. It is a positive, direct action that reaffirms your place in the web of the great Gaia.

I lived on stinging nettles broth; the roots of burdock, thistle and wild carrot; the raw greens chickweed, miner’s lettuce, dandelion and red clover; and teas made from wild rose petals, pine needles, wild chamomile, cleavers and lemon balm. I had wanted to last a full week, but because the project took place after the mushrooms disappeared and before the berries and nuts come out, there was very little in the way of calories. I did not want to hunt or fish, so I found myself too weak continue on day five and had to stop. At first, I felt disappointed and discouraged by the early ending. However it was a fantastic turn of events, because it gave me an opportunity to reflect on what I had learned: the importance of knowing your local terrain, storing food, studying the native ways and embracing community. I might not have recognized these things if I had made it the whole way through with ease.

Meet Your (Plant) Neighbors

If you want to be able to survive on wild food, pay attention to where each plant species grows and its availability. Looking for food can waste valuable time in a crisis. So, I write down what I find in my ‘hood and pinpoint the intersections. I also note growth patterns that could offer clues in unfamiliar habitats. For instance, pineapple weed likes sunny places and wild ginger prefers forest cover.

Store With the Seasons

What grows ubiquitously during the first week of May may have vanished by the last. Pounce on food items when they become available and store them.

Eat Like the First People

The land in each region offers a limited selection, quite unlike a grocery store. This means that you’ve got to conform to what it gives you. So it is a good idea to study what foods the native people ate in your region and in what proportions. Wild vegetarianism is unlikely to work out in many places, including Cascadia, due to lack of available calories and protein from plants alone. (If you can prove me wrong, awesome!) Anthropological literature suggests that the native people in Portland ate few carbohydrates and relied heavily on fish, clams and deer. They did eat an array of berries and some roots, especially camas bulbs, but most of their vitamin and mineral intake came from plant sources we rarely consider eating these days, such as the inner bark of hemlock and cottonwood trees.

Community

Foraging is fun, yet surprisingly tedious. It has a low return for the amount of energy you have to put into both locating and gathering food. This is where community can help. While one person might spend four hours looking for and gathering burdock root, three others can use that same time to go out and get three other kinds of foods in three other places. Together, we can do so much more than one person can accomplish alone. The opportunity to share our knowledge and barter or share goods are also huge benefits. Maybe you didn’t save enough acorns last fall, but your neighbor has more than she needs. Maybe you don’t know where to go to catch bass, but your friend does. When it comes to naturalist skills, there is an overwhelming amount of information to grasp. That’s good news, too—it means you don’t have to know everything to survive. You just need a group of people who are all in it together.

The more you learn about ancestral ways, the more powerful you will become. You will acquire the ability to recognize hidden abundance, to see things that were previously invisible to you. For instance, where I once saw a nondescript green mass lining the roadsides, I now recognize cough medicine, fiber to weave mats with, and even emory boards. Where I once saw unkempt yards, I now see salad greens. Those weeds coming up through the cracks in the sidewalk? Tea. Every single plant on Earth has a gift to offer. Some are medicinal, some are nutritional. Even poison hemlock is homeopathic in small doses. What might be growing in your backyard?

For information on safety, plant identification and further resources on wild food in general, such as books, photos and other learning opportunities, visit my wilderness—skills blog at www.firstways.com. And check out the fantastic primer called “Feral Forager: A Guide to Living Off Nature’s Bounty in Urban, Rural and Wilderness Areas,” available for download at www.zinelibrary.info.

“Take it outside,” The Ithaca Times, Jan. 3, 2008

Can playing in the woods help kids focus in the classroom? Environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, a Cornell University professor, is studying that question – and others like it – by measuring the effects of a wilderness-immersion program on local city youth.

Urban Forest Adventures, led by Tim Drake and Jed Jordan of Primitive Pursuits, takes low-income tweens and teens in search of animal tracks and wild edibles in such accessible patches of nature as drainage ditches.

“We put ourselves into the same places the animals live, the marginal spaces,” Drake said. “We’ve actually seen deer and … rabbits, because we’ve been in the brush. We go to the thickets.”

The Tuesday after-school program at the West Village and Parkside Gardens apartment complexes can be transformative for participants, many of whom have little to no prior experience in the wild, Drake said.

“You take a group of kids who normally get all their food plastic-wrapped, and you say, ‘Just pull it off that branch,’” Drake said. “Just seeing that you can take food, even in an urban setting, and eat it or making bracelets from plants that grow right there…raises the bar on awareness and (helps) create pathways to healing in the rest of their lives.”

Scientists have not yet established why the wilderness aids well-being, though interest in the concept itself has been gaining attention since Richard Louv’s book, Last Child In the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, hit the presses in 2005.

Some experts suspect it’s got something to do with the benefits of peer bonding and physical exercise. Others, such as Emory University’s Howard Frumkin, believe it’s wired in our DNA.

“We all evolved in a natural environment. We didn’t evolve in concrete,” said Wells, whose previous studies established that time spent outdoors mitigates stressful events in childhood and improves cognitive functioning. “It’s a common denominator for all of us, regardless of our professions or perspective.”

Though it’s only the beginning of the first school-year-long stint, Drake says he’s already seen progress in the group, from shy, standoffish kids taking on leadership roles to a cynical, too-cool teenager who broke into un-self-conscious song in front of his peers.

Nhu Le, a 4-H Urban Outreach employee who runs after-school programs for the low-income community, says the ESL students in the Urban Forest Adventures program, most of whom are Burmese refugees, talk about Primitive Pursuits in school. “They talk about it to all of their teachers and get really excited for it,” Le said. “There’s this one kid who comes to programs, he just gets really into it and focuses. It funnels his energy in a really positive way.”

The value of anecdotal data notwithstanding, Wells will evaluate the effects of Urban Forest Adventures by surveying participants in youth-friendly fashion: Kids will be asked to jump different distances to indicate their responses. In addition to evaluating cognitive functioning, Wells plans to study attitudes about preservation, fear of the wild and preferences about where to spend free time.

The human preference for a connection with nature is well documented. In a 1990 study published by Timber Press, 99 percent of residents in a retirement community said living within an attractive landscape is “important or essential.” In another, office workers told researchers that they felt calmer and more relaxed with plants around.

Environmentalists argue that the link is intuitively obvious. Even now, a time when much of society regards the natural world as a dangerous and mysterious place, lovers buy each other flowers, children surround themselves with stuffed animals and one of the most wildly successful marketing campaigns in years features a talking gecko.

Drake believes the program, too, taps into an instinctual fondness for the wild.

“We had a day when we were out hiking and up ahead somebody spotted something fly in. It was a pileated woodpecker hanging out at the top of a tree we were at the base of, calling off to a partner in the distance. They’re very otherworldly when you see them flying. They have this long beak, long head and arced wing; you can’t help but think of some kind of teradactyl,” he said.

“You could see this bright glowing red crest on this bird. Everybody was very quiet and in awe,” Drake continued. “It was the world around them coming alive, with food you can eat, animals you can track and stories written in the snow.”

The program, funded by a $27,000 More Kids in the Woods grant from the National Forest Service, meets Tuesday afternoons. Interested participants can call 272 2292, ext. 261.

Letters to the Editor

The letters keep pouring in, months after The Ithaca Times published “Toxic fumes, blisters and brain damage,” my investigative report on New York’s largest dairy farm. Dairy farmers wrote in to criticize the story, a world-famous economist praised it, and the debate rages on. To read the very first letters all the way to the very latest, please scroll down.

April 9, 2008

Our Life Next to Willet Dairy

Thanks to Rebecca Lerner for bringing to light the plague overtaking our rural landscape that is the factory farm. As someone who lives in the neighborhood of Willet Dairy, I could not read the article without feeling physical pain. It’s hard to express the frustration and anger I feel when I read the words of the arrogant (and ignorant) fat cat lawyer saying our plight is “utter nonsense.” He wouldn’t say those words if the lagoons full of fermenting poop were across the street from his house.

However little he cares, though, it should be pointed out how “utterly” wrong he is about so many things he commented on. First of all, his description of Willet Dairy as a “leader in environmental stewardship” would be laughable, except that it’s not remotely funny. When my family first moved here, about 14 years ago, we had a nice little dirt road behind our house that we could walk down, lined with sumacs, berry bushes and young maple and polar trees. My daughter and I would look for crayfish in Schoolhouse Creek, a perennial stream that ran under the road and wound through the neighborhood. Since then, all the hedgerows and woodlands that supported wildlife and soil conservation have been systematically town down. Good stewards do not destroy perennial streams and swamps. They do not spray liquid manure on frozen fields where the rainfall will turn it into run-off that makes its way to our already beleaguered Cayuga Lake….

I must point out the irony of Cornell Dairy Management Professor David Galton’s lack of interest in his part of the whole problem. He teaches people how to perpetuate the destruction, yet uses language like “improving standard of living” and “diluting out costs” to support his work. Whose standard of living? Certainly not mine or my neighbor’s. And at what cost to our environment and the animals we depend upon for sustenance?

Finally I want to protest Lynn Odell’s statement that Willet Dairy doesn’t “farm any differently than anybody else up and down this road” and that they are somehow being subjected to “unreasonable scrutiny.” Excuse me, but they are the only “dairy” with close to 8,000 cows and the do farm differently than many of the other farms in this area. Other farms let their cows out to graze. Other farms have sustainable numbers of animals that make it so the release of manure onto the fields is actually beneficial to the soil. There are dairy farms and then there CAFOs. There aren’t enough regulations in the industry to stem the tide of destruction and grief that these factories impart.

If you want to do something to help, write our politicians and demand that they create legislation that will address these issues. In the meantime, consider not buying cheap milk. Speaking as someone who has a family and a very tight budget, I know how hard that can be. If you can’t afford organic milk, there are local dairies that pledge t use only milk that comes from pasture raised cows not treated with growth hormones or antibiotics, that are more affordable. Ask your grocery store manager about them. If we use our wallets to shower our preference, maybe they’ll listen. After all, as Prof. Galton suggests, money seems to be the bottom line for these factory farms.

– Kelly Doolittle

Calf Quarantines

One point left out of the piece on factory farms was the reason that calves can’t nurse as nature intended but instead are quarantined: suckling their mother’s teet would kill them.

David Galton, the Cornell expert interviewed in the article, said it was to avoid compromising their fragile immune systems. What he didn’t say is that cows in industrialized settings all produce e-coli laden milk that has to be pasteurized before any living thing can drink it. The pathogens are still floating around in there, but don’t worry, they’re dead.

This is a far cry from the smaller, old-fashioned herds of 30-100 head that still exist where you can drink wholesome raw milk right out of the bulk tank. The propagandists will tell you that raw milk isn’t good for you but more and more people are learning the truth.

The only excuse ever given for larger and larger farms is economy of scale. Quality [i]s never mentioned and the true costs (subsidies, increased health costs due to pollution and ingesting an inferior product, environmental damage) are never put into mainstream print.

The truth is, CAFOs are a failed model; animal husbandry doesn’t work like a sneaker factory. Too bad that most of our research in the agricultural sciences these days are all about the green stuff, and I’m not talking chlorophyll.

-Joe Lonsky
Spokesman for Adults for
Rational Government, Genoa

April 16, 2008

Rebecca Lerner’s account of the controversy between the Willet Dairy farm and its neighbors over the injury that the complainants contend was inflicted upon them is a wonderful example of investigative reporting, and the community owes you a debt of gratitude for making it public. I have no expertise on the basis of which to judge the legal merits of their dispute – whether the dairy has or has not failed to comply with the legal restrictions on its evidently noxious emissions. Lerner’s interviews with the neighbors are utterly compelling: There seems no reason to doubt that they have been grievously affected by the fumes issuing from the farm. And the government owes them – and all of us – a prompt, objective investigation of whether Willet has violated the law at its (that is, all of our) expense, without further impoverishing the victims; and if necessary, prescribing compensation of the victims.

But the issue goes beyond the applicability of the present legal restrictions. The underlying principle is indisputable. When the government takes land or property for a public purposes, or indirectly, by its activities – such as by constructing roads – and degrades the value of adjoining properties, it obviously must compensate the injured parties. The same is true of private activities imposing such external costs: The responsible parties must compensate the injured ones.

The prices of all commodities and services absolutely must include – or be made to include – such external costs as their activities impose on others; if not, the prices of what they sell are being subsidized by the injuries of neighbors. More obviously, when the asserted injuries are to health, the need for public action is imperative. ….

The public deserves the right to know first, whether they have indeed offended the law by, in effect, taking private property – and health! – without compensation; and if so, whether such public agencies as the Department of Environmental Conservation have been fulfilling their responsibility to protect against such injuries. If the dairy has not in fact made such restitution or reimbursement, it may well respond that forcing it to mend its ways or to compensate their neighbors would raise the price of milk. So be it: There is no reason for the neighboring property owners – obviously of modest income – to be subsidizing the consumers of milk….

Please, Rebecca Lerner, keep up your wonderful efforts; and, Ithaca Times, thanks also to you.

-Alfred E. Kahn
Professor of Political Economy, Cornell

Time to wean ourselves off of other animals’ milk

The horrors of living next to a factory farm should point us toward finally ridding ourselves of use of dairy products. These “foods” have been shown to be health hazards (ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, probably breast cancer) and are certainly not necessary parts of a healthy diet (I have not used them for over 25 years… and I am a Registered Dietitian).Use plant-based “milks” such as soy, rice, almond,etc. and get those polluting animals out into the pastures to live out their lives without the continual forced pregnancies that keep their milk “flowing”.

-George Eisman, Watkins Glen, NY [via Web site]

Investigative? Hardly.

The so-called “investigative report” by Rebecca Lerner was ridiculously biased towards hearsay reports that were previously unilaterally dismissed by the courts. Her writing contained more untruths than can be addressed in a short letter. The New York Animal Agriculture Coalition supports Willet Dairy, and farmers across New York State, who live on their farms and work to preserve the land for future generations. Willet is a family-run farm that has implemented environmentally sound management practices on its farmstead and fields, with thorough record keeping and emergency action plans in place. Additionally a recent three-day, onsite inspection of the farm by the DEC and EPA found that record keeping and steps taken to protect the environment at Willet Dairy met state and federal requirements.

Because our food is among the cheapest and safest in the world, we now have the luxury to question how social obligations are met when it is produced. With advances on modern dairies that have included moving cattle inside to safe and comfortable housing, we have been able to reduce the carbon footprint by 67 percent. Regardless of the type of production system – traditional, natural or organic – all milk is natural and pure. It’s a nutritious nutrient -dense drink that provides a number of essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium, Vitamin D and potassium. Henning Steinfield, co-author of the United Nation’s “Livestock’s Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options” report, recently praised actions of farmers such as the owners of Willet Dairy, who are making better use of our natural resources with less waste. This farm is doing its part for the economy, food security and environmental protection by making significant investments for the benefit of soil, water and air quality.

-Julie Berry
New York Animal Agriculture Coalition

Willet Dairy

In response to Ms. Doolittles article, does she stop to think that these
farms are needed to provide businesses in our small towns and to provide a tax basis that the rest of us would have to pick up to keep our small towns and counties going. The clean up of hedgerows and sides of roads also help do a clean up to keep old trees and land debris from building up in our ditches and roads which the County and Towns would have to clean up anyway. Our country was based on farms.

Society has made the farms today to have to be operated on a competitive basis in order to survive. Quit putting down our small hamlet. You are making it so people don’t want to live there not Willet Dairy.

-Sharon Weeks [via Web site]

April 23, 2008

In Defense of the American Farmer

The values of the American farmer – a commitment to faith, family, industry and initiative – are the embodiment of the spirit and zeal of the American nation. Farming represents the best of America and there is no more demanding or noble profession than tilling the soil. From the bounty of America come the blessings of the world, as from our plains, prairies and fields to grocery stores and dinner tables around the globe, American agriculture feeds, fuels and clothes the world. Yet, American agriculture is now under attack, as individuals ranging from left-wing animal-rights activists to further-left command economists picket and protest the hardworking men and women who manage the American dairy industry.

These pundits and protestors, politicians and professors bemoan the rise of large-scale dairy farms as antithetical to traditional notions of agricultural enterprise. Yet, in an age of international consumption and competition, there is no longer a place for small farms in the dairy industry, a reality that has forced the traditional American farmer to evolve, mechanizing and modernizing in order to keep pace with competitors in faraway places such as New Zealand, China and Kazakhstan.

So, in order to compete in a modern global marketplace, these hardworking men and women, the sons and daughters of America’s traditional farmers, were forced to adapt and progress. Milking by hand replaced by robotic milkers; box stalls replaced by state-of-the-art barns and traditional dairy operations replaced by larger, more efficient and cost-effective farms. Thanks to the ingenuity and industry of the American dairyman, modern dairies have been able to offset rising prices for feed and fuel, allowing for affordable milk in the refrigerators of the American consumers. So while individuals protest large-scale dairies, the average American can, thanks in part to the evolution and modernization of the dairy industry, still afford to have milk with their cereal every morning.

In an age of globalization, traditional farmers have been forced to adapt or perish, expanding in order to keep pace with international competition and keep farms which have been in their families for generations afloat. Ingenuity is a hallmark of the agricultural trade, and just as centuries of inventions such as barbed wire and the John Deere tractor have continually revolutionized farming, so too did globalization, forcing farmers to face head-on the challenges of a growing marketplace and to adjust their practices while still maintaining the values and character that have long made American agriculture the cornerstone of our nation.

Although Thomas Jefferson’s dream of an agricultural utopia in America never came to fruition, agriculture has thrived on American soil since the very birth of our nation. Throughout our history, the keystone of American farming has always been its ability to adapt in the face of adversity, to correct itself when faced with hardship.

Yet, many now excoriate the industry for just that, for evolving to meet the demands of a growing marketplace in the face of international competition. The sons and daughters of traditional farmers have taken their family homesteads and brought them into the 21st century, modernizing and mechanizing an industry that would otherwise face extinction.

Thus, instead of crucifying the dairy industry for merely surviving amidst an onslaught of opposition and difficulty, Americans should applaud the efforts of an industry evolving to keep pace with international competition and appreciate the men and women who daily work to feed and fuel the world.

– John Boerman

April 30, 2008

Biased account

The recent article that ran in the Ithaca Times titled “Industrial Stink” not only was a misrepresentation of the dairy industry, but a personal attack on local dairy farms….Dairy farmers in New York State, and across the U.S., are excellent stewards of the land and other natural resources. Those who make their living with the land, take very good care of it. Farmers have a vested interest, and a strong commitment, to protect the environment where they live and work. We support these dairy farmers who work to preserve land for future generations.

New York dairy farmers were among the first to develop a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) program to protect water quality and the environment. New York has some of the strongest water quality regulations in the U.S. In fact, a recent Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling indicated that New York’s CAFO program even exceeds the Clean Water Act requirements.

The dairies referenced in this article are held to these standards and farmers that have a CAFO permit are required to document the careful and complex methods they use to limit the environmental impact of the farm. These farms complied with local, state and federal regulations and have a right to operate their business, like every other local business, as long as they abide by the law….

Willet Dairy, the dairy in question, hired its own expert to conduct scientific tests in the areas near its neighbors’ homes. The results directly refute the neighbors’ claims and show that they have not been exposed to hydrogen sulfide.

The article also assesses the local dairy operations as “behomeths.” It is important to note that multi-family farms actually preserve farms, and they contribute to the rural farm landscape we know in rural New York State today. To describe them as something other than environmental stewards, and good caretakers of our natural resources, is simply wrong….

Keep in mind, dairy farms have always, and will continue to, produce a very fresh and wholesome product. If we continue to treat them the way these farms have been treated by their local community, we will someday be forced to buy milk that is in the powder form and produced in other countries. This powder would require water to get to a fluid state and would soon replace fresh locally produced milk that is taken for granted by many.

Do you really want your children or grandchildren drinking milk in a powder form that is produced overseas? Would you like to see sprawling housing developments where these rich, thriving, open green spaces, known as farms, are today? Welcome to Upstate New York folks – reality is, we live in this area of the country and should appreciate all it offers.

-Greg Wickham
CEO, Dairylea Cooperative Inc.

COO, Dairy Farmers of America Northeast Council

American Farmers

Although the values of the American farmer may embody “the spirit and zeal of the American nation,” there are other values that distinguish this great nation as well, not the least of which being those embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

A key feature of these documents, which were written by the kind of intellectuals so often ridiculed in today’s America, was their attempt to safeguard the rights of individuals. If modern American dairies, now corporate entities with legal rights as “persons” are evolving in such a way as to trample on the inalienable rights of their neighbors, maybe they no longer embody the noble spirit of the American farmer.

-Adam Clark Arcadi
Trumansburg

Calculating the price

John Boerman’s eloquent praise of the American farmer and farming as a way of life and provider for the world – by implication responding to Rebecca Lerner’s splendid report on the harmful effects of Willet Dairy’s operations on its neighbors – and his explicit criticism of meddlesome “further-left command economists” – are of monumental irrelevance.

His tribute in no way contradicts or even alludes to Ms. Lerner’s documentation of those harmful effects, which constituted the factual predicate for my lecture in elementary economics.

My only “professional” observation in praising her report was that when any economic activity, however legitimate, imposes injury or costs on outsiders, the unregulated market may take them inadequately into account – in which event it may require government intervention to see to it that those costs are imposed on the activity that generates them, and the neighbors fully compensated for their injury or financial losses, if the free market is to function effectively.

There is nothing “left-wing” about that proposition. Even so prominent a conservative proponent of a market economy as Milton Friedman – who, incidentally had high praise for this “leftwing economist” for my leadership in deregulation of the airline industry – has recognized the need for prices to incorporate such “neighborhood effects,” positive and negative. This means that perpetrators of these negative effects must be made to compensate the victims – which would give them efficient motivation to modify their operations so as to limit those costs and/or the market to shift production to farmers who better protect their neighbors – presumably the very process that Mr. Boerman seems to be trying to obstruct. If that is not his intention, what is the relevance of his letter about Ms. Lerner’s article?

-Alfred E. Kahn
Robert Julius Thorne Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus,
Cornell University, Ithaca

May 14, 2008

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The recent story in the Ithaca Times regarding Willet Dairy requires a response…It must be remembered that the plaintiffs tried to maintain their claims against Willet Dairy in federal court and lost. The federal district court dismissed their case because the plaintiffs failed to meet their legal burden of proof. To avoid the further spread of false information, we feel compelled to offer the following facts.

Hydrogen Sulfide: The plaintiffs claim they have suffered a number of injuries from hydrogen sulfide poisoning. It is a fundamental premise of law that a person alleging injury has the burden to prove the cause of that injury. The plaintiffs have done nothing to meet that burden other than make allegations. Such allegations as a matter of law will not suffice. The plaintiffs have never produced any evidence of any toxic exposure to hydrogen sulfide…Plaintiffs had the opportunity to take air samples to prove their theory and chose not to….

Groundwater: The plaintiffs claim Willet Dairy has contaminated groundwater. There is absolutely no evidence that manure from Willet Dairy has caused contamination of any groundwater, drinking wells, or residential plumbing. The plaintiffs have admitted they do not have evidence that Willet Dairy contaminated their groundwater in their depositions for this litigation. Plaintiffs have offered no expert testimony or testing data to support their theory that Willet Dairy has caused any alleged contamination. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has stated that “no scientific proof has been provided which indicates that the farm has caused contamination of groundwater and residential drinking water wells.” On multiple occasions, the Cayuga County Health and Human Services Department has also conducted tests and informed the plaintiffs that Willet Dairy was not the source of any alleged well contamination….

Vocal Minority: The plaintiffs do not represent the majority of Willet Dairy’s neighbors. Other neighbors of Willet Dairy refused to join the lawsuit after being approached by the plaintiffs. Several of the plaintiffs have a history of bringing lawsuits. One of the neighboring plaintiffs sold their family’s home but, interestingly, these plaintiffs did not disclose any of their supposed concerns to the buyer. The new owner has had no complaints.

Dairy Industry: The plaintiffs have made it clear that they are opposed to large dairy farms. The dairy industry is a highly regulated industry. Willet Dairy has been the subject of numerous state and federal inspections including a recent four-day inspection. Each time the regulators reach the same conclusion – Willet Dairy is in compliance with federal and state laws and is an example for other farms. Willet Dairy has complied with every local, state and federal regulation and has a right to operate their business, like every other local business, as long as they abide by the law.

~ David Cook, attorney for Willet Dairy

June 5, 2008

Cow Cruelty

Citizens in Genoa are right to be concerned about the pollution spewed by Willet Dairy (“Toxic fumes, blisters & brain damage,” April 2). In addition to the terrible impact that factory farm pollution has on human health, there is another important reason for concern about these industrialized animal facilities: animal cruelty.

Most people would be shocked if they knew the amount of cruelty behind every glass of milk. To force continuous milk output, dairy farms keep their cows continually impregnated. Upon birth, calves are literally dragged from their mothers’ sides – the females isolated in small crates and the males taken either directly to slaughter or placed inside crates for a few months before being slaughtered.

The majority of dairy cows themselves live in vast, barren lots of manure, mud and flies. So great is the stress of their living conditions and continual, forced pregnancies that after just a few years, they are physically debilitated.

While a cow under natural conditions may live 20 years, dairy cows are slaughtered after just 3 to 5 years. Many – like the downed cows infamously taped being tortured at the Hallmark Meat Processing Plant in California – are too crippled or sick to walk.

The industrialization of dairy farms is a blight on our communities, and conscientious consumers are right to fight against them.

-Julie Janovsky
Campaign Director, Farm Sanctuary

June 25, 2008

Mr. Cook paints a picture of Willet Dairy quite at odds with what Rebecca Lerner found. He makes unsubstantiated assertions about the farm’s practices and quite surprisingly mischaracterizes the decision of the district court. The court dismissed one of our claims under the federal Clean Water Act, but specifically allowed us to refile claims for nuisance, trespass and health harms in state court, which we have done. The state case is going forward.

The federal district court decision is being appealed by myself and Alan Knauf, who have yet to be paid a penny for our time. That we would bring a new state lawsuit and a federal appeal against Willet is an indication we believe strongly the case has merit.

The district court did not even look at proof we offered that Willet systematically overspreads liquid manure and other farm waste in violation of its permit. Contrary to Mr. Cook’s belief that we failed to meet our burden of proof, the district court avoided review of our proof by finding that the mere fact that Willet has a permit shields the farm from any lawsuit. The appeals court will decide whether violations of the permit can be excused for years after the permit was issued.

Citizens can bring an action in federal court to enforce such violations if DEC does not. Unfortunately, at the time we brought this action DEC was committed to developing a cooperative relationship with the factory farm industry in New York and, apparently on that basis decided that investigating Willet to determine whether our allegations have a basis was at odds with this policy. Even today, DEC has not devoted the time and resources required to compare the spreading rates on a field by field basis established in Willet’s waste management plan, a requirement under its permit, with records of the actual spreading rates, also required to be kept under Willet’s permit. We did, and it does not require expertise in farm practices to do so. It is complicated to find the information, but once discovered its analysis is no more complicated than simple arithmetic.

The results of Willet’s overspreading are not hard to see. Many streams and drainage channels around Willet’s fields are choked with algae. We measured runoff from Willet’s production area during a brief rain and found nutrients, e-coli and coliform counts many times in excess of DEC’s water quality standards. Without even seeking a special permit Willet diverted water from Fred Coon’s pond to get more water for the farm, abandoned the project, and allowed the stream and pond to be filled with manure runoff and sediment. Once used for swimming, the pond is now filled to the brim.

Once Fred started complaining he found a pile of dead rats deposited under his mailbox. Once his daughter started filming Willet’s practices, she got chased along the roads by men in pickup trucks. When she asked Willet to stop spraying liquid manure because her mom’s COPD had flared up, Willet refused, and her mom died that night.

Willet Dairy is not a good neighbor. Willet’s lawyer should know better than to tell the public we have no proof of their misdeeds. Justice delayed is justice denied, but we hope it will not be denied much longer.

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-Gary A. Abraham, Esq.
Allegany, New York

“Local Tibetans cut off from family,” The Ithaca Journal, April 3, 2008

Photo by Erica Thum
ITHACA — As reports of a Chinese crackdown in Tibet stream in, Ithaca resident and Tibetan exile Kunga Delotsang fears for his relatives.

“I called my brother right after the violent riot happened in Lhasa around the 14th of March, to make sure everything’s OK. He did talk, and then as he got off the phone he said, ‘Don’t call me back.’ Ever since, I haven’t called him. People are so scared. The Chinese are checking anything coming from outside, especially the United States,” Delotsang said.

Delotsang was born in Lhasa, the traditional capital of Tibet. His father, Dyalten Namgyal, was a master tailor for the 13th and current 14th Dalai Lama. Delotsang was 13 when he left Tibet for Dharmasala, India. He met his wife, Heather Harrick, there, and the pair have been living in Ithaca for the past 10 years. They have two 11-year-old daughters attending Fall Creek Elementary School, Amber and Anjali, and an infant daughter, Uma.

“I haven’t called him, and I don’t want to put his life at risk by calling him,” Delotsang said of his brother. “It is sad that I’m here in a free country but the people who are in Tibet, they just can’t …” he trailed off, audibly choked up.

“I’m feeling really sad,” Delotsang said.

Ithaca is home to some 50 Tibetan exiles, said Palden Oshoe, a translator with Namgyal Monastery and president of the Tibetan Association of Ithaca. Across the world, about 150,000 Tibetans are living in exile, according to Students For A Free Tibet.

Though he has an older brother and an older sister living in Tibet, Oshoe has opted not to call them. “Any call that goes in will be easily detected and then they will be in trouble. It could be a major disaster for them,” Oshoe said.

Protests that began peacefully on the March 10 anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule spiraled out of control four days later in Tibet. Chinese officials have put the death toll at 22, while Tibetan exiles say nearly 140 people were killed.

“This is an indication that it is always ready to spark at any time. There is deep resentment in the Tibetan heart,” Oshoe said. While Tibetans are committed to nonviolence, the Chinese oppression has led to simmering tensions, Oshoe said. Whereas the older generation generally agrees with the Dalai Lama’s calls for a compromise, which they see as practical, others are frustrated and still want a free and independent Tibet, Oshoe said.

The 72-year-old Dalai Lama condemned the violence and denied any links to it, urging an independent international inquiry into the unrest. Since 2007, he has stopped calling for independence, instead advocating for Tibetan autonomy under Chinese rule.

Yet China has stepped up its rhetoric in recent days, accusing the Dalai Lama of backing suicide squads. The Chinese Communist Party boss in Tibet, Zhang Qingli, called the Dalai Lama a “wolf in monk’s robes, a devil with a human face, but the heart of a beast.” State media referred to the protesting monks as the “scum of Buddhism.

”

China has barred Western journalists from Tibet, yet reports of curfews and beatings have trickled in.
Faced with little contact, exiles said they are keeping in touch with relatives in Dharamasala, India, listening to NPR, reading BBC News online and checking the news on www. Phayul. com.

Oshoe said he is especially concerned for the monks and other peaceful protesters who already have been arrested by Chinese authorities. “They’ll no doubt be tortured,” he said. “People in Lhasa, and all the areas where there was revolt, are in much fear.

”

Oshoe said Ithacans who wish to help should visit www. StudentsForAFreeTibet. org online and head to Namgyal Monastery in person to sign petitions urging American authorities and United Nations representatives to pressure China to open a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. The petitions also demand the immediate release of peaceful demonstrators and the immediate dispatch of fact-finding representatives to monitor to the situation inside Tibet. The petitions oppose China hosting the Olympics in Beijing as long as human rights abuses continue.

The violence in Tibet has had a silver lining, some exiles said, because it has drawn international attention.

“Once the Olympics are over, then the real test begins. People’s attention might be elsewhere,” said Dickyi Dolker, a Tibetan exile born in India who is married to Oshoe.

The Tibetan Association of Ithaca has led a number of events in support of Tibetans, including prayers at the Namgyal Monastery and peace marches on Fridays. Delotsang said he plans to go to California next week to protest as the Olympic torch arrives in the United States.

Protesters have held signs saying, “We want human rights,” “Free Tibet,” “Long live His Holiness,” and “Tibet is not a part of China,” said Dolker.

The next march is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday, leaving from Namgyal Monastery at 412 N. Aurora St.

“Although we are free here, we can hold up signs and hold rallies, but if we don’t do anything, then whatever little efforts that Tibetans in Tibet are making, their efforts will seem to be in vain. In our little way, we are showing them support,” said Dolker.

Nanci Rose-Ritter — a co-founder of the Wisdom’s Goldenrod Center for Philosophical Studies, which maintains ties with the Dalai Lama — is collecting donations for the Gutso Hospital in Tibet. It’s a way of directly helping those inside the country, said Rose-Ritter, author of “Living Tibet: The Dalai Lama in Dharamasala,” published by Ithaca’s Snow Lion Press.

“They really rely on donations from the outside,” said Rose-Ritter, a self-described “Ithaca person” who studies Buddhism, has met the Dalai Lama and helped Tibetan exiles settle in Ithaca. “The hospital is utterly barebones. We have photographs. It is a minimal clinic with cots and hardly any kind of real facilities or state-of-the-art technology.

”

Anyone who would like to contribute to the Goldenrod Center’s fundraising efforts for the hospital can e-mail Rose-Ritter at nancirr@rochester.rr. com.

On Tuesday, China accused the Dalai Lama of backing “‘suicide squads” and said a sweep of monasteries in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa had turned up a cache of weapons, including 7,725 pounds of explosives.

“Tibetan exiles are 100 percent committed to nonviolence. There is no question of suicide attacks,” Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of the government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India, said Tuesday. “But we fear that Chinese might masquerade as Tibetans and plan such attacks to give bad publicity to Tibetans.

”

Tibet, located between China and India, has a population of 5.3 million people, according to figures provided by the U.S. State Department based on a 2000 census of the region by China.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

“Toxic fumes, blisters & brain damage: The cost of doing business?” April 2, 2008, Ithaca Times

Neighbors of Willet Dairy stand their ground in a fight about
the health concerns and environmental dangers of large-scale
industrial farming

An investigative report by Rebecca Lerner

Karen Strecker is bracing. She’s about to turn on the faucet, and there’s a chance liquid manure is going to stream from the spout.

“I’ve been taking a bath and actually had cow shit pour into the tub,” Strecker says, matter-of-factly. She uses well water. “It’s nasty.”

Yet the threat of a sewage bath pales in comparison to a more dangerous problem: Breathing poisonous fumes. After years living next to Willet Dairy, the largest industrial farm in the state, Strecker and her neighbors in Genoa are reporting the kinds of health problems eco-watchdogs lose sleep over, from blistering eyelids to brain damage. Manure is known to release gases that, in high concentrations, are linked to those scary symptoms.

Strecker’s plight takes on national relevance as the EPA prepares to roll back air-pollution-reporting requirements for industrial animal farms like Willet in October – even as environmentalists warn that regulation is already too lax in New York.

The Road to Industrial Farming

Located next to Lansing in Cayuga County, Genoa is a rural town with sprawling hills and a population of 1,914. Its main street is spare but quaint, with an antiques shop, a fire hall advertising a NASCAR event, and a church with the motto, “Exercise Daily: Walk With God.”

The roadsides here are dotted with farms. Willet Dairy’s giant white barns sit close to Route 34, the main thoroughfare. Pickup trucks and heavy machinery sit in dusty lots.

With 7,800 cattle, Willet is a relative behemoth. The other two major livestock operations in town are Osterhoudt Farm, with 470 cattle, and Ridgecrest Dairy L.L.C., with 1,090, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the agency charged with regulating agricultural pollution.

Willet began in 1974 as a small, family-owned operation that grew steadily over the years, acquiring its neighbors’ property and expanding as American agricultural practices became increasingly mechanized and efficient.

Today, Willet spans approximately 6,300 acres over four sites, including a facility on Route 34 near Lansing, one on Lane Road in Locke, Belltown Dairy in King Ferry and W.D. Corey Dairy.

“Why larger dairies?” said David M. Galton, a dairy management professor at Cornell University. “Well, why Wegmans? Target and Circuit City and Home Depot and Lowe’s – they’re doing it to dilute out cost and to maintain or improve standard of living. It’s like every other segment of our economy. Larger dairies are trying to address the ever-rising cost of producing milk and standard of living.”

In 1993, farms with 200 or more cattle made up 3.6 percent of the state’s dairies, according to USDA statistics. By 2002, they made up 9 percent.

“The larger the dairy farm, the lower the costs are. And so, as the costs keep rising – fuel costs, feed costs, taxes – it puts more economic pressure on the individual farms to produce more milk,” Galton said. “If you take the milk price of 1980 and adjust it for inflation, the milk price would be $38.92 per 100 pounds. The milk price today is approximately $20 per 100 pounds.”

Galton is director of PRO-DAIRY, a government-funded outreach arm of Cornell University that works to increase profitability in the dairy industry and educate farmers on the latest manure-management techniques.

Willet Dairy is a privately held business headed by Dennis Eldred, a Genoa resident. The company is listed as Willet Dairy L.P.; Willet Dairy L.L.C.; and Willet Dairy Inc., in legal documents. Eldred did not return phone calls to his home and office and declined to be interviewed through his attorney, David Cook of Nixon Peabody L.L.P.

Scott, Todd, Susan and Peter Eldred are also listed as co-owners of Willet, according to 2005 USDA records as compiled by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. Todd, Susan and Peter Eldred are “all family members, members of the LLC,” according to Cook. Neighbors identified them as Dennis Eldred’s adult children. Scott Eldred is Dennis Eldred’s brother, and his status with the company is not clear at this time because Scott Eldred is in the Carribbean working as a missionary, Cook said. Town Supervisor Stuart Underwood has known Dennis Eldred and his family for decades and described them as “good people.”

Willet Operations Officer Lyn Odell, who spoke to the Ithaca Times, declined to discuss the company’s annual profits. Public records show Willet received $1,114,807.88 in USDA subsidies from 1995 to 2005, according to a database maintained by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

Property tax records show Willet paid more than a third of the locally funded portion of Genoa’s 2007 town budget.

Large-scale dairies like Willet are known colloquially as factory farms, a term that refers to the industrialized nature of their daily operations.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation refers to large dairies as “concentrated animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs, because they confine their animals in warehouse-like facilities for more than 45 days each year. If you peer into Willet’s barns, some of which are open-air and visible from the roads, you will observe bovine faces neatly aligned, as far back as the eye can see.

At dairy farms in general, cows are impregnated once every 13 to 14 months in order to keep milk production at a profitable level, Galton said. But whereas small farms may house cows and calves together, it is standard practice for CAFOs to isolate calves in individual crates for the six weeks immediately following birth, Galton said, in order to avoid compromising their fragile immune systems.

This is a practice assailed by animal welfare groups, including Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, as cruel. It irks Strecker as well. Down the street from her house, small evergreens do little to block the view of the crates, arranged in orderly rows along a grassy plain that stretches several football fields in length. At night, floodlights illuminate the scene.

“We do what we have to do to improve standard of living and dilute out cost,” Galton said of the industry.

To address the ecological impact of thousands of cows relieving themselves in one area, large dairies like Willet are required by law to manage the excrement using techniques developed in large part by Cornell University.

Willet cows produced 157,126 tons of manure in 2006, according to the DEC.

Willet liquifies the untreated waste and pumps it into manure lagoons, as is standard practice among large-scale dairies. There it sits – some hundreds of feet from Strecker’s home – uncovered and decomposing, releasing hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous, acidic gas known to burn the eyes and respiratory tract, until some of Willet’s laborers spray it onto farm fields with tanker trucks.

Toxic Gases

The stench in Strecker’s yard makes you cough at first, then your eyes water and nausea sets in. Dizziness knocks you over if you stick around for more than five minutes, and if the wind is blowing the right way, you might find yourself nursing a headache. Of course, that’s just if you’re visiting on a mild day. The effect is more severe if you actually live there.

“No matter which way the wind blows, we’re screwed,” Strecker says.

Strecker has been on a constant dose of antibiotics for years to treat chronic respiratory problems caused by exposure to her surroundings, according to a series of letters written by her doctor, Ahmad Mehdi of Groton Family Practice. The letters span from Aug. 15, 2000 to Jan. 22, 2007.

“Do people get sick when manure gets spread? Yes, it’s a fact,” Mehdi told the Ithaca Times. “It’s the huge, mass production. When you have 10,000 cows in one place, that’s a lot of manure. Everybody knows that. But it’s the way of life around here.”

Cayuga County is home to 28 industrial farms, and Tompkins has 10, according to the DEC. There are more than 600 such facilities in the state.

Detailed information about each is available online at www. factoryfarmmap. org, a website compiled by the research and advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

You can’t see manure lagoons from the roadsides, but you can smell them, and the dangers of their fumes have been documented. A 2002 study by the University of Iowa and Iowa State University examined the impact of aerial ammonia and hydrogen sulfide on residents living near industrial hog farms after former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack requested information on their public health impact. The researchers noted that aerial ammonia and hydrogen sulfide gas – both routine CAFO emissions – are poisonous in high concentrations, causing sinusitis, asthma, chronic bronchitis, inflamed mucous membranes of the nose and throat, headaches, muscle aches and pains in those who live or work nearby.

The National Association of Clean Air Agencies – which represents local, state, federal and agencies – cites manure-pit emissions containing hydrogen sulfide and ammonia for the deaths of at least two dozen people working or living near the operations in the Midwest over the past 30 years.

“The release of toxic substances from manure in amounts dangerous to human health is not a theoretical exercise – people have been killed,” said the NACAA’s Catharine Fitzsimmons, in testimony before the U.S. Senate on Sept. 6, 2007.

A June 2006 fact sheet put out by PRO-DAIRY on health and safety issues describes hydrogen sulfide as “a poisonous, acidic gas that can kill in a matter of seconds,” “accumulates in low, confined spaces” and dissolves “rapidly in eye moisture and in the respiratory tract.”

Yet the DEC does not closely monitor toxic emissions from livestock farms.

DEC spokesperson Lori O’Connell said the fumes are regarded “as either ‘trivial activities’ … or as ‘fugitive emissions’ in the case of outdoor manure piles and waste lagoons. Both of these designations have the effect of relieving farms in New York from needing an air permit or minor source registration.”

Brain Damage and Poisoned Eyes

If you ask Fred Coon, Strecker’s 82-year-old father, why he’s missing his lower eyelids, he will tell you about the time he “got my eyes poisoned.”

“It was a terrible process,” Coon said. “I was raking leaves by the barn, and my eyes started stinging. I came inside and looked in the mirror, and there were a million little tiny blisters over here, and here,” he says, pointing to the magenta tissue his lower eyelids used to cover. The blisters burst and became infected, prompting doctors to amputate the thin flaps of skin containing them.

Neighbor Connie Mather, a perky former schoolteacher from Philadelphia who owns a property around the corner, also had a run-in with the blisters. In her case, they converged on the inside of her throat and nasal passages.

But Mather had another cause for alarm. In 2004, a medical expert diagnosed her teenage son, Samuel, with irreversible brain damage caused by exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas.

The physician was Dr. Kaye Kilburn, a professor at the University of Southern California who has published 61 peer-reviewed papers on neurobehavioral toxicology. Kilburn is president and director of Neuro-Test Inc., a company that evaluates chemical exposure for lawsuits and disability claims. Kilburn also diagnosed Connie Mather and Coon with neurological damage from the fumes.

During the evaluations, Kilburn reviewed a 15-page questionnaire on each patient’s medical history and administered 43 different tests, according to legal documents.

“Each patient’s brain impairment has been caused by exposure to hydrogen sulfide,” Kilburn wrote. “None of the patients have been exposed [to] other significant chemical exposures, and none of the patients have [sic] suffered spontaneous or associated neurological or psychiatric disease. After analyzing of other possible causes for brain impairment [sic], I found that for each patient the clinical signs of all possible alternative causes are absent.”

Kilburn told the Mathers to vacate their property immediately. The family is renting elsewhere.

Angered into action, Mather became a founding member of Neighbors United for the Finger Lakes, an anti-CAFO organization with membership in a national coalition called the Dairy Education Alliance. She worries about plans for an 84,000-head cattle CAFO in St. Lawrence County – an operation that would be more than 10 times the size of Willet.

A Losing Lawsuit, A Bitter Fight

Strecker spends her days taking care of her father, Fred Coon. Both retired carpenters, they live on a 7-acre property with a main house, a trailer, a garage decorated with Coon’s artwork and a muddy stream in the backyard.

The land has been in the family since the 1800s. Coon still sleeps in the house he built in the 1940s. His late wife, and Strecker’s mother, Pearl Coon, spent her last days here.

In the good old days, the air here smelled like lilac trees, flowers grew in the garden and marathon barbecues brought the town together, Coon said. They even had neighbors. But that was before Willet expanded. Now they’re surrounded by Willet on three sides.

“I’m just angry they took our lives away,” Strecker says. “I can’t even get a friggin’ clean glass of water.”

To no avail, Strecker and Mather tried complaining about Willet to the state DEC; Office of the New York State Attorney General; New York State Soil and Water Committee; Cayuga County Health & Human Services Department; former New York Governors Eliot Spitzer and George Pataki; the U.S. EPA; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; federal and local legislators; the New York State Police; the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Department; and the Genoa town supervisor.

“They all say they’ll ‘look into it,’” Strecker says. “Nobody cares.”

Frustrated, the neighbors tried the legal arena, banding together to file a citizen’s lawsuit alleging violations of the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Rivers and Harbors Act, and the New York State Environmental Conservation Law. Suing Willet were Karen Strecker; Fred Coon and his late wife Pearl Coon; Connie Mather and her husband Scott Mather; and three other neighbors, Karen and Kenneth Keppel and Dale Mangan, according to legal documents.

After five years of litigation, the case was dismissed in July. Their attorney is Gary Abraham, a T-shirt-wearing environmentalist who works out of a room in his house in Allegany, N.Y., and who took the case at his own expense. Willet Dairy was represented by attorney David Cook of the firm Nixon Peabody L.L.P., a 700-attorney powerhouse with offices in 17 cities, including Rochester and Shanghai, China.

Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. of the Northern District of New York dismissed the suit, ruling in Willet’s favor that the farm’s neighbors did not have the legal authority to bring an enforcement action. This leaves the door open for the neighbors to try again in another jurisdiction.

Abraham is challenging the court decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Judicial Circuit. Both Abraham and Cook have filed briefs; oral arguments are expected to begin in May.

Abraham said he is optimistic, bolstered by a Jan. 15 decision by a Michigan appellate court reaffirming the power of citizen suits to enforce Clean Water Act violations.

On behalf of Willet, Cook described the dairy as “a leader in environmental stewardship.” Inaction by the broad array of local, state and federal government agencies bolsters the argument that Willet did not violate any laws, Cook said. He called the neighbors’ allegations of pollution and detrimental health effects “utter nonsense.”

“Now, do I believe these people believe it? Absolutely. But the science doesn’t back it up,” said Cook. “When we went out to hire experts to tell us what the levels of exposure were, do you know what the levels were? Non-detect.”

Researchers took samples of soil, air and water at Willet and then extrapolated the results to estimate what Willet’s neighbors encountered, Cook said. When the Ithaca Times asked to see the data, Cook declined to release it. “We are still in the midst of litigation,” Cook said.

Odell, the Willet employee, said he believes the company is being subjected to unreasonable scrutiny.

During a recent four-day-long surprise inspection of Willet in November, the DEC found that Willet “continues to be a well-managed and operated dairy” in “satisfactory” compliance with permit requirements, according to a Dec. 11, 2007, letter sent to Dennis Eldred from the DEC’s Environmental Program Specialist Scott D. Cook.

“We don’t farm any different than anybody else does up and down this road,” Odell said, referring to Route 34. “This is about the nature of our business, about how we farm. It’s not about Willet. It’s about the dairy industry.”

While Genoa’s other two CAFOs, Osterhoudt and Ridgecrest, have never been cited for environmental violations by the DEC, Willet has paid for two. On March 8, 2001, the DEC fined Willet $25,000 for leaking “a significant amount of manure” into the Cayuga Lake watershed when a pipe burst, resulting in a fish kill and a water quality violation, the DEC said. The company paid $15,000; the remainder of the penalty was suspended due to satisfactory compliance with clean-up efforts, the DEC’s O’Connell said.

On Dec. 11, 2006, the DEC fined Willet $2,500 after manure spilled from an overturned tanker, leaking into a tributary of Salmon Creek in the Cayuga Lake watershed. The company paid just $500 of that amount; $2,000 was suspended because Willet complied with the clean-up to DEC’s satisfaction, O’Connell said.

From January 2005 through June 2007, the DEC filed 30 enforcement actions against CAFOs.

The Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, the National Resources Defense Council and other national environmental organizations have long criticized industrial farms as major polluters, particularly because of the run-off problems associated with liquid manure. A 1998 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of nine large Iowa CAFO sites turned up chemical pollutants, pathogens, bacteria, nitrates and parasites in lagoons and other areas in and around the sites.

In an effort to mitigate pollution, CAFOs are required to file annual reports with the DEC, and the agency sends regulators to inspect the facilities once a year. However, the agency does not keep farms’ waste management plans on file, and the documents are not available for public view. The Sierra Club, in its 2005 report “Wasting New York State,” says this makes enforcement difficult.

It’s a familiar refrain from environmentalists: There are too many loopholes; too little oversight. Or as Abraham put it: “The system is broken.”

©Ithaca Times 2008

“The Great Beyond,” Ithaca Times, Jan. 16, 2008

Melissa Mueller used to think winter camping meant gritting her teeth and pushing through the unrelenting cold and discomfort. That was before she got the right gear, and before she started leading expeditions into the Alaskan wilderness. Now living in the Finger Lakes, Mueller sleeps in Cayuga dreamscapes worry-free in the snowy season.
“I consider a warm sleeping bag my most important piece of survival equipment,” said Mueller, a senior instructor for NOLS. “It’s what made me learn to love winter camping.”

The Ithaca Times spoke with Mueller and other local experts to find out how you, too, can stay warm and happy on your next outdoor adventure.

Clothing

Here’s what you already know: You need to bring a first-aid kit and plenty of water; wear a hat; and opt for mittens over gloves to keep your fingers warm.
Here’s what might be new: A big puffy down jacket is not the best way to keep warm.

You’ll be a lot better off if you wear lots of layers instead – at least four – so your body can heat the air trapped between each one.

Your next consideration is material. Cotton is a dangerous choice in a cold climate, where moisture is the enemy. In the same way that sweating cools your body, wet cotton wicks heat away from you, leaving you cold and exposed to the elements.

“Cotton kills,” said Dave Hall, founder of Primitive Pursuits, a local outdoor education program that teaches youth and adults how to survive in the wilderness. Hall spends his days outside in frigid temperatures, and sometimes even sleeps inside snow caves without so much as a blanket.

Wool and synthetic fabrics – like polyester and fleece – are considered solid choices for winter wear. They’re superior to cotton because they keep you warm even if they get wet.

Comparitively speaking, they repel water and dry quickly.

If four layers sounds expensive, fear not: Primitive Pursuits instructor Tim Drake, a seasoned winter camper, swears it’s possible to outfit yourself for under $15 at the Salvation Army.

Moisture is such a nuisance that Hall opts to dress slightly light and stay cool rather than risk perspiration. “Even with good clothing on, like polyester or wool, I’ve actually had sweat accumulate as ice inside my clothing,” Hall said.

Staying dry is an important way to stave off hypothermia, arguably the most serious danger you’ll face, Hall said. “Hypothermia is when your body loses its core temperature, and that is incredibly dangerous,” Hall said. “We’ve all had it – we’ve all shivered and felt our teeth chatter. But if that happens in the woods, and you don’t pay attention to yourself and do something about it, the next stage of hypothermia can put you into a place where youre absolutely useless. Your brain goes numb, and you can’t make simple decisions any longer.”

Hall speaks from experience. He got soaked while kayaking on the Genesee River without adequate clothing. “I went numb and my body got rigid. I was standing there completely useless. Fortunately my buddy was better dressed, and he saw that I was fairly hypothermic. He held my hand and got me dressed,” Hall said. “If I had been on my own, I could have been in major trouble. It was really humbling because I realized how fast it could happen and how completely incapable I was.”

That’s why Hall cautions against ever going it solo.

“Any number of things can happen,” Hall said. “Even the most experienced camper can fall into a creek that’s been buried by snow.”

Hall recommends going out on day hikes before ever venturing out on your first wintertime overnight. It’ll give you a chance to get used to monitoring your body temperature, so you know how many layers to pack and whether the boots you just bought are really going to keep your feet warm. Which brings us to the next point: never doubt that good shoes make the difference between an enjoyable experience and a miserable one.

“My theory is that if my feet are warm, I’m happy, but if my feet are cold, I whine,” said Mueller. “Most people would be the same.”

Mueller says that one of the biggest mistakes people make is buying boots that are too snug, cutting off circulation. “People don’t realize that what keeps you warm is blood. Your blood carries heat to your extremities, and if your circulation gets restricted or cut off, you can get frostbite,” Mueller said.

Another key consideration is choosing shoes that are truly waterpoof. Despite claims to the contrary, Gore-Tex isn’t really sufficient, Mueller said. Those heading out on long-term winter expeditions tend to prefer plastic mountaineering boots, but weekenders will be well-served by neoprene boots, such as the popular Muck Boot brand, Mueller said.

Others, like Drake, swear by pack boots, a style of shoe that includes a removable insulating layer that comes in handy when you’re drying off by a campfire, or looking for some extra warmth as you slip your feet into a sleeping bag at night. One popular maker of pack boots is Sorel, a brand that tends to include a platform in the sole, keeping your toes insulated from the cold ground.

Of course, you still have to do some work to stay comfortable, even with the warmest pair of boots and lots of layers, experts said.

“You have to have blood flow. You need to move around well,” Drake said.

Sleeping gear

Because heat is a byproduct of metabolism, and metabolism varies from person to person, there’s no one-size-fits-all gear for the winter months.
“You may have to learn through trial and error,” Mueller said. “If you tend to sleep cold — which I do and a lot of women do — then you’re going to want a warmer sleeping bag than somebody else.

“My experience has been that the ratings are fairly accurate for someone with a higher metabolism. They’re based on research, but it’s all done on men. So for me, I know that I’m 30 degrees different from whoever they did the reasearch on. So if it’s going to be below freezing, I need a zero-degree sleeping bag,” Mueller said.

While sleeping pads might sound like a luxury, the two-inch thick inflatable mattresses sold at outdoor stores are not just a matter of glossing over the rough spots beneath your night spot.

“They’re very critical in the sense that you lose most of your body heat through conduction, through interfacing with the ground,” Drake said. “You have to get off the ground, because no matter how good your sleeping bag is, you’ll freeze to death just laying out.”

Tents

“You need a tent that won’t collapse under the weight of freshly fallen snow. It doesn’t have to be an expensive tent, but I would recommend setting it up before you head out into the woods,” Drake said. “I once got a military-style tent for Christmas, which was just basically two pieces of canvas that button together, and I thought it was so cool, because I liked the minimalist piece. My friend and I each took a half and hiked it out, snowshoed deep into the woods, and when we got there and set it up, it turned out there was no bottom to it. It was just two sides! We spent a long time trying to figure out what to do. In the end we had to build a bottom. We used our firewood, and my coat as a sleeping pad.”
Mueller suggests buying tents by brand reputation. The best, she said, are Sierra Designs, Mountain Hardware and Moss.

Precautions

Ithaca’s many frozen falls can be breathtaking, but New York State Park Police Sgt. Edwin Gonzalez says winter hikers need to fight off temptation and heed signs that prohibit hiking in the gorges.
“We’ve had deaths in the gorges due to people falling in icy conditions,” Gonzalez said.
Constant freezing and thawing can loosen rock along the sides, making even standing near the falls a major hazard. Falling rock crushed a woman at Taughannock Falls State Park in 2005.

Gonzalez stressed that those who trespass are risking more than just their own lives. “Rescuers can get hurt going into save people,” Gonzalez said.

A volunteer fireman for the city of Ithaca who was also full-time public safety office at Ithaca College died in 1986 while trying to rescue college students who fell into Buttermilk Falls, Gonzalez said. “One of the students drowned, and so did he.”

Gonzalez said the Park Police take this issue so seriously that they’re willing to write tickets and make arrests. This year alone, more than 10 people have seen the slammer over it, Gonzalez said.

If you need help in an emergency, call the New York State Parks Police at 800-255-3577.

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All about Camping in Tompkins County

Hiking is allowed anywhere along the Finger Lakes Trail, and camping is always OK in designated sites as listed on the maps. The rest of the rules vary from location to location.

Buttermilk Falls: Camping is prohibited except in the lean-to on Lake Treman. Hiking is prohibited at the gorge but allowed along the Rim Trail, Bear Trail, Larch Meadow Trail, and any path that connects to the Finger Lakes Trail, Park Manager John Guilford said.

Robert H. Treman State Park: Camping is prohibited except in the lean-to. Hiking is allowed along the Rim Trail but the cliff stairway is closed, so there’s no loop. Guilford said to hike either from the bottom up or the top down.

Taughanock Falls State Park: No camping. Hiking is allowed on the gorge trail year-round, unless there’s high water or really bad ice. The Rim Trail is closed, according to Park Manager Paul Thorington.

State Forests: Hiking and back-country camping are allowed except in designated wildlife-management areas, according to the Web site for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Private property: Fifty percent of the Finger Lakes Trail runs on private property that owners have gifted to the trail conference, said Gene Bavis, executive director of the Finger Lakes Trail Conference. Out of respect for land owners, the FLTC discourages camping on private land except in designated sites as listed on the organization’s official maps.

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Want to go camping?

There are a number of outdoors organizations in the area. Here are a few:

Cayuga Trails Club offers guided hikes for free to the general public and helps organize trips for paying members. The organization also maintains a 70-mile stretch of the Finger Lakes Trail and publishes a guide book called “Guided Trails In the Finger Lakes Region,” available at local bookstores and outdoor shops. For more information, go online to www.cayugatrailsclub.org.

Finger Lakes Trail Conference offers organized hiking events as well as GPS maps of the trails. Find information about both online at
www.FingerLakesTrail.org.

Primitive Pursuits offers custom guided adventures and survival training workshops. The group also has youth and wilderness awareness programs. Find out more at www.primitivepursuits.net or by calling 272-2292.

Cornell Outdoor Education offers wilderness training and gear rentals. For other winter activities offered by COE, including cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, visit www.coe.cornell.edu.

“Blaze guts Edison motel,” May 4, 2007, Home News Tribune

Two people were injured in a four-alarm fire that raged for hours Thursday night at the Edison Motor Lodge on Route 1 north.

Thick smoke from the blaze was visible for miles. Route 1 north was shut down for more than four hours.

One man injured, a 39-year-old North Brunswick resident of Linden Avenue, was in the first-floor room where the blaze started at 6:43 p.m., according to eyewitness and night manager Bob Pokrzywnicki.

“I’m sure it was his room, room 24, because that’s where the flames where shooting out of,” Pokrzynwicki said.

The man, who had checked in at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, was rolled out on a stretcher and rushed to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where he was listed in critical condition Thursday night.

The other person injured was a 61-year-old Edison man taken to Saint Peter’s University Hospital. Authorities said his condition was not available at deadline.

At least 20 visitors were evacuated from the motel, Pokrzywnicki said. The motel owner, whose name was not available Thursday evening, paid for nine visitors to stay at the Days Inn up the road, according to Edison spokesman Jerry Barca. The Red Cross contributed further assistance, Barca said.

No one was reported missing.

“This is an unfortunate incident. We’re hoping everyone is safe,” said Mayor Jun Choi, standing at the scene. “I want to applaud the emergency responders for their fine work, otherwise this could have been much more serious.”

The cause of the fire is under investigation, but Barca said it appeared “not suspicious.”

Hundreds of spectators crowded Route 1 to watch the flames shoot through the roof of the motel. Some snapped photos with their cell phone cameras as the fire burned and firefighters battled the blaze, sending powerful streams of water spraying down from a ladder truck and shooting four hoses from ground level.

Huge plumes of sandy-colored smoke filled the air for blocks, blown north by the wind.

Witnesses said they saw a white van in the motel parking lot catch fire and heard an explosion. Authorities said the sound was the tires popping.

Witness Brett Diana, 14, of Edison said he called 9-1-1 immediately when the fire started.

“I saw a whole bunch of people standing on the second floor of the motel watching the fire, and then all of a sudden they started running downstairs and scattered,” Brett said.

“Everybody was screaming, “Get out! Get out!’ ” said another witness, Joe Lovizio, who works at Hi-Fi Audio & Security, a store directly across from the motel on Wilson Avenue.

Some onlookers stood in front of the Pathmark at Wicks Shopping Plaza on Route 1 south, where the Edison Elks Fair was in progress.

“The festival is still going on like nothing is happening. The rides are still going and everything,” said Annette Netta, 14, of Edison.

Netta rode her bike to the scene with her brother Vincent Netta, 12, who was sleeping in his bedroom on Marie Lane when he smelled smoke coming through his window.

Traffic was impacted by the fire, as police cordoned off Route 1 north from Plainfield Avenue to Wooding Avenue Thursday night until 11 p.m. while authorities worked at the scene.

The fire was under control by 8:45 p.m., Barca said.

Responding were 46 firefighers and rescue personnel from area communities, including Edison, New Brunswick, Highland Park, Metuchen, Avenel, Colonia, Rutgers University, Piscataway and South Plainfield. Workers from PSE&G also came to cut power lines.

“Writing’s on the wall, and it’s legal,” May 13, 2007, Home News Tribune

Editor’s Note: You can see this story as it appeared in newsprint here.

NEW BRUNSWICK: The city is turning a 1.8-mile stretch of asphalt into a haven for graffiti, a move that marks a rare embrace of a persecuted art form.

The beautification project, spearheaded by local nonprofit art group Albus Cavus, is aimed at bringing the community together to transform the long-neglected Raritan River path that winds below the Route 27 bridge and alongside Route 18 north.

“Before, it was a place no one liked to come to. It’s kind of dark, and it’s behind a highway,” said Pete Krsko, co-founder of Albus Cavus. But now the Raritan River Art Walk represents an “opportunity to bring expression down here, play with the environment and make it more colorful.”

The concrete canvas may also save lives, said aerosol artist Mike Castellano of Old Bridge.

“If it wasn’t for this wall, a lot of kids would be running around the highways,” he said.

Graffiti art is a populist venture meant to be highly visible, but there are few spaces where it’s legally permitted. So graffiti artists risk arrest — and their safety — by spray-painting overpasses, trains and highways.

“Most people don’t understand it. This is probably the most hated art in the world,” Castellano said.

Wolf, a Manhattan-based graffiti artist who has been painting — or “writing” in graffiti lingo — since 1985, said he has grown accustomed to working in the shadows.

“That’s the state of graffiti,” he said.

But not everyone who came out to paint along the walkway Saturday operates under the radar.

Artist Will Condry of Trenton, who spent four hours on a Charlie Chaplin portrait with abstract elements, makes a living painting murals and designing T-shirts.

“This is straight-up expression,” he said, referring to the portrait. “You’re not doing a commission for somebody, you’re not doing an ad.”

City students from McKinley Community Elementary School and their siblings also contributed to the project, painting a 150-foot portion of the wall. Their participation was a product of two organizations — the Citizen Schools after-school program and the Community Art and Mural Project.

When the wall is completely filled in, it will be the East Coast’s largest mural. But graffiti art has an element of impermanence. Authorities, who usually treat the works as an unlawful eyesore, often whitewash paintings, inadvertently creating new canvases. And artists Saturday said they don’t expect New Brunswick’s permissive stance to change that aspect.

“The walls are constantly evolving, because the artists have a competition between themselves,” said Matt Camp, a self-described “ideas guy” for Albus Cavus. “People don’t always have respect. Someone will tag (spray their personal trademark onto) something, and someone else will come back to put something nice over it.”

The kick-off painting project this weekend was sponsored by the city, the New Jersey Council on the Arts, the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders, Johnson & Johnson, Frank’s Hardware, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, Citizen Schools, New Brunswick Community Arts Council and New Brunswick Tomorrow. Funds provided portable toilets, painting supplies and event promotional materials.