"Agroterrorists" Needn't Bother

[Clara T]

"Agroterrorists" Needn't Bother
by Stan Cox
 
<snip>

Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, Republican chair of the Intelligence Committee, has been hyping agroterrorism since 1999. But it took the 9/11 attacks to get some action. Roberts recently told the Wichita Eagle, "At least now, when I talk about agroterrorism, people don't tell me to talk about something else."

<snip>

Then I realized that much of the damage agroterrorism is expected to cause is already a reality:

In promoting the agroterrorism threat, Senator Collins conjured up a bucolic image: "the fields and pastures of America's farmland." But the overcrowded, filthy conditions of gigantic feedlots and animal-confinement facilities that produce most of our meat are well-known, as are the opportunities for contamination in high-throughput, lightly inspected slaughterhouses. Cattle consuming a grain-based diet in feedlots (and that's the vast majority of beef cattle in this country) are more likely to have the deadly bacterium E. coli 0157:H7 in their feces than are grass- or hay-fed cattle, and meat is frequently contaminated with feces as it leaves the slaughterhouse.

<snip>

What if someone were to poison the rural water supply?

Someone's already doing it. A 1998 CDC report showed that 15% of domestic wells in Illinois, 21% in Iowa, and 24% in Kansas were contaminated with nitrates above a safe level. Most of the nitrates get into wells by escaping the roots of heavily fertilized crops and leaching into groundwater. Consumption of nitrates is associated with methemoglobenemia ("blue baby syndrome") in infants. Many, but not all, studies have shown links between nitrates and various cancers in adults.

A 2004 report by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (pdf) surveyed 19,500 miles of rivers and streams in the state. More than half of those miles -- 10,800 -- were "impaired for one or more uses" by pollution. Of more than 180,000 acres of lakes, 75% were similarly polluted. More than 40% of stream mileage and lake acreage was unable to "fully support" aquatic life, and 69% of lake acreage could not fully support domestic water uses. In the Kansas study, agriculture was by far the biggest cause of damage to surface waters -- exceeding industry, municipal discharge, sewage, urban runoff, mining, and oil drilling combined.

<snip>

With an agriculture like this, who needs terrorists?

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1213-26.htm

[Jed Dilligan]

1. Don't forget salinization of aquifers

No terrorist could dream of anything so destructive!