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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Feb. 3, 2007 at 1:04 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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28 Comments
Talk about a giant sucking sound, WHOOOSH, WHOOOSH … the sound of Kansas’ relatively pure and ancient underground aquifer water being drawn out for myriad uses. These include municipal water supplies and agricultural irrigation by the thousands of circular sprayers visible in fields all over Kansas.
And now the newer scramble for water for the rapidly growing number of ETHANOL plants in Kansas. Ethanol plants should use recycled water from sewage treatment plants since presumably ethanol is not consumed by humans! Admittedly, the problem with building ethanol plants in populated areas is AIR POLLUTION by-product of Ethanol production can be worse than cattle and hog feed lots.
It’s estimated that some 35,000 to 50,000 points of entry already cut into our various underground Kansas water aquifers.
Last Sunday afternoon, on KTPS channel 8 public television’s “Call your legislator” program, I talked to Kansas speaker of the house, Melvin Neufield, from Ingalls, and Kansas legislator from Greensburg, Dennis McKinney. Both are obviously from western Kansas so very are familiar with the developing water wreck situation.
But they said “not-to-worry, ethanol-plants-must-purchase-existing water-rights-to-obtain-water-from the-underground-aquifers, hrumphh, hrumphh.”
Now, as I examine this water treachery, it appears to me there are various problems with this faulty thinking:
1) The existing water rights are already dangerously drawing down the Ogallala aquifer and other inter-connected aquifers.
2) It would take a small army of water inspectors to measure actual amounts of water removed, an army that doesn’t exist.
3) Municipalities will race to drill deeper wells to reach ever declining levels of clean water.
4) Public water supplies will increasingly turn to recycled treated water from open surface rivers for drinking water.
But perhaps if we close our eyes and noses (as in Colwich) … Kansas water problems will somehow magically go away.
Buffalo commons anyone?
And people think I’m a farm basher?
Jwink! Something we finally agree with.
I’m not against farms. I just think we need to take a serious look at the farming industry and lobby. The mass depleation of water, the ecological damage, the pollution factor, their massive contribution to global warming, their welfare subsidy programs that reck rural economices, the corruption and scams of the industry and etc.
We’ve been giving them a pass for so long, because they have successfully propagandized themselves as the pure tradition of Americanism and is a part of the “God and Country” “Wave the Flag” “Apple Pie” and “Baseball” crowd.
It’s all BS. If you wanna know who the farmers of today are. I give you this example:
Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts. They are your typical welfare multi-millionaire farmers.
I understand your concern, JWink, and I share it. But western Kansas also suffers from population drain and job loss. Many western Kansas communities are dead or dying. One way to try to reinvigorate western Kansas is to support new industries with good jobs. Long-term, I think the better plan for water preservation is for the STATE, counties and cities to start buying water rights. Many communities in eastern Colorado are already doing this. There are a finite number of existing holders of water rights, and the ethanol/coal plants are buying existing water rights in order to run their plants. Cities – especially those in western Kansas – must get into the market. After buying these rights, they will be able to let them go dormant, or use them only in severe water emergencies like that faced last summer by Salina.
At the same time, legislators need to recognise the wonderful opportunity of allowing the Dept. of Wildlife & Parks to buy the Circle K Ranch. Buying this property near Kinsley would accomplish so many proper objectives: shutting down 42 existing irrigation wells that drain the local aquifer, adding 7000 acres to public access for hiking, hunting and wildlife watching, and doing all this for a price that the federal gov. would reimburse 75%. But Wildlife & Parks hasn’t been able to get enough legislative support to allow the purchase. There is just too much opposition to the idea that the State should be allowed to buy private property.
And the real kicker here is that the State wouldn’t be buying private water rights as those are held by the cities of Hays and Russell – as I recall – and those cities WANT to sell their rights.
A New Plan for a Defense Strategy:
http://stock.tobinphoto.com/charging-bear-pictures-396.htm
Go Bears :Bear Down, Chicago BearsMake every play, clear the way to victory!Bear Down, Chicago BearsPut up a fight with a might so fearlessly!We’ll never forget the way you thrilled the nationWith your T-formationBear Down, Chicago BearsAnd let them know why you’re wearing the crown!You’re the pride and joy of Illinois,Chicago Bears, Bear Down!!
I fail to see the selling of water rights as being a conservationial tool for limiting the use of water. You will have to explain that in detail.
It actually hasn’t worked in Colorado, because it has wrapped up many people in litigation with no end in site. Farmers still pump water illegally, because they don’t care.
Plus the State and Counties don’t have any money to pay off farmers to in order to gain access to water rights. Cities can still sell theirs, but as before, the farmers will still pump regardless.
I know I’m going really make a mess by stating this controverial opinion, but what compelling reason is there to save small rural communities? Especially at the expense of tax payers and net county tax dollar exporters. Most of all rural counties and communities are net tax recieptants of the State. Basically they have nothing to contribute to our tax base and the State is struggling as it is on a year to year basis to get by on a basic budget.
Why not just let the communities die and the people move out? There is no benefit other than the people who live there, but as vast as America is, there are plenty of choices for people to relocate to opportunity.
Letting rural communities die and overused farm land go back to grass will do a tremendous service to the health of our enviroment and the State economy. Ruining our enviroment for the sake of a few rural jobs is not the answer. Let it die! It will only help.
Does anyone know what happens when it rains and the water on the ground seemingly disappears?
Are you talking about the recharge rate GS?
The farmers pump much more than the recharge rate. Some spots in Kansas, the water is already brackish.
the aquifiers in Kansas are millions of years old. But it only took it a century for people to pump it dry.
Warren Zevon was pound-for-pound one of our greatest songwriters. I miss Warren. He did it his way.
Warren Zevon rocked. He is sorely missed, I agree.
http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_033094010.html/
Here’s what Kansas and the rest of the nation is awaiting with the War on Drugs/War on Meth:
Feb 2, 2007 8:38 am US/Central
Meth Users Turning To Urine To Get HighHeather BrownReporting
(WCCO) When Wright County deputies opened up a smelly rented storage locker last June, they had no idea what they would find. Inside a man had stored 50 gallon jugs of urine.
“The officers that responded looked at it and said, ‘yeah, that’s odd,’” said Wright County Narcotics Sgt. Becky Howell.
The deputies gave the go-ahead to the owners to throw out the urine. When they did, they got sick.
A week and half later, that report hit Howell’s desk.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a meth lab, this is a urine extraction lab,’” Howell said.
It’s a new way to get meth. Some people drink the meth-tainted urine outright to get high. Others filter the drug back out through the cooking process.
“I’m not 100 percent sure what this guy was doing,” said Howell. “Five years ago, I probably would have been surprised at that. But now, knowing and understanding methamphetamine and an addict’s addiction to it, it doesn’t surprise me.”
It did surprise Jeremy Rezac. He’s a recovering meth addict who used to cook up to $20,000 worth of the drug a day. Back then, he said it was easy to buy pseudoephedrine or ephedrine in the form of pills.
“A couple hundred bucks, send junkies, out to get your pills for you. A couple of hours later you were ready to rock and roll,” he said.
But all of that changed in the summer of 2005 when lawmakers passed one of the toughest meth laws in the country. It added 10 new BCA agents, dealt out new penalties for child endangerment and placed limits on the amount of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine one person can buy in a month. It also put those pills behind the pharmacy counter and made everyone sign a log.
The state said that brought homegrown meth labs down by 70 percent.
“You can’t find that product no more. You can’t find it on the streets no more. The government did what they needed to do,” said Rezac. “It takes a lot of time and money and I think the average meth user, meth cook, they don’t want the hassle anymore.”
Howell said there’s still a group that does deal with the hassle and has quickly found a way around the law.
She’s seen addicts travel in packs to different drug stores because they know the pharmacies do not communicate with each other.
Of the big retail chains, only Walgreens and Target keep an internal database to track pseudoephedrine pills purchases within their own stores. None of chains share with their competitors.
“They know they can still go shopping for pills and go to the various stores and obtain their packages. They can sign the ledger, prove their ID and then they can move to the next store,” Howell said.
She said her deputies don’t have the time or resources to cross-check all of the logs to match the addict with their purchase.
State Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, wants that loophole to change.
“The meth law that was passed in 2005 was tremendous,” she said, “but now that drug scene has morphed. It’s changing. Meth is morphing and changing. We need to adapt and be quick on our feet also.”
She’s considering legislation that would track pseudoephedrine and prescription drug purchases across different stores. Pharmacies would enter a patient’s personal information and their purchase into a central database.
Only officers with a search warrant would have access to that information.
Rosen would also like more money for treatment programs.
“I feel we are sitting back on our heels a little bit,” Rosen said. “We are saying OK, we did our job, our job has been done. We passed that great bill and now we’re good.”
Rosen plans on working closely with the state’s new meth coordinator.
In December Gov. Tim Pawlenty appointed Chuck Noerenberg to this newly-created position.His job is to figure out where the state stands on meth and where Minnesota has to go.
“We have the foundation in place but we still have a very serious problem in Minnesota,” he said, pointing out that 80 percent of meth in the state is imported from Mexico.
His initial priorities will focus on a new child-endangerment protocol and assessing what types of treatment work best.
“Meth treatment is longer and more complex than other chemical dependency treatment and that’s something we need to have a better understanding before we sink a lot of money into it,” Noerenberg said.
While the state has made great progress in combating homegrown meth, no one in government, law enforcement or even on the streets expects the drug to go away soon.
“We still have a ways to go,” said Howell.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
I can’t agree that letting western Kansas die is the best answer. Surely there is another way. Rainwater will not replenish the Ogallah aquifer as it is too deep, but rainwater does replenish some of the shallower aquifers – just not fast enough to keep up with demand. We have got to reduce the net overall demand on the aquifers and buying up water rights to take them permanently out of production seems like one way to try to solve this problem – though it doesn’t need to be the only strategy. As for Colorado’s problems – my guess is that their water laws are different from ours. Kansas water law it is my impression it pretty unique. So the legal troubles that exist in Colorado over counties and cities buying water rights do not necessarily predict accurately what would happen in Kansas.
If you are a registered Republican, or you usually vote for Republican candidates, BUT in 2006 you voted for 1) Paul Morrison or 2) Kathleen Sebelius – state the reason(s) you voted the way you did, OR what were the negatives leading you to vote against who you voted against.
Email your data to:
darwinsdisciple@hotmail.com
Thank you…
Steven! I can give the the simple response to that.
Kathleen Sebelius because he is pro-business, supports Wichita and is a dedicated public servent. And most imporantly, she isn’t a leftist.
Paul Morrison because he was more qualified.
because “she”! My bad on the typo.
“Conservatives and liberals are kindred spirits as far as government spending is concerned. First, let’s make sure we understand what government spending is. Since government has no resources of its own, and since there’s no Tooth Fairy handing Congress the funds for the programs it enacts, we are forced to recognize that government spending is no less than the confiscation of one person’s property to give it to another to whom it does not belong — in effect, legalized theft. Liberals believe government should take people’s earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people’s earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one’s property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage.”
Joe,
I think you and I can reach a middle on our differences. I have a feeling that many of the farms and farmers you’re familiar with are large, corporate farms and/or farms using irrigation on crops that, because of rainfall amounts or perhaps greed(?), demand it.
Of all the farmers in this area(around Wichita and located in Sedgwick and Sumner counties) that I know, one family incorporated and only one irrigates. Granted, I don’t know all the farmers, but it’s a sample of the immediate area. Of the others, many are involved in or are members of conservation efforts and organizations/associations.
Yes, these small farmers often do receive subsidies (pitiful as they are), but I listened many times to them complain that if the government would allow them to plant their crops, they wouldn’t need them. THAT’S where subsidies began, at least in my adult lifetime. I agree that huge farming operations, often corporate, are a problem in the areas you mentioned.
Then, too, I wonder about our individual definitions of “small” and “large” where farming is concerned.
Granted, I haven’t been personally involved in farming for 10 years or more and much has happened, I’m sure. Near the end of my experience, I was seeing more and more things that made me unhappy.
And, btw, most farmers I know vote Republican. ;)
kelly – some ideas for western KS. Allow landowners to but game permits in bulk from the state. Then allow them to re-sell them at a profit. This gives an incentive to restore habitat for game since that will allow for more permits. Habitat vegetation does not require the same sort of irrigation as corn etc.
So, we start on a path to restore the land, the game and the water. And we use it to make noney selling hunting to Chicago lawyers who have more money than brains! ;^)
Anon,
While I agree somewhat with your quote, you might want to look at how much and where your tax dollar goes. You might be surprised at just who is receiving how much of the “welfare” mentioned.
Keep in mind that roads, highways, fire departments, police and other “publics services” are a large part of your taxes.
(Just commenting for a little balance, here.)
Ben! They have CRP.
RD. Yeah! Farmers around South Central and Eastern Kansas don’t irrigate. They also grow crops we eat. I know one that grows watermelons and strawberries. We also have several peach orchards.
I don’t mind if farmers grow grain, so long as they don’t irrigate like crazy. Out in western Kansas they will irrigate from seed to harvest on a daily basis. They even irrigate wheat, cotton and Sunflower. Which doesn’t need it.
The largest portion of our taxes in the State level goes to government schools.
Joe! I am familiar with CRP; also with CREP. I am expanding on that using good old-fashioned capitalism.
Hey- does anyone know what the problem is with the comments section over on the Opinion Line?
Joe,
I’ve seen several acres of cotton around here, too. One I can think of is close to K-42 and Tyler Rd. At least I think that’s where it was. That was a couple of years ago, so I don’t know if that particular field is still being used for it. Could be (and I don’t know enough about what nutrients in the soil cotton uses, growing season, etc.) that it’s a rotation crop.
There’s a lot of milo grown around here, used mostly for cattle. We didn’t do a lot of it, but I know some who did. Smaller patches, mostly.
Changes in climate are forcing many small farmers to look to other crops.
Are you aware that Oklahoma is the largest cotton producing state in the country? Or was some 15+ years ago.
With the only exception on the CRP is that it should be permenant. If you’re going to have the government pay farmers to turn their fields back into grass for conservation and wildlife purposes then what is the use of having it only 7 years and the farmer just goes right back in and plows it under and grow corn.
Do it permanently. I don’t care if they graze cattle, hunt pheasants and the like on that land. But don’t give farmers an excuse to live on a 7 year vacation only to go right back pumping water and spraying chemicals.
CRP – my Father and Mother recently were awarded for their CRP-Wildlife program.
They grow cotton because it’s subsidized.
Farm subsidies is determined by crop, not by income or poverty standards. Growers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice receive more than 90 percent of all farm subsidies: Growers of nearly all of the 400 other domestic crops are completely shut out of farm subsidy programs.
The cost of the last farm bill was $180 billion.
Department of Agriculture figures on farm families:
Higher incomes. In 1999, the average farm household earned $64,437–17 percent more than the $54,842 average for non-farmers. Incomes were even higher among the 136,000 households with annual farm sales over $250,000–and who also receive the largest subsidies. Their 1999 average income of $135,397 was two-and-a-half times the national average. Farmer incomes are not only high, but also quite stable from year to year, despite agricultural market fluctuations.
Greater wealth. The average farm household had a net worth of $563,563 in 1999–well above the $88,000 national average.
Lower consumption expenditures. Farm households have fewer costs than other households because (1) the cost of living is lower in rural America; (2) farm households need to purchase less food from outside sources; and (3) mortgage and utility bills are often classified as business expenses. Consequently, the average farm household spent only $25,073 on goods and services in 1999, which is $11,000 less than the average non-farm family.
Because farmers are relatively wealthy, alleviating farm poverty would not be very expensive. Just $4 billion per year would guarantee every full-time farmer in America a minimum income of 185 percent of the federal poverty level ($34,873 for a family of four in 2004). However, farm subsidies are more corporate welfare than poverty relief, so Washington instead spends $12 billion to $30 billion annually subsidizing large farms and agribusinesses that are much wealthier than the taxpayers footing the bill.
This is socialism and central planning at it’s best.
Joe?
Eliminate the small farmer at your own and everyone elses peril. I don’t think we want all farms to be corporate.
For an example of why? Consider what Wal mart has done to retailing.
Joe,
A lot of the farmers I know (tons of relatives) not only farm, but also work a full time job. Many have wifes who work full time, too. They are of MY generation. It was different a generation ago. Why would they need to work a full time job IN ADDITION to farming, if the figures presented are correct? Then again, that quote was about “average” farm income and didn’t separate small family from corporte owned. I’m assuming that covers all crops, or is livestock considered in that, too? How about dairies? Was that income before or after costs?
(1) the cost of living is lower in rural America;To some degree, yes. I won’t argue that.
(2) farm households need to purchase less food from outside sources;
Oh, that’s total b.s. Some raise cattle and have a few on their tables, but figure in the cost of dressing out that beef, and the savings dips considerably. And let’s consider the time is money, when it comes to grain. We raised wheat. If I had wanted to make bread, it would have involved cleaning and milling. I can only imagine what that would mean for a 5 lb bag of flour. I admit that when we had a dairy, we did drink fresh milk and saved money there. When buying milk at a grocery for 6 people, I often bought close to 10 gallons every 2 weeks. On the other hand, there may be those farmers out there who DO grow and eat their own food products. But not all farmers have the seasonal conditions to do that.
and (3) mortgage and utility bills are often classified as business expenses.
I can’t testify to the mortgage, but the savings on utility bills isn’t all that great. Even a home office deduction, unless that office is the majority of your home, won’t get that much of a deduction.
Yes, the largest (often enormous) subsidy payments are going to corporate and agribusiness. On that, I agree 110% I made enough trips to the (then) ASCS office to sign paperwork to know that small farms don’t get anywhere near that. It sure wouldn’t pay for a new Escalade. ;)
“This is socialism and central planning at it’s best.”
And this is why most farmers I know vote Republican????