http://www.kemplog.com Life and law in Eastern Indiana Thu, 15 May 2008 18:17:12 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This is weird, but probably just a function of division of government powers. I've seen local office holder doing battle before, but typically not with firearms: A judge has begun carrying a gun at work after ordering a court employee to stay away from him. Miami County [Ohio] Municipal Court Judge ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/05/15/tidbits/ Animal rights groups, who gained national headlines for the undercover video of a "downer cow" being mistreated at a slaughter plant are trying to follow up with chickens: Mercy for Chickens is an undercover video shot in a California egg house. So far, the response has not been there - ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/05/12/cafo-update-for-monday-may-12-2008/ Marcia Oddi over at the Indiana Law Blog always has good continuing coverage of how the state of Indiana makes its laws, court decisions and other "public records" available to the public. This is an area that has undergone significant change with the rise of the internet. Today, she ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/05/12/state-of-public-records-access-in-the-state-of-indiana/ The Gary Post-Tribune has run a long series of articles calling IDEM to account for its varied short comings. Gitte Laasby continues this process today, covering the BP Plant permit: The Indiana Department of Environmental Management refuses to answer certain questions about the timing of a public hearing on ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/05/09/post_tribs-assault-on-idem-continues/ Well, I've been out for a week, so let's catch up: First off, as Doug Masson says, VOTE! On the CAFO Front, the PEW Center's long-awaited report came out last week, the PDF is here: report. Big agriculture has been criticizing the report for months before it was released. From ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/05/06/cafo-update-for-may-6th-2008-election-day/ IDEM clears backlog of 263 wastewater permits, nets award from the EPA: IDEM received a two-gold-star award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one of eight states in the nation. IDEM received the award for addressing the historical permit backlog and prioritizing issuing permits. The goals were achieved two ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/25/cafo-links-for-april-25th-2008/ The Union of Concerned Scientists just release a report raising issue with the way Congress has streamed billions of dollars into the pockets of big agriculture concerns - leading directly to the bloom of factory farming around the nation. The report, CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of CAFOS, claims that ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/24/report-calls-foul-on-cafos-economics/ The Star Press Reports today: About 600 gallons of hog manure entered Martindale Creek when a hose broke Tuesday as Goldsboro, N.C.-based Maxwell Farms was land applying manure to a farm field. The incident was reported to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management by Maxwell at 9:17 a.m. ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/23/manure-in-modoc-sort-of-redundant/ Word was that local anti-CAFO activists and local farmers were going to sit down and come to an agreement on proposed CAFO rules for Randolph County. That was a few years ago, but several CAFO's later, a moratorium and a retreat from a moratorium and there are still no real ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/22/randolph-county-cafo-rules-going-nowhere-fast/ I generally leave the coverage of new Indiana Appellate decisions in the capable hands of Marcia Oddi over at the Indiana Law Blog, but I wanted to highlight an appeal dealing with a CAFO issue that Marcia covered last Friday. I think you can see some of the challenges facing ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/22/jackson-county-cafo-appeal/ Yesterday, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production released a survey of state laws governing factory farming, a survey prepared along with the National Conference of State Legislatures. The survey is the warm-up for the release of the much-anticipated full report from PEW. From the pres release: The ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/22/survey-of-state-cafo-policies-from-pew-commission/ The Pal-Item put up an featured editorial today: A State Role for CAFOs. Not only does the title not make any sense, the opinion piece misses the point of much of the local outcry over CAFO's. I would boil the errors down to 3 big ones: They come out against ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/20/pal-item-takes-swing-at-cafo-editorial-misses-entirely/ The Madison Courier has a piece up today from Peggy Vlerebome covering state democratic races, from the presidential campaign to the governor's race. The piece quotes Jim Schellinger and Jill Long Thompson, the 2 democratic candidates for governor. The piece claims that it is not only the interesting presidential nomination ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/19/cafos-impact-on-governors-race/ Monsanto's Harvest of Fear is the title of the May Vanity Fair article by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. The piece tracks the company's grip on the seed business and its move into the milk business through rBGH. Continuing it's focus on IDEM, the Gary Post-Tribune asks if ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/17/cafo-links-for-41708/ Bill Richmond reports in the Winchester News-Gazette on the Monday evening candidates forum held by the Randolph County Farm Bureau. About 100 people listened to the candidates talk about the big issues, and it looks like CAFO's are it, for Randolph County. Some quotes from the article: Noel "Bud" ... http://www.kemplog.com/2008/04/16/all-politics-is-cafo-randolph-county/