Tags
Democrats need to speak up if we are to protect our state parks and historic sites from desecration by factory farms and the pollution they generate. The Franklin County Democratic Central Committee voted on November 23 to support a resolution by the Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club which reads as follows:
Whereas, noxious odors and liquid waste runoffs from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations detract from citizens’ experience of Missouri’s state parks and historic sites, and constitute health hazards; and
Whereas tourism is important to Missouri’s economy; and
Whereas our parks and historic sites provide educational experiences and restorative experiences of nature to Missourians; and
Whereas rulings in 2008 by Cole County Judge Patricia Joyce established a two-mile buffer around Arrow Rock, a historic mid-Missouri village, barring concentrated animal feeding operations within it; and
Whereas Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has filed an appeal of Judge Joyce’s two-mile ruling, questioning the process by which Judge Joyce determined the need for a two-mile limit;
Now therefore Missouri Sierra Club protests Attorney General Koster’s decision to appeal, asks him to withdraw the appeal, and calls upon the General Assembly to pass legislation for a CAFO-free buffer zone around the fifty Missouri State Parks and thirty-nine State Historic Sites.
Hopefully, other clubs and committees will contact Atty Gen Koster and push him to drop this appeal. The state legislature should pass a law establishing a buffer zone around our PUBLIC parks. Private greed should not be allowed to destroy that which benefits the common good.
Contact Koster at 207 W. High St., Jefferson City, MO 65101 or http://www.ago.mo.gov.