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(From PRCNEWS.org, links at original post)

The Missouri DNR (and their counterpart in virtually every other State in the Union) has taken point on bringing about the EPA’s desired Clean Water Restoration Act plans. The CWRA never made it through Congress, but the EPA has no compunctions about handing out money to State agencies to have them move forward without legislative oversight by taking a full on back door approach to control land, water and people through “integrated land and watershed management”.

The ploy is coming to your doorstep via “nonpoint source” pollution management plans. Missouri’s plan is contained in a 166 page pdf, and it not fun reading…at least not for me. Here is a link to the pdf. You may make comments to the DNR through July 8th regarding the NPS Management Plan.

If past agency actions mean anything, they will say, “This is only a draft!” Well, as my friend Bob said regarding the National Animal Identification dissimulation, “It’s like finding a diary of a guy with very detailed plans about how he is going to come into your house, take all of your possessions and then rape and murder your wife and children, in extreme detail. When you confront him with it, he says, ‘Why are you so upset? It’s just a draft.'”

Here again is the link to the Missouri DNR “draft” for Nonpoint Source Pollution Management.
Areas to be managed under the NPS Management Plan. Note that they extend beyond the borders of Missouri.
Critical to understanding this plan are the definitions. Following are the most important definitions for our understanding.

First of all, we have to know what “noinpoint source pollution” means. From the plan, here it is:

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution: Occurs when water runs over land or through the ground, picks up natural or human-made pollutants, and deposits them in surface waters or groundwater. Pollutants commonly associated with NPS include nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen), pathogens, clean sediments, oil and grease, salt, and pesticides.

Then we need to know what specifically the agency defines as “pollutant”. NPS is what occurs when water runs over land or through the ground….like when it rains. So we look for the definition of “pollutant”. Here it is:

Pollutant: Dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator reside, sewage, garbage, sewer sludge, munitions, chemical waste, biological material, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt, filter backwash or industrial, municipal or agricultural waste discharged into water.

Rock? Sand? Biological material? How on earth are you supposed to stop rain and wind from moving rock, sand and…leaves, pollen, bugs, skin cells, egg shells, or other “biological material”? Obviously you can mitigate animal waste from livestock to a certain degree, but you can’t stop the trees.

Ok, fine. So we are again going to remove nature from involving itself in natural processes. If you are familiar with “good agricultural practices”, you already know about that.

Now then, what exactly is it that the DNR is going to “manage”? Well, “waters of the state” via “watershed” management. So how have they defined “waters of the state”? Here it is…and it is not good:

Waters of the state: All rivers, streams, lakes, and other bodies of surface and subsurface water lying within or forming a part of the boundaries of the state which are not entirely confined and located completely upon lands owned, leased, or otherwise controlled by a single person or by two (2) or more people jointly or as tenants in common. These waters also include waters of the United States lying within or adjacent to the state.

And then the watershed portion of their management is the real cherry on top in this plan. Here’s their definition:

Watershed: An area of land that catches rainfall and snowmelt, which then drains into low-lying bodies of water. Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes, from a few acres to over a million square miles and are sometimes difficult to delineate. Consequently, Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUCs) were created to logically convey the drainage relationship of stream systems, watersheds, and larger river basins.

So, even if you have a pond that is wholly contained on your property and you are a single person with free and clear title and no grant money that might cloud your title, you are still within a water shed, and therefore you fall into their management plan for “nonpoint source pollution”, which is anything that might get into water.

Following are some things that they intend to achieve through this new management plan. These will look very familiar to those who fought the White River Blueway designation at this time last year:

•Removing dams and levees

•Keeping a buffer zone from livestock

•Wetland Restoration and Renaturalization

The restoration of wetlands that are hydrologically connected to surface waters is important for the effective filtering of NPS pollutants. Projects that restore previously existing wetland areas that are being degraded through existing land uses such as farming, mowing or other activities are encouraged.

 Nutrient management projects (must include more than planning);

 Sediment control projects (particularly riparian or other filter areas);

 Some forestry BMPs;

 Some controlled drainage projects;

 Livestock exclusion and manure management projects;

 Conservation crop rotation projects with cover crops;

 Riparian re-vegetation and/or protection projects; and

 Buffers and field borders.

It’s beginning to sound entirely too familiar, isn’t it? The US Army Corps of Engineers and the USDA and EPA are partners in this plan. They will be doling out grant money to increase “stakeholder” support for these NPS management plans.

Please contact your County Commissioners and your State Representatives about this. It is entirely too overreaching and they are planning on throwing around grant money like we aren’t nearly 18 trillion dollars in debt.

Comments should be submitted to the Department of Natural Resources, Water Protection Program, Watershed Protection Section, P.O. Box 176, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0176 or by email to greg.anderson@dnr.mo.gov. Emails should provide contact information of the sender (i.e., name, mailing address, phone number) and include “Nonpoint Source Management Plan” in the subject line.

Customers wait to be served at Casey’s Market in Western Springs, Illinois, April 25, 2012.

CREDIT: REUTERS/JEFF HAYNES

(Reuters) – The Department of Agriculture has warned of sticker shock facing home chefs on the eve of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the unofficial start of the U.S. summer grilling season.

The agency said conditions in California could have “large and lasting effects on U.S. fruit, vegetable, dairy and egg prices,” as the most populous U.S. state struggles through what officials are calling a catastrophic drought.

The consumer price index (CPI) for U.S. beef and veal is up almost 10 percent so far in 2014, reflecting the fastest increase in retail beef prices since the end of 2003. Prices, even after adjusting for inflation, are at record highs.

“The drought in Texas and Oklahoma has worsened somewhat in the last month, providing further complications to the beef production industry,” USDA said.

Beef and veal prices for the whole of 2014 are now forecast to increase by 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent, a sharp advance from last month’s forecast for a 3 to 4 percent rise. Pork prices are set to rise by 3 percent to 4 percent, up from a 2 to 3 percent advance expected a month ago.

The USDA said overall U.S. food price inflation for 2014, including food bought at grocery stores and food bought at restaurants, would rise by 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent in 2014.

That is up from 2013, when retail food prices were almost flat, but in line with historical norms and unchanged from April’s forecast.

“The food-at-home CPI has already increased more in the first four months of 2014 then it did in all of 2013,” USDA noted. At-home spending accounts for about 60 percent of the U.S. food CPI.

A major factor for rising pork prices is the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDv), responsible for more than 7 million U.S. piglet deaths in the past year.

Egg prices are also climbing – up 15 percent in April alone – and are expected to rise by 5 to 6 percent on the year, and higher milk prices are feeding through to other products in the dairy case, particularly cheese.

Sweet lovers and caffeine addicts will see some relief, however, since global prices for sugar and coffee remain low, USDA said.

The agency forecast prices of sugar and sweets to rise by 1 percent to 2 percent in 2014 and prices for non-alcoholic beverages to rise by 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent. Both forecasts were lowered this month.

“It appears supermarkets are maintaining minimal price inflation on packaged food products, possibly in an effort to keep prices competitive in light of rising cost pressures for most perishable items,” USDA said.

So far the severe California drought has not had a discernible impact on national fruits or vegetable prices, USDA said, while warning that the effects are still to come.

(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Eric Beech, Doina Chiacu and Bernadette Baum)

This is happening all over the nation. It’s very likely occurring in your own area. I would hope that police would see that there is an issue with them becoming so militarized, but as the saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

War Gear Flows to Police Departments

NEENAH, Wis. — Inside the municipal garage of this small lakefront city, parked next to the hefty orange snowplow, sits an even larger truck, this one painted in desert khaki. Weighing 30 tons and built to withstand land mines, the armored combat vehicle is one of hundreds showing up across the country, in police departments big and small.

The 9-foot-tall armored truck was intended for an overseas battlefield. But as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.

During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units. Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license.”

Military Equipment for Local Police
As the nation’s wars abroad wind down, many of the military’s surplus tools of combat have ended up in the hands of state and local law enforcement. Totals below are the minimum number of pieces acquired since 2006 in a selection of categories.

Source: Department of Defense
When the military’s mine-resistant trucks began arriving in large numbers last year, Neenah and places like it were plunged into the middle of a debate over whether the post-9/11 era had obscured the lines between soldier and police officer.

“It just seems like ramping up a police department for a problem we don’t have,” said Shay Korittnig, a father of two who spoke against getting the armored truck at a recent public meeting in Neenah. “This is not what I was looking for when I moved here, that my children would view their local police officer as an M-16-toting, SWAT-apparel-wearing officer.”

A quiet city of about 25,000 people, Neenah has a violent crime rate that is far below the national average. Neenah has not had a homicide in more than five years.

“Somebody has to be the first person to say ‘Why are we doing this?’ ” said William Pollnow Jr., a Neenah city councilman who opposed getting the new police truck.

Neenah’s police chief, Kevin E. Wilkinson, said he understood the concern. At first, he thought the anti-mine truck was too big. But the department’s old armored car could not withstand high-powered gunfire, he said.

“I don’t like it. I wish it were the way it was when I was a kid,” he said. But he said the possibility of violence, however remote, required taking precautions. “We’re not going to go out there as Officer Friendly with no body armor and just a handgun and say ‘Good enough.’ ”

Congress created the military-transfer program in the early 1990s, when violent crime plagued America’s cities and the police felt outgunned by drug gangs. Today, crime has fallen to its lowest levels in a generation, the wars have wound down, and despite current fears, the number of domestic terrorist attacks has declined sharply from the 1960s and 1970s.

Police departments, though, are adding more firepower and military gear than ever. Some, especially in larger cities, have used federal grant money to buy armored cars and other tactical gear. And the free surplus program remains a favorite of many police chiefs who say they could otherwise not afford such equipment. Chief Wilkinson said he expects the police to use the new truck rarely, when the department’s SWAT team faces an armed standoff or serves a warrant on someone believed to be dangerous.

Today, Chief Wilkinson said, the police are trained to move in and save lives during a shooting or standoff, in contrast to a generation ago — before the Columbine High School massacre and others that followed it — when they responded by setting up a perimeter and either negotiating with, or waiting out, the suspect.

The number of SWAT teams has skyrocketed since the 1980s, according to studies by Peter B. Kraska, an Eastern Kentucky University professor who has been researching the issue for decades.

The ubiquity of SWAT teams has changed not only the way officers look, but also the way departments view themselves. Recruiting videos feature clips of officers storming into homes with smoke grenades and firing automatic weapons. In Springdale, Ark., a police recruiting video is dominated by SWAT clips, including officers throwing a flash grenade into a house and creeping through a field in camouflage.

In South Carolina, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department’s website features its SWAT team, dressed in black with guns drawn, flanking an armored vehicle that looks like a tank and has a mounted .50-caliber gun. Capt. Chris Cowan, a department spokesman, said the vehicle “allows the department to stay in step with the criminals who are arming themselves more heavily every day.” He said police officers had taken it to schools and community events, where it was a conversation starter.

Kevin Wilkinson, the police chief of Neenah, Wis., said having a vehicle built for combat would help protect his officers. Credit Darren Hauck for The New York Times
“All of a sudden, we start relationships with people,” he said.

Not everyone agrees that there is a need for such vehicles. Ronald E. Teachman, the police chief in South Bend, Ind., said he decided not to request a mine-resistant vehicle for his city. “I go to schools,” he said. “But I bring ‘Green Eggs and Ham.’ ”

The Pentagon program does not push equipment onto local departments. The pace of transfers depends on how much unneeded equipment the military has, and how much the police request. Equipment that goes unclaimed typically is destroyed. So police chiefs say their choice is often easy: Ask for free equipment that would otherwise be scrapped, or look for money in their budgets to prepare for an unlikely scenario. Most people understand, police officers say.

“When you explain that you’re preparing for something that may never happen, they get it,” said Capt. Tiger Parsons of the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office in northwest Missouri, which recently received a mine-resistant truck.

To an extent, I get that many organized criminals these days have ample military-style training and even access to military-grade weapons or…
Pentagon data suggest how the police are arming themselves for such worst-case scenarios. Since 2006, the police in six states have received magazines that carry 100 rounds of M-16 ammunition, allowing officers to fire continuously for three times longer than normal. Twenty-two states obtained equipment to detect buried land mines.

In the Indianapolis suburbs, officers said they needed a mine-resistant vehicle to protect against a possible attack by veterans returning from war.

“You have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build I.E.D.’s and to defeat law enforcement techniques,” Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department told the local Fox affiliate, referring to improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs. Sergeant Downing did not return a message seeking comment.

The police in 38 states have received silencers, which soldiers use to muffle gunfire during raids and sniper attacks. Lauren Wild, the sheriff in rural Walsh County, N.D., said he saw no need for silencers. When told he had 40 of them for his county of 11,000 people, Sheriff Wild confirmed it with a colleague and said he would look into it. “I don’t recall approving them,” he said.

Some officials are reconsidering their eagerness to take the gear. Last year, the sheriff’s office in Oxford County, Maine, told county officials that it wanted a mine-resistant vehicle because Maine’s western foothills “face a previously unimaginable threat from terrorist activities.”

County commissioners approved the request, but recently rescinded it at the sheriff’s request. Scott Cole, the county administrator, said some people expressed concerns about the truck, and the police were comfortable that a neighboring community could offer its vehicle in an emergency.

At the Neenah City Council, Mr. Pollnow is pushing for a requirement that the council vote on all equipment transfers. When he asks about the need for military equipment, he said the answer is always the same: It protects police officers.

“Who’s going to be against that? You’re against the police coming home safe at night?” he said. “But you can always present a worst-case scenario. You can use that as a framework to get anything.”

Chief Wilkinson said he was not interested in militarizing Neenah. But officers are shot, even in small towns. If there were an affordable way to protect his people without the new truck, he would do it.

“I hate having our community divided over a law enforcement issue like this. But we are,” he said. “It drives me to my knees in prayer for the safety of this community every day. And it convinced me that this was the right thing for our community.”