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So, there is from your link a legitimate reason not to use hay bales as barriers. Still not a pollutant, but rather poor material to use as perimeter barriers.
Is this a reason to fine someone? We can only guess what the wole story is but this is what the feedlot owner has to say:
Callicrate responded affirmatively and explained that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently initiated a formal enforcement action against his Kansas feedlot for, among other things, failure to store his hay in a pollution containment zone. “Now that EPA has declared hay a pollutant, every farmer and rancher that stores hay, or that leaves a broken hay bale in the field is potentially violating EPA rules and subject to an EPA enforcement action,” Callicrate said. “How far are we going to let this agency go before we stand up and do something about it?”
Having had to deal with inspectors myself before I can tell you they can be a bit ridiculous.... note the bold part and lets go back to what the epa says:
Quote:
If straw bales are used (only in limited circumstances), each bale should be a minimum of 14 inches wide, 18 inches high, 36 inches long and should have a minimum mass of 50 pounds. The straw bale should be composed entirely of vegetative matter except for the binding material. Bales should be bound by steel wire or nylon or polypropylene string. Jute and cotton binding should not be used. Baling wire should be a minimum 14-gauge diameter. Nylon or polypropylene string should be approximately 12-gauge in diameter with a breaking strength of 80 pounds of force. Wood stakes should be commercial quality lumber that is free from decay, splits, or cracks longer than the thickness of the stake, or other defects that would weaken the stakes and cause them to be structurally unsuitable. Steel bar reinforcement should be equal to a #4 designation or greater. End protection should be provided for any exposed bar reinforcement.
I don't know how I found this out but it's dangerous to operate a cellphone while pumping gas. I don't use a cellphone all that much, but this was new to me. I didn't know a cellphone could cause a spark that blows the place up. So when I saw someone arguing on a cellphone while pumping gas, I nicely asked them to stop because it was "something you're not supposed to do". The guy flipped me off and continued to act irresponsibly.
He probably flipped you off because he'd read this Snopes article and you hadn't and didn't care for ignorant busybodies.
Wait till the EPA decides humans have to wear re-breathers to take the carbon dioxide out of your exhales. Think it's far-fetched? We have an administration in Washington that is trying to force you to buy healthcare. If they get away with that, the door is wide open.
R-CALF USA is a national cattle producer organization formed to address marketing, trade and private property issues in the live cattle industry.
Think they may be biased in any way?
Of course, R-CALF is a bit biased like trucking associations and any other associations like them that were formed to protect their members primarily from government regulation. It seems to me that they have to be biased since the very organizations they were formed to fight against are also biased.
Most producers don't allow their hay to get any wetter than necessary and none of them use it to block off the erosion of their land. Once that wet the hay would be a pollutant to the stomachs of the cattle that eat it, maybe even worse than to the air.
Have you seen anything yet about the EPA planning to go after farmers and the dust they cause. They don't want to tax only the dust they cause when they work the ground but also the dust they cause driving on secondary roads. We have a lot more miles of dirt and gravel roads in this part of the world than we do paved ones. Of course, the bureaucrats of the east coast, where EPA is headquartered don't know about that and never will.
Seriously, we do feel that we have to work together to protect ourselves from those people.
Apart from any paranoid concerns that "they're out to get me", the main reason for regulation is to insure that proper procedures are taken. We regulate to insure people treat each other nicely, that the environment doesn't get destroyed, and that business is conducted ethically. Unfortunately, people are hellbent on circumventing regulations because a) they don't like being told what to do, b) they really don't want to be nice or play fair, and/or c) they resent the idea that what they're doing could possibly be wrong. It's not the EPA that's the problem. It's fools doing stupid, destructive, or unethical things in new and innumerable ways that necessitates regulations.
I don't know how I found this out but it's dangerous to operate a cellphone while pumping gas. I don't use a cellphone all that much, but this was new to me. I didn't know a cellphone could cause a spark that blows the place up. So when I saw someone arguing on a cellphone while pumping gas, I nicely asked them to stop because it was "something you're not supposed to do". The guy flipped me off and continued to act irresponsibly. Not everybody knows what they can and cannot do so the EPA and other regulators are there to put it in writing. It's not an infringement on rights or a power grab, it's either a nuisance, a lifesaver, or both. Take your pick.
Reading the short article on the heavily biased link, it looks like somebody didn't know what they were doing or didn't realize that there was a potential problem.
I will recommend to you that you read the posts from me to bagger that follow yours to see some of the reasons we out here in God's cleanest air area don't care for the EPA. I take it you don't know how close the EPA came to destroying the beef industry in this country when they proposed taxing the farmers and ranchers a certain amount for ever bovine critter on their grounds. The taxes may seem small to city people but they would have caused a huge sell off and a really serious rise in the price of beef. Of course, that would have killed another export situation, too.
Have you seen anything about them considering taxing rural people for the dust they raise? That will be fun watching them recruit an army big enough to enforce that one.
Using the EPA to install all the rules and regulations that he couldn't get from Congress in his try for Cap and Trade is certainly a power grab by our head man, The Won.
Regardless of your personal issues against the EPA or how they go about trying to clean up the air....the point is cattle are one of the largest polluters of streams, rivers and the ozone known to man. It is inhumane and hideous torture of these beasts to keep them in feedlots without shelter and jammed together to create even more hidous waste products. The whole industry needs better regulation from birth to death. You can find link after link exposing the horrendous conditions of the cattle we eat. Ignoring that, or not accepting that polluting industries have to do a better job of regulating their own industry is the correct and most intelligent choice. Yes, I do eat beef but like more and more Americans...we're getting smarter and cutting WAY back on eathing it. We know that all those hormones and anti-biodics you are injecting into these creatures cause a whole lot more issues than early puberty, obeseness and cancer. Everyone hates that their "personal" pollutants are targeted. Its just no fun at all.
I see that you would prefer the raising and eventual sale of cattle to packers be done as it was done in the late 19th century when there was so much free range land. I wonder if you have any idea how much that kind of beef would cost you and how little fat it would have in it. Are you one of those people who think like that fool from the San Francisco area who had the ad in the newspaper about not killing cattle to eat when you can get it from the store as it should be done? There are many people that stupid although I sure don't think you are one of them. You aren't, are you?
Do you think there is a possibility that maybe some of the horrendous conditions you speak of are reported by people with a bias of some kind or another? I do, although i know that all those I report from are also biased in their desire to make a living. I live very near to an area where there are about 40,000 critters in one feed lot. About a quarter mile from that place is a huge packing plant. The smells from the packing plant are much worse than from the feedlot in my way of smelling.
Is this a reason to fine someone? We can only guess what the wole story is but this is what the feedlot owner has to say:
Having had to deal with inspectors myself before I can tell you they can be a bit ridiculous.... note the bold part and lets go back to what the epa says:
The biggest problem for me here is them telling producers the exact measurements of bales that aren't even close to what most use in this region where such high quantities of hay are used. When I came to this area of the world, 42 years ago, there were a lot of rectangular bales to be found but with the passage of time round ones much larger than those of the days of yore came into existence. We use those big round ones around here and those described in the EPA regulation are terribly dwarfed by those bales. The ones we use are about 4 feet in height laying flat, and about 8 ft. across and usually
weigh about 1500 pounds. Some farmers who feed enough cattle have their pickups rigged to haul one bale at a time by ramming a pointed steel bar through their centers and then raised up. I wish more city folks could see this happen so they could understand what is going on, especially the city folks from EPA and Washington DC.
Wait till the EPA decides humans have to wear re-breathers to take the carbon dioxide out of your exhales. Think it's far-fetched? We have an administration in Washington that is trying to force you to buy healthcare. If they get away with that, the door is wide open.
Damned Snopes. I don't like them when they fail to agree with me on anything and love them here. I guess I will just stay with the things they say.
The things that Obama has EPA doing to make up for Congress failing to allow him to install Cap and Trade are enough to make me wonder just how far they will manage to go in controlling us.
Is this a reason to fine someone? We can only guess what the wole story is but this is what the feedlot owner has to say:
Having had to deal with inspectors myself before I can tell you they can be a bit ridiculous.... note the bold part and lets go back to what the epa says:
Oh, I've dealt with OSHA years ago so I know that some regulations seem silly.
Do you think that these regulations are silly? Didn't seem that bad to me.
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