Earth haters driving US to end days

Yes, 'Republican environmentalist' is an oxymoron.

The Rapid City Journal is a trip into bizarro world today.

When South Dakota's senior US Senator is calling 'silly' an end to lead contamination in the watersheds that support all life in the state you know life is upside-down.

As crazy as that sounds, if the liberal wing of the president’s party and EPA bureaucrats had their way, they’d even regulate the tackle South Dakotans use to reel in walleyes from the Missouri River and ban the lead ammunition they use to bag ringnecks in the prairie. Thankfully, last year Congress passed and the president signed legislation that included my provision to permanently block the EPA from an outright ban on lead ammunition used in the field. [op-ed, some idiot on John Thune's staff]

Lead is a potent neurotoxin.

The most significant hazard to wildlife is through direct ingestion of spent lead shot and bullets, lost fishing sinkers, lead tackle and related fragments, or through consumption of wounded or dead prey containing lead shot, bullets or fragments. Although lead from spent ammunition and lost fishing tackle is not readily released into aquatic and terrestrial systems, under some environmental conditions it can slowly dissolve and enter groundwater, making it potentially hazardous for plants, animals and perhaps even people if it enters water bodies or is taken up in plant roots. [US Geological Survey]

The Victoria Lake area above Rapid City is lead Superfund site in the making.

Lead is released by coal-fired power plants, too.

In Flint, Michigan a Republican governor could go to prison for telling residents that lead in the water is no big deal.

Bill Janklow's idea of public radio is reporting that the US Forest Service has just suspended the Draft Environmental Impact Study for a Wyoming Black Hills mountaintop-removal mine in the Belle Fourche watershed.

The Sundance (Wyoming) Times had a report yesterday detailing other effects from the mine.

Here's more from Native Sun News.

The suspension comes in the wake of federal concern over Wyoming mining regulators.

Re­pub­lic­an donor Andy Sabin had a great seat on the floor for Thursday’s GOP pres­id­en­tial de­bate and found him­self in­creas­ingly im­pressed with the way Ted Cruz answered some ques­tions. But over­all, Sabin left frus­trated with a lack of dis­cus­sion of his pet top­ics: en­ergy and cli­mate change. “Zero. None. It’s a non­is­sue,” Sabin said. Of the can­did­ates with strong enough poll num­bers to make last week’s main-stage de­bate, only former Flor­ida Gov. Jeb Bush has ac­know­ledged that hu­mans play some role in the chan­ging cli­mate, al­though it’s hardly an en­dorse­ment of the sci­entif­ic con­sensus. And with dwind­ling sup­port that puts him around fifth place in the polls, nobody is count­ing on Bush’s stance to make much head­way.

Read the rest here.

Clay County is preparing to vote on an ordinance that would revise the definition of Confined Animal Feeding Operation. The commission held a public hearing on the effects of revisions.

According to commissioners and Toby Brown representing SECOG (The South-Eastern Council of Governments), the ordinance up for a vote is a revision of the 2013 revision of the 2005 ordinance. According to Brown, the major changes of the current ordinance up for vote include reinstating the Animal Feeding Operation (AFO) definition which was removed from the 2013 version and moving the cap up for dairy operations. “The third change is clarification is what the setback is off of waters,” he said. “Right now it’s ‘waters of the state.’ If you read the definition of ‘waters of the state’ that could be an irrigation pit, it could be anything that has water in it. The next public hearing for this ordinance will be held Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. in the Vermillion Courthouse basement.

Read the rest here.

Intersecting with Clay County's fight to preserve its water supplies is Yankton County's relationship to the James River and South Dakota's Republican congressional delegation war on clean water.

Proposed changes linked here.

News from a gaggle of South Dakota Republicans feeding from the wildlife slaughtering industry revealed that the interest among young people in killing animals just for the hell of it is on the wane.

A report at the meeting showed a troubling slump in license sales for youth ages 12 through 17, with last year's small-game and youth combination license sales down compared to recent past years. When that happens, GF&P has to come up with different options to fund its operations, and that can include an increase in license costs and fees.

Read it all here.

Can you say extirpation?

Local control is just another euphemism for the freedom to poop on somebody else's pancakes.

When Republican domination is literally deadly to wildlife and humans alike maybe it's time for a little hope and change.