EWG. Ed's Working Group. That group is a great bunch of people. Unfortunately EWG is better known as the Environmental Working Group. This EWG has went out of its way to "save the environment" by supporting idealism that is not practical, is not affordable and does not make common sense.
I mentioned them in my blog yesterday. As LuAnn read my blog last night she started doing some digging by clicking on the link I provided to their huge propoganda website and the more she read the "madder she got."
She says so well on Women In Agriculture:
"On the Environmental Working Group's http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2010/04/new-tool-for-measuring-chesapeake-bay-cleanup/ website, it proudly announces a new EPA tool to map environmental regulation violators in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
I read the glowing endorsement of the new tool and then read EPA's accompanying press release that spoke consistently of agricultural pollutants (phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment) as being the primary issues in the watershed.
Curious, me, I then clicked on the link to the new EPA tool....went to the EPA website to have a look at this new "enforcement" tool. http://www.epa.gov/compliance/civil/initiatives/progress-chesapeakebay.html
There I found a map with pin points to all those violators. Still curious, I put my cursor over several of the pin points and most were identified as belonging to a company called K Hovnanian Enterprises. All kinds of pinpoints all around Maryland and Washington and Virginia. Surely this must be a big ag operation, I thought. But it didn't make sense when I zoomed in and saw that these were suburbs. Farms in the suburbs? This close to DC?
I asked Ed to Google this company and found it to be an large homebuilding and land development corporation with projects in many areas of the country. What?
Backed up to the list of violators http://www.epa.gov/compliance/civil/initiatives/progress-chesapeakebay.html#cases and my, goodness! From all that finger pointing at ag from both the EWG and the EPA websites and that big map with all the pinpoints, you would have thought that farmers were singlehandly being cited for environmental violations in this watershed. And better yet, the EPA was cracking down on them with this new "tool"!
Imagine my surprise, when upon reading the list of actions that EPA is so proud, of, I found these violators among others: the US Army, several counties and villages, the city of Baltimore, Duke Energy, Fort Mead (another military facility) a Navy and AirForce facility, several utilitie companies and our own University of Cincinnati (which by the way is not IN the Chesapeake Bay watershed but it is considered in the "airshed". I need to do some research on what defines an "airshed".
I did find two farmers in the list and an ag supplier. One farmer paid a $400 fine....compare that to Hovnanian and Dupont which paid $1 million each.
Anyone besides me irate at the deception of the EWG regarding this? Follow it all and tell me if you got the impression that this was all ag related. I am not denying that ag is a source of non-point souce pollution in that watershed. Not at all. In fact, I was closely connected to this watershed project through my work in Erie County NY. What I object to is the deliberate attempt to deceive the public who might access their website.
I did not have a good opinion of the EWG prior to this discovery mostly due to their persecution of agriculture in general but this takes the cake. By the way, I wonder how many of our esteemed tree hugging federal representatives live in one of those suburbs developed by Hovnanian Enterprises? Or better yet, how many might be linked financially?
How about this for starters? "Until 1993, Cook and EWG engaged in the questionable (but apparently legal) practice of using CRE/IP’s existing tax exemption as a cover to receive foundation money. In this way, EWG collected over $5 million before 1993, the year Cook claims the organization was founded. In 1993 Cook left CRE/IP and moved EWG under the protective umbrella of the Tides Foundation, an organization that specializes in lending its tax-exempt status to leftist startups that might not satisfy the Internal Revenue Service’s criteria on their own. When the Tides Foundation spun off the “Tides Center” in 1996, EWG was among a few hundred activist groups that were quietly shifted to the new entity. Catherine Conover, while still on CRE/IP’s board, is also among the biggest individual donors to the Tides Foundation/Center complex. "
You really have to watch these "do-gooder's." I find most of them are fleecing our pockets and sliver lining theirs.
Where there is smoke, there are guns, mirrors and a whole lot of dynamite.
Ed
I mentioned them in my blog yesterday. As LuAnn read my blog last night she started doing some digging by clicking on the link I provided to their huge propoganda website and the more she read the "madder she got."
She says so well on Women In Agriculture:
"On the Environmental Working Group's http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2010/04/new-tool-for-measuring-chesapeake-bay-cleanup/ website, it proudly announces a new EPA tool to map environmental regulation violators in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
I read the glowing endorsement of the new tool and then read EPA's accompanying press release that spoke consistently of agricultural pollutants (phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment) as being the primary issues in the watershed.
Curious, me, I then clicked on the link to the new EPA tool....went to the EPA website to have a look at this new "enforcement" tool. http://www.epa.gov/compliance/civil/initiatives/progress-chesapeakebay.html
There I found a map with pin points to all those violators. Still curious, I put my cursor over several of the pin points and most were identified as belonging to a company called K Hovnanian Enterprises. All kinds of pinpoints all around Maryland and Washington and Virginia. Surely this must be a big ag operation, I thought. But it didn't make sense when I zoomed in and saw that these were suburbs. Farms in the suburbs? This close to DC?
I asked Ed to Google this company and found it to be an large homebuilding and land development corporation with projects in many areas of the country. What?
Backed up to the list of violators http://www.epa.gov/compliance/civil/initiatives/progress-chesapeakebay.html#cases and my, goodness! From all that finger pointing at ag from both the EWG and the EPA websites and that big map with all the pinpoints, you would have thought that farmers were singlehandly being cited for environmental violations in this watershed. And better yet, the EPA was cracking down on them with this new "tool"!
Imagine my surprise, when upon reading the list of actions that EPA is so proud, of, I found these violators among others: the US Army, several counties and villages, the city of Baltimore, Duke Energy, Fort Mead (another military facility) a Navy and AirForce facility, several utilitie companies and our own University of Cincinnati (which by the way is not IN the Chesapeake Bay watershed but it is considered in the "airshed". I need to do some research on what defines an "airshed".
I did find two farmers in the list and an ag supplier. One farmer paid a $400 fine....compare that to Hovnanian and Dupont which paid $1 million each.
Anyone besides me irate at the deception of the EWG regarding this? Follow it all and tell me if you got the impression that this was all ag related. I am not denying that ag is a source of non-point souce pollution in that watershed. Not at all. In fact, I was closely connected to this watershed project through my work in Erie County NY. What I object to is the deliberate attempt to deceive the public who might access their website.
I did not have a good opinion of the EWG prior to this discovery mostly due to their persecution of agriculture in general but this takes the cake. By the way, I wonder how many of our esteemed tree hugging federal representatives live in one of those suburbs developed by Hovnanian Enterprises? Or better yet, how many might be linked financially?
How about this for starters? "Until 1993, Cook and EWG engaged in the questionable (but apparently legal) practice of using CRE/IP’s existing tax exemption as a cover to receive foundation money. In this way, EWG collected over $5 million before 1993, the year Cook claims the organization was founded. In 1993 Cook left CRE/IP and moved EWG under the protective umbrella of the Tides Foundation, an organization that specializes in lending its tax-exempt status to leftist startups that might not satisfy the Internal Revenue Service’s criteria on their own. When the Tides Foundation spun off the “Tides Center” in 1996, EWG was among a few hundred activist groups that were quietly shifted to the new entity. Catherine Conover, while still on CRE/IP’s board, is also among the biggest individual donors to the Tides Foundation/Center complex. "
You really have to watch these "do-gooder's." I find most of them are fleecing our pockets and sliver lining theirs.
Where there is smoke, there are guns, mirrors and a whole lot of dynamite.
Ed
Double check how EWG counts "Subsidies". I got a government marking loan for storing corn. I repaid the loan WITH INTEREST. During that time the stored corn went up $7,000 in value. On their website they have it reported that I recieved a $7,000 government subsidy. No kidding.
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