Foster
Farms aims to step up food safety at Livingston, Fresno plants [Modesto Bee]
A
home cook who wants to prevent salmonella can wash cutting boards, countertops
and utensils thoroughly. Foster Farms, which is dealing with a salmonella
outbreak at its chicken plants in Livingston and Fresno, has a bigger job
ahead. It has to show that it can protect the public’s health as it processes
hundreds of thousands of birds delivered from poultry ranches every day. The
company had planned an online news conference Monday morning to update the
media on its efforts to deal with an outbreak that has sickened an estimated
317 people since March, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was
postponed to an undetermined date because the company still is collecting the
data it plans to discuss, a spokesman said. Foster Farms did provide photos of
how it sanitizes the plants, a task that involves a lot of soapy water on the
thousands of moving parts in each plant.
Southern
California water agencies push Delta tunnels [Palm Springs Desert Sun]
Southern
California water agencies are joining the state government in promoting a plan
to build massive tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to
carry water southward to farms and cities. The Coachella Valley’s largest water
agencies hosted a workshop on Monday to tout the plan, with speakers who
included Jerry Meral, deputy secretary of the California Natural Resources
Agency….Opponents call the plan a boondoggle and have vociferously argued that
the tunnels would harm the Delta ecosystem and wouldn’t fix the state’s water
problems. But the Coachella Valley’s water agencies say the Delta plan would
bring more reliable supplies of imported water while also preserving the
environment.
What
will the future hold for Glen Canyon Dam? [Arizona Republic]
Let’s
get rid of Glen Canyon Dam. It was a radical idea that got them proudly labeled
as “kooky.” Today, for everyone from government water managers to university
professors to wakeboarders, the concept is at least as wild now that the
thirsty Southwest has grown up. But some people still sit around dreaming of
draining Lake Powell, and a few think science is on their side….Weisheit notes
that Powell is less than half-full, its water level is dropping, and it is
projected to have larger swings in water level as climate change takes hold.
The government could restore the river’s — and the Grand Canyon’s — ecological
health by draining Powell and still could fill Lake Mead, he said….Under
current law, it is hard to imagine the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation draining Lake
Powell.
Groundwater
problems discussed in Oakdale [Modesto Bee]
Questions
about a potential groundwater crisis were as plentiful as the 200 people who
gave up their Monday evening to attend a community meeting. Answers were much
more scarce. Experts painted a dire picture of what could happen because
wealthy nut investors have planted millions of almond trees and sunk hundreds
of gigantic wells to water them, saying groundwater could vanish under that
land and suck neighbors dry as well….Among the civil crowd were people whose
homes or small farm wells could be jeopardized. They grumbled at predictions of
disaster and applauded when officials said they must move quickly to find
solutions….On Oct. 29, Stanislaus County supervisors will decide whether to
hire a water resources manager and to create a 19-member water advisory
committee.
Nutrient
pollution threatens national park ecosystems, study says [Los Angeles Times]
National
parks from the Sierra Nevada to the Great Smoky Mountains are increasingly
being fertilized by unwanted nutrients drifting through the air from
agricultural operations, putting some of the country’s most treasured natural
landscapes at risk of ecological damage, a new study has found….Scientists
looked at nitrogen oxides and ammonia that are released by vehicles, power
plants and farms and carried on air currents into national parks, including those
in some of the most remote areas of the West….Air pollution regulations have
been steadily reducing nitrogen oxides from fuel combustion, the study said.
But emissions of ammonia, another nitrogen-based gas that comes from
fertilizers and livestock, are not going down….While nitrogen oxide emissions
from automobiles and power plants are on track to decline by as much as 75% by
2050, the study projected, ammonia from agriculture could rise by up to 50% as
the U.S. population grows, requires more food and uses more fertilizer and
livestock.
Study
links BPA to possible miscarriage risk [Associated Press]
New
research suggests that high levels of BPA, a chemical in many plastics and
canned-food linings, might raise the risk of miscarriage in women prone to that
problem or having trouble getting pregnant. The work is not nearly enough to
prove a link, but it adds to "the biological plausibility" that BPA
might affect fertility and other aspects of health, said Dr. Linda Giudice, a
California biochemist who is president of the American Society for Reproductive
Medicine….The study is not cause for alarm, but "it's far from reassuring
that BPA is safe" for such women, she said. To minimize BPA exposure,
avoid cooking or warming food in plastic because heat helps the chemical leak
out, she said. Don't leave water bottles in the sun, limit use of canned foods
and avoid handling cash register receipts, which often are coated with resins
that contain BPA.
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