savoy011

Tsé Bitʼaʼí  (Shiprock). Photo courtesy of Wikipedia   Moderator’s Note: On August 5, 2015, the EPA reported that crews at a defunct gold mine in southern Colorado—the Gold King Mine near Silverton—accidently released more than three million gallons of highly contaminated water into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. The ‘River of Souls’ is a critical source of agricultural water rights for Native farmers from the Ute and Navajo (Diné) nations. It has been widely reported that the EPA has tried to get Native farmers from the Navajo Nation to sign official forms that are ‘waivers’ releasing the agency from direct lawsuits for damages, in what can only be considered a brazen display of environmental racism in a clear example of a violation of the Obama Administration’s own commitment to Executive Order 12898 (see, for e.g., the August 12 report in Aljazeera-America ). Despite this ecological catastrophe, one of the most serious and damaging mined waste ‘accidents’ i...

Image courtesy of Organic Consumers Moderator’s Note: Since 1992, when I joined the Board of Directors of the Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG), [1] I have carefully monitored scientific developments related to the predictive ecology and public health and environmental health impacts of transgenic technologies.   Throughout this period, there have been very few moments when former or current EPA, USDA, or FDA scientists served as ‘whistleblowers’ on  the dismal and ultimately unscientific processes these federal agencies rely on to review and approve GMO crops. Yesterday was one of those profound moments when a former EPA biosafety scientist by the name of Ramon J. Seidler revealed that scientists – including government employees – have long had multiple problems with GMOs. Dr. Seidler is a professor of microbiology and a retired senior scientist and team leader for the Environmental Protection Agency’s biosafety program. This is dramatic news and comes in the midst of a...