Follow-up
Speaking to the National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association in mid-April, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary
Mike Johanns suggested his agency may relax its ban against
"downer" cows being slaughtered for human consumption. The agency
adopted the ban in December 2003, after a Washington cow was
diagnosed with BSE, or mad cow disease (HCN, 1/19/04: Have another
pig-brain/beef-blood/chicken-spine hamburger). Although some
question whether that cow was actually a downer, many consumers
agreed that sick or injured cows shouldn’t be sold as human
food. Johanns, the former governor of Nebraska, was quoted
suggesting that the ban is overwrought: "If you’ve got an
animal that’s clearly under 30 months that broke a leg in
transit, there is no threat of BSE whatsoever."
Rocket fuel regulations are official — though still
nonbinding — in California. The state’s Environmental
Protection Agency has set its goal for perchlorate in drinking
water at 6 parts per billion (HCN, 3/29/04: California scores a
goal for perchlorate cleanup). The quick-moving toxin has
contaminated groundwater in at least 43 states, and exposure during
fetal development can cause mental retardation. Although public
health activists aren’t thrilled about the new limit —
since 1997, the state’s advisory level had been set at 4 ppb
— the Golden State’s limit is still more
protective than the national one, which the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency recently changed from 1 ppb to 24.5
ppb (HCN, 03/21/05: Safe dose’ of rocket fuel now larger).
Less mercury for the Four Corners?
Maybe. PNM, New Mexico’s largest electricity provider, has
settled with the state and environmental groups over its
1,600-megawatt coal-fired power plant near Farmington. After three
years of court battles, a federal judge agreed with
environmentalists, and said the plant had violated air quality
standards more than 42,000 times. Now, the company has promised to
spend $200 million at the San Juan Generating Station to cut its
mercury emissions by 75 percent, and to reduce its emissions of
both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. As reported by the
Durango Telegraph, however, energy companies
have proposed two new coal-fired power plants for the Four Corners
area.
