by Tom Kruzen
The Conservation and Natural Resources Committee of the Missouri House of Representatives held a hearing to get public input on what citizens thought of the Department of Natural Resources.
Although most citizens highly value clean air and clean water, they rarely have direct contact with the Department of Natural Resources as they are the agency charged with regulating business and polluting entities. Several Sierra Club members took time out of their busy schedules to share their thoughts on how important the job of the Department of Natural Resources is. Below is my story that speaks to the issue of the good work conducted by MDNR.
February 7, 2005
House Conservation and Natural Resources CommitteeRe: audit privilege and the value of MDNR
Chairman Hobbs and Members of the Committee,
As far back as the Roman Republic and through our Euro-American history certain resources such as water, air and certain designated public gathering places have been protected in law and designated as belonging to the public. These are referred to historically as “the commons.” For my wife and I, it has especially been so about water. We met in Iowa and began to raise a family there over a quarter century ago. Iowa wells had become so polluted with pesticides and nitrates from fertilizer that it was not deemed safe to let our children drink from them. The same was true for our well. Iowa’s rivers and creeks ran brown with soil and were devoid of fish and the marine insects that fed them. Twenty-six years ago we sought a cleaner place to raise our children and that place was the Southern Missouri Ozarks of Shannon County. Shortly after we built a house and started gardening in our new home, we learned about the Doe Run Company’s plans to expand their mining operations only fifteen miles from us in the Eleven Point River area. We learned about how toxic lead was and how fragile the karst topography of this region was.
It is the second most karstic region in North America according to Dr.Tom Aley, a hydrologist at the Ozark Underground Laboratory; the primary such region being Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. Our Ozark limestone layers were riveted with fractures, channels, holes and hundreds of caves. Whatever is put on the surface in karst will find its way very quickly without much, if any, filtration into the underground water supply. These aquifers are the sole source of most of our well water (including municipal supplies), springs and lovely Scenic Rivers. Mining lead here would put all that at risk. We were on a fast learning curve about lead mining and its repercussions.
Flying over Doe Run’s Buick Recycling Plant in 1992, we took pictures of thousands of 55 gallon drums of toxic, lead bearing materials that Doe Run was “recycling at their converted primary smelter. Sometime after the flyover some employees of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources saw three of my photos and were very interested in them. Without saying much, they had asked for copies and I provided them. Three months later, I read in the newspaper that MDNR had fined Doe Run’s facility $300,000 for violating five sections of the federal Clean Water Act. These were repetitive offenses and it was gratifying to know that the state of Missouri held water quality very seriously. Later that same year I was present when Governor Mel Carnahan signed the Memorandum of Understanding that created a truly unique and now entirely successful program called “Stream Teams.” It was very clear that Missouri valued its waterways. My wife and I were among the first to sign up for the program and are both now rated as third level water quality monitors. MDNR was a signatory and the state agency that helped train the volunteers. Some of the first monitoring equipment was purchased with $50,000 of that fine!
Like Governor Blunt, who hales from the Ozarks, we are constantly being made aware just how fragile water quality can be here. West Plains and other communities in this karst region often struggle week to week to provide potable water for their citizens; boil water orders are common. When Springfield’s Southwest Waste Water Treatment Plant releases raw sewage into sinkholes, we all know it is going to end up in places other than just “downstream.” “Downstream” in karst can mean a major spring in another state or a well in another county. We cannot always rely on local leaders to do the right thing. Sometimes they would rather stick their heads in the sand than confront a problem head on.
A couple of years ago, Mountain View’s old Waste Water Treatment Plant disintegrated, releasing raw sewage into Jam-up Creek which is a tributary of the Jacks Fork National Scenic River. The city did not immediately report the problems with the plant and it wasn’t until local citizens complained of foul smells that the problems came to light. MDNR not only made the city install temporary sanitizing equipment and then helped the city get funding for a much needed replacement plant. The new plant is now operational. They have done the same thing for scores of rural communities across the state, protecting ground water and the health of our people.
They helped formulate new rules that made welldrillers install wells in a responsible manner, protecting the aquifers from shoddy work that would allow contamination from unsealed well pipe. They have also inaugurated programs to clean up illegal dumps and have dramatically reduced (40% by 2000) solid waste from entering our landfills by encouraging recycling programs, all of which meant eventual cleaner water for Missouri citizens.
On the rotunda of Missouri’s capitol building is
inscribed: “Salus populi suprema lex esto: Let the welfare of
the people be the supreme law.” The MDNR, for the
most part, through both Republican and Democratic administrations has helped to fulfill that phrase, our state’s motto. Whether it is managing the waste tire reclamation program which keeps us safe from disease-carrying mosquitoes and toxic tire fires or pressuring Doe Run to buy out homeowners living in the highly contaminated lead smelter town of Herculaneum, the diligent employees of MDNR have raised the quality of life for all of us in Missouri. It was fine for Doe Run to let their trucks and smelter contaminate people’s streets, yards and homes...until a citizen asked the MDNR to sample the streets. 300,000 ppm lead is what forced a buyout, a hideously high amount of lead to be on the “commons” And in people’s homes! MDNR responded with compassion for the people in that town.
Every day thousands of semi trucks run through Missouri’s highways with thousands of highly toxic chemicals. Sometimes there are accidents and spills and it is MDNR which rapidly responds to these life-threatening actions. Missouri is a better, safer place to live and settle because of programs like this.
When I hear that certain legislators want to dissolve this agency or hobble it by installing an “environmental audit privilege,” it makes me feel uneasy and I wonder what will become of our still fairly clean environment in this state. I fear for my children and my grandchildren, who would have to live with the likes of a corrupt corporation like Doe Run, who along with its predecessors poisoned the lead production areas including Herculaneum for well over a century. Even the best corporations really only care about their bottom line and not the welfare of the people. If we delve into the world of self-reporting and voluntary compliance with health, safety and environmental laws, we will not only be stating that we care more for corporations than for citizens, but also will be making Missouri a less desirable place to settle and live. Why should the welfare of corporations take precedence over the welfare of real people? In southern Missouri, TOURISM and AGRICULTURE are the two primary ways people make a living. Polluted rivers and wells would threaten these vital industries and all of our citizens. Who would want to fish or float in a polluted river? Who would want to buy a home with a polluted water supply? The economic eventualities would be devastating. Some would claim that MDNR is an agency out of control and applying the law in an overbearing manner. I say that this is a false claim. The Jacks Fork has been put on the impaired waters list bacterial pollution. I watched from the beginning when MDNR set up a TMDL committee of citizens to find creative and home grown solutions to such contentious pollution. At first I had my doubts that citizens with diverse interests could accomplish any remedies for too many horses, too many bad septic tanks and too many canoers, but over the last year this group has learned to trust one another enough to get some grants to study sinkholes in the watershed and get funding to upgrade septic systems in the area. Under the guidance of Steve Mahfood and the current crew at MDNR, I actually see hope in the Jacks Fork Watershed and in places like Herculaneum. I know Doyle Childers also to be an honorable man and one who will continue to lead this agency to protect that which we all value, the commons, our air, water and places like our state parks that make Missouri so special. Vote pro-life, not pro-corporation.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tom Kruzen
213 East 3rd St.
Mt.View, Missouri, 65548