Jim,
I agree with everything you said about PIK and aquifers, etc. except
that the EPA does not make laws and does not push ethanol. Congress
makes the laws and directs the EPA and other agencies to carry them out.
In this case, the Ag lobby pushed Congress aggressively to require
ethanol in our gas and subsidized the producers to provide it.
BTW, this is the greatest government on earth and I proudly vote
democratic. It was our former Rep. governor (MO) that gave his brother a
huge sweetheart deal for an ethanol plant. His dad is now our newest US
senator, Roy Blunt. Go figure.
Lee
On 5/26/2011 3:13 PM, spridgets-request@autox.team.net wrote:
> Date: Thu, 26 May 2011 14:40:46 -0500
> From: Jim Johnson<bmwwxman@gmail.com>
> Cc:spridgets@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: [Spridgets] Re A (sad) tale of ethanol???
> Message-ID:<BANLkTi=PN_Bp-FMYdVF3iO=d3C=50unK1w@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Good on ya, Mate. I live in Dodge City Kansas where if farming disappeared
> tomorrow so would our city (wheat, corn& meat). However, this intimate
> contact with the farm community allows me to see what PIK and other
> subsidies have done. There are farmers out here who basically quit farming
> years ago when they found that playing the government subsidy game was far
> less work than actually growing much of anything. Not only less work, but
> higher paying!! AND, in the case of corn, they are sucking up the last of
> our most significant natural resource, water.
>
> We rely on the Ogallala Aquifer for water. Once the government accelerated
> the ethanol fiasco, all these farmers turned to growing irrigated corn - not
> as feed, but as a cash crop for the ethanol plants. Fine, you say? What if
> it takes more water than you were thinking to make corn based ethanol?
>
> A study, published in the journal - Environmental Science and Technology and
> the University of Minnesota found that as corn-based ethanol production
> approximately doubled nationwide between 2005 and 2008, related water use
> more than tripled. Since then it has continued to rise dramatically. In the
> past several years, the water level in the aquifer here (where we grow most
> of the nation's wheat and feed and raise most of its cattle) is dropping at
> an alarming rate and many wells are going dry leaving the land a desert not
> even capable of watering cattle.
>
> In short, corn based ethanol as pushed by the EPA is driving up the cost of
> all foods, not just corn, while also depleting the aquifers at a staggering
> rate. When that water is gone, it will take centuries to replenish and over
> those centuries many people all over the world will starve to death for lack
> of food.
>
> If you believe the EPA knew what it was doing, then you are naive. If EPA
> believed it knew what it was doing then the law of unintended consequences
> reins supreme.
>
> Cheers!!
> Jim Vote democratic if you want more great government in your life.
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