A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

18 August 2015

Thanks, Jack Stanford; a beef with meat inspection; greens v. labor

Dr. Jack Stanford gives his final State of the Lake address at the annual meeting of the Flathead Lakers. He’s retiring as director of the University of Montana’s biological station at Yellow Bay, a position he’s held for 36 years. He’ll use the occasion to discuss future and past threats to water quality in the Flathead Basin, among them 100-tank-car-long trains of Bakken oil spilling oil into the Middle Fork Flathead River, and coal mining in the British Columbian North Fork.

It was the proposed Cabin Creek Coal Mine just nine miles north of the border, and the threat it posed to our fisheries and water, that helped Stanford turn a small, sleepy academic outpost into a world class fresh water research station. Max Baucus obtained millions of dollars for baseline studies of the North Fork and Flathead Lake, thus financing research at Yellow Bay that was instrumental in convincing the International Joint Commission to rule that the Cabin Creek mine would jeopardize bull trout spawning streams. Stanford leveraged Yellow Bay’s contribution in fighting the mine to build the biological station.

Stanford and his wife, Bonnie Ellis, also a PhD scientist, are retiring to Twisp, WA, on the east side of the North Cascades. They’ll be missed, and cannot be thanked enough for their contributions to preserving the Flathead’s high quality of water.

Consumers should have a beef with these meat inspection disclosure rules. Beef contaminated with ecoli was discovered during an inspection at a Montana meat processing plant in June, reports the Billings Gazette. The contaminated meat, which was not shipped, was destroyed:

Meat Inspection Bureau Chief … [Gary] Hamel says a water machine used to clean cow carcasses at the facility was clogged and could not reach a high enough temperature to kill pathogens.

The machine was repaired — but the name of the plant in hot water for not using hot enough water is not being released:

Board of Livestock Executive Officer Christian Mackay and Hamel say they cannot release the name of the plant or its location because no recall was necessary.

A friend who thought this was odd asked a few questions. He learned that:

… the Montana Department of Livestock follows USDA regulations in carrying out its inspection responsibilities.

Those regulations and instruction do not allow the Department to disclose the names of the businesses inspected.

So, apparently producers don’t want to be under the thumb of the feds and their rules until it serves as a source of protection for them in instances of this type.

That unpleasant odor is the smell of a coverup legally authorized by a government agency captured by the industry it’s supposed to regulate.

Will Greens v. Unions hurt the Montana Democratic Party? In his wrap-up of the party’s rules convention last weekend, Intelligent Discontent’s Pete Talbot observed:

… Organized labor is an integral part of the Democratic Party but it tends to be the 300 pound gorilla. The goals of labor are admirable and I’m a strong supporter, but not to the exclusion of other interest groups. I sometimes wonder if the 49 percent turnout in Missoula County for the 2014 midterm elections was because other constituencies didn’t feel represented by the Democratic Party.

(Note to the environmental community, of which I consider myself a part of: get involved — work for candidates, raise money for the party, become a precinct committeeman or woman — and you might get a few more seats at the table. Participation matters.)

… Jon Tester’s biggest round of applause came from his comments on the Iran nuclear treaty, which he supports. But he also gave a good deal of time to climate change, which I don’t believe gets enough attention from the party. He talked about this being one of the earliest harvests he’s ever had on his farm, and mentioned other ranchers and farmers getting their hay in weeks ahead of schedule. He’s seeing the effects of climate change first hand and getting passionate about it.

There’s a constant tension between labor and environmentalists on issues of hydrocarbon and mineral development. Labor supports the Keystone XL pipeline, the construction of which would create jobs that pay well, coal mining and the Colstrip power plants, and oil and gas development. Environmentalist favor an end to burning hydrocarbons, whose combustion produces the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and unpleasant chemicals. Although moving to wind and photovoltaics for generating electricity will create many news jobs, it will eliminate many old jobs held by union members. New mines will create new jobs that pay well (but not necessarily union jobs), but those mines will inject pollutants into the environment as well as money into the economy. In balancing the equities, unions give immediate jobs greater weight than do environmentalists. It’s a clash of values, but the interests of both groups do intersect and it behooves both groups to work with each other.

And to some extent, it’s also a clash of styles. Some labor leaders take too much enjoyment from being tough guys, which is why people my age, when asked what comes to mind first when they hear the word “union,”, reply “Jimmy Hoffa and Dave Beck.”