ashe

I think that people would be shocked at how flexible the EPA can really be.

Several years ago, the EPA was making a big deal out of spreading chicken litter on fields, and the use of hog lagoons. The complaint was that they were running off into drinking water, and that the water in our region barely passed drinking standards because of the excess of nitrogen. The EPA used a regular ABCDF scale (like in school), and our water had a C-.

At the same time, the USDA found that cow parts were being used in chicken feed, so spreading chicken litter on cow pastures was helping to spread Mad Cow Disease.

Because of this, farmers were told that a law would be passed to put an end to spreading chicken litter and hog lagoons by 2010, so they needed to come up with an alternative.

Some big companies threw some money at the right people, a few of the wrong people lost their jobs... and lo and behold, we suddenly don't hear anything else about problems with excessive nitrogen or the spread of disease to livestock. Nothing changed with the farmers, but the problem just... went away.

Scary.

Really?

LOL @ cooper... I bet cooper will get a lump of coal in his stocking this Christmas.

cooper, you know better than that, what you were seeing was the unloading dump for the coal hoppers making a delivery on the N&W, coal dropped out of the hopper into a bin under the track then onto an elevator to be loaded onto a truck. They even have a representation of this in the layout in the Ashe county Museum.

They used to mine it in West Jefferson across from W J Hardware. They had a mine that ran under the train tracks. I saw thousands of truck loads come out of it.

I for one will do my part and keep a watchful eye on the coal mining taking place in Ashe...

Oh and lest we forget the septic tank flow from that not a rental not a purchase trailer house of lore.

Yeah, we should keep a closer eye on the coal mining companies here

http://appvoices.org/2014/1...he-switch/