Below is the press release from the Sierra Club's Clean Water Campaign and there are two urls from a Joplin Globe Editorial and great article by Wally Kennedy of the Globe:

http://www.joplinglobe.com/cnhi/joplinglobe/homepage/local_story_2391636...

http://www.joplinglobe.com/editorial

Clean Water Campaign

1005 Belleview Ct., Columbia, MO 65203

Phone: (573) 881-0553 Fax: (573) 449-9540

Missouri Clean Water Campaign http://www.sierraclub.org

For Immediate Release – August 27, 2008

Court rebukes Blunt administration

On August 25, 2008, Judge Patricia Joyce of the 19th Judicial Circuit Court, ruled that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) should issue no construction or operating permits to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that are proposed within 15 miles of a State Park, State Historic Site or a site on the National Register of Historic Places.

Judge Joyce noted that MDNR has a constitutional duty to preserve and protect State Parks and Historic Sites and that MDNR had, for the past five years, failed to enforce, comply with, or honor any Stay Order of the Administrative Hearing Commission. The Judge judgecited the failure of MDNR to abide by the Stay Order stay order issued by the Administrative Hearing Commission and the subsequent issuance of an Operating Permit for a CAFO near to Roaring River State Park.

“It is a sad day when a Court of Law court of law must issue an order to MDNR to carry out its constitutional duty. Apparently, Governor Blunt’s MDNR Director – Doyle Childers – had been so intent on issuing permits for CAFOs to operate that he forgot that the Missouri Constitution requires him to protect State Parks and Historic Sites,” stated Ken Midkiff, State Chairman of the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels Missouri Clean Water Campaign.

“Miles and miles of our state’s waterways have been impacted by runoff for CAFOs. Thousands of fish have died. It is about time that someone reminded Director Childers of his constitutional duty. I have studied the Court Order court order and it concludes that MDNR has utterly failed in that duty” stated Tom Kruzen, Vice Chair of the Missouri Clean Water Campaign..

Scott Dye, National Director of the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels (and whose family farm home is adjacent to an 80000-hog CAFO) stated: “We would hope that MDNR Director Childers does not appeal this decision and waste the money of taxpayers. Surely, even Matt Blunt and Doyle Childers acknowledge the importance to the state’s economy of State Parks and Historic Sites, and that these must be protected from the air and water impacts of CAFOs. People come to State Parks and Historic Sites for many reasons, none of them having to do with hog stink.”