The Ozarks are home to some of the most amazing, clear-running rivers anywhere. Below is some information on them, and groups working to protect them.
Organizations
Arkanas Canoe Club
The Ozark Society
Ozark Riverkeepers Network
Loose-knit Ozarkers working to protect the Current, Jack's Fork, and Eleven Point Rivers.
Scenic Rivers Stream Team Association

ACTION ALERT- IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED
STOP LARGE HOG CAFO FOR THE BUFFALO NATIONAL RIVER WATERSHED

Federal agency finds Ozark hellbender endangered

By The Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A federal agency has declared the Ozark hellbender an endangered species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final rule on Wednesday that places the aquatic salamander in the endangered category.
The amphibian lives in streams in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri and can reach two feet in length.

The agency says the main threat to the Ozark hellbender is damage to its habitat from mining, animal operations and fertilizer runoff.

Associated Press | Posted: Monday, May 2, 2011 8:34 pm
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed legislation Monday aimed at limiting nuisance lawsuits against large hog farms that produce foul odors, but he indicated a willingness to work with lawmakers on a revised version.

The governor said he vetoed the bill because it limited people's ability to win punitive damages against farms and because some provisions could have been interpreted to also apply to other types of annoying actions, such as noisy neighbors, vehicle exhaust or leaking gas tanks and oil lines.

This article was published for Tom Kruzen.

Published on Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org)
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Totalitarian Democracy

Richard Lichtman | Friday 18 March 2011

What follows is clearly not a thoroughly articulated perspective, but a call to others to present their own understanding of the situation we face.

Hog waste: Missouri lawmakers play dirty pool with family farms

By the Editorial Board St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Posted: Tuesday, March 1, 2011 9:15 pm

Protectors of property rights in Missouri take notice: State lawmakers have embarked on an unprecedented expansion of government power to intrude on private-property rights. Think of it as eminent domain abuse’s country cousin.

The Missouri legislature a few weeks ago did the citizens of the state no favors when they voted to overturn Proposition C, which maintained that utility companies in Missouri had to provide 15% of their energy production from renewable sources by 2021. This was a modest Renewable Energy Standard that was passed by 66% of the voters in 2008. Missouri legislators now subverted the public will to allow Missouri utilities to buy power from anywhere and in any way they please, and not have to buy from Missouri wind farms, or solar arrays or geothermal projects. A 2008 University of Missouri-St.

According to Forest Service data the Ozark hellbender's range is in the White and Black River watersheds of southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas.
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Habitat Protection Urged for Ozark Hellbender

This proposed listing was the result of a petition and lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity. The hellbender has languished on the state and federal proposed lists since the late 1990's but no action has been taken because of a lack of funding from Congress and administations going back through the Clinton Admiistration. The only way to get FWS to get off of their duffs is to sue them. Charles
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 9, 2010
Ark., Mo. salamander proposed for endangered list
By Tom Parsons