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| Organic? Free range? Terms may be deceptive |
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By ARI LEVAUX
Whole Foods describes its non-organic chicken, produced in Pennsylvania by Bell & Evans, as “barn roaming.” This pretty term invokes images of frolicking chickens, but all we really know for sure is they’re stuck inside some kind of structure.
According to a Bell & Evans representative, that company doesn’t use “barn roaming” to describe its chickens, so I asked Whole Foods what the phrase means. A representative told me, “There is currently no clear regulatory definition of the term ‘barn roaming.’ We expect our suppliers who use this claim on their products to use a reasonable definition and we expect the claim to be truthful.”
Unfortunately, opportunistic ambiguity is typical with poultry and eggs labeling, where the number of loosely defined marketing terms dwarfs the number of legal terms.
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| Resilient wolves carve out place in new West |
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By SHARIE PYKE
For The Outpost
Canis lupus (genus: dog; species: wolf), appeared on earth during the late Pleistocene, about 300,000 years ago. The gray wolf is one of the most successful mammals to grace the planet, surviving the Ice Age when other large mammals, including the saber-toothed tiger and the wooly mammoth, didn’t.
Wolves continue to prove their tenacity. The federal government introduced 66 wolves to Yellowstone National Park in March 1995. Wolves have now moved out of the park and into 28 Montana counties, causing a tug of war between environmentalists and ranchers. On June 15, The Friends of Wildlife, et al, filed a brief with U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy asking that wolves be put back on the endangered species list, claiming that the ruling to delist them was based on faulty science.
As of December, Montana’s wolf population stood at 536, after hunters removed 73. The average wolf needs 3,307 pounds of food per year, which explains why their preferred prey are large ungulates.
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| It’s not easy being platinum, but it can pay off |
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By T.J. GILLES
For The Outpost
It’s not easy being platinum, but it can save a lot of green.
Montana has four buildings certified as platinum – the highest rating by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council. That’s half the LEED Platinums in the entire state.
“We’re a world leader,” said Dan Dostal of the Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council on Tuesday before about a dozen members of the Billings Conservation Roundtable.
Mr. Dostal’s group is pushing for getting Platinum or Gold certification when sites are chosen for a new or refurbished Parmly Billings Library.
“The library is the most public of public buildings,” he said. “It’s the citizens’ living room.”
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| Program gets children in touch with nature |
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By T.J. GILLES - For The Outpost
Getting children outdoors and active can help children’s physical, cognitive and mental abilities while also helping abate such health problems as obesity, diabetes and stress.
That’s the focus of Children and Nature Network (C&NN), according to Carolyn Sevier of the Rim Country Land Institute, which has a 3,200-acre prairie preserve just west of Billings on Molt Road.
Ms. Sevier, who manages institute affairs from an office at Rocky Mountain College, spoke about the children and nature movement Tuesday at the Billings Area Conservation Roundtable meeting.
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| Stormwater rules in effect |
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City of Billings
Stormwater runoff is generated when precipitation from rain and snowmelt events flows over land or impervious surfaces, such as roof tops, asphalt and concrete, and does not percolate into the ground.
Runoff from urban areas is significantly higher compared to natural undisturbed areas of forests and fields. Polluted stormwater runoff is a leading cause of impairment to nearly 40 percent of the surveyed U.S. water bodies. Billings, like many other cities and towns, does not treat stormwater runoff.
In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Clean Water Act, which controls surface water quality protection in the United States. The statutes contain a variety of regulatory and nonregulatory tools to sharply reduce direct pollutant discharges into waterways, finance municipal wastewater treatment facilities, and manage polluted runoff.
A 1987 amendment to the CWA required implementation of a two-phase comprehensive national program to address stormwater runoff called the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Stormwater program.
As one of the requirements for the program the Billings City Council has adopted a stormwater ordinance titled “Stormwater Management and Control Article 28-100,” which will be in effect within the city limits on April 22, 2010.
The purpose of this ordinance is to protect and enhance the water quality of the Yellowstone River, water bodies, groundwater and wetlands.
A major focus of the city will be to inspect stormwater runoff controls at construction sites. Sediment runoff rates from construction sites are typically 1,000 to 2000 times greater than from prairie land.
In addition to the ordinance, the city has been working on a stormwater management manual, which will include construction specifications for stormwater pollution control. This manual is anticipated to be adopted in this summer.
More information is available on the Environmental Affairs web page for the city of Billings. (http://ci.billings.mt.us/index.aspx?nid=218). |
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