G
Guns Guns Guns
Guest
There's an area in Central Florida, not far from Disneyworld, called Lake Apopka.
In the 40s, someone got the idea of draining half the lake and planting crops in the muck.
Then they decided to take it one step further and in the off season, re-flood the cropland. They thought it would help the fertility and kill off weeds and they kept doing that for four decades.
All the pesticides that were on the crops went into the water and were pumped back into the lake, then pumped back on the crops. Not only were there people working in those fields; they were living in trailers next to the fields.
Today, even though they haven't farmed in that area since 1998 because it became so bad, they closed the lake down, twelve years later these people are finding themselves with all sorts of immune diseases and endocrine disruptor related diseases.
These have all been traced to pesticide exposure in animals. They have a rate of birth defects four times the Florida average.
In its wisdom, the Florida government provided millions of dollars to study water birds, and found out yes indeed, they'd been poisoned by these pesticides and it spent a million and a half to study the alligators of this area and found out they, too had reproductive harm.
It wasn't until this year that they set aside $500,000 to give to a little clinic that these 2500 workers could go to - and Governor Scott just vetoed it a few weeks ago.
The wealthy farmers received over $100,000,000 for the land.
The workers got zip.
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/09/08/how-the-modern-day-tomato-came-to-be/
In the 40s, someone got the idea of draining half the lake and planting crops in the muck.
Then they decided to take it one step further and in the off season, re-flood the cropland. They thought it would help the fertility and kill off weeds and they kept doing that for four decades.
All the pesticides that were on the crops went into the water and were pumped back into the lake, then pumped back on the crops. Not only were there people working in those fields; they were living in trailers next to the fields.
Today, even though they haven't farmed in that area since 1998 because it became so bad, they closed the lake down, twelve years later these people are finding themselves with all sorts of immune diseases and endocrine disruptor related diseases.
These have all been traced to pesticide exposure in animals. They have a rate of birth defects four times the Florida average.
In its wisdom, the Florida government provided millions of dollars to study water birds, and found out yes indeed, they'd been poisoned by these pesticides and it spent a million and a half to study the alligators of this area and found out they, too had reproductive harm.
It wasn't until this year that they set aside $500,000 to give to a little clinic that these 2500 workers could go to - and Governor Scott just vetoed it a few weeks ago.
The wealthy farmers received over $100,000,000 for the land.
The workers got zip.
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/09/08/how-the-modern-day-tomato-came-to-be/
