EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.
"Raw Milk, and Raw Emotion, Go To Court"
Minneapolis Star Tribune, 05/22/2012"Melinda Olson has given her 12-year-old son raw milk for years. When he walked away virtually unscathed from a serious bike accident last year, she credited his healthy diet of raw milk dairy products. Matthew Caldwell fed his 2-year-old son, Owen, raw milk in the spring of 2010. The boy was hospitalized for 13 days, victim of an E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak traced to raw milk producer Mike Hartmann."
"The Secret Life Of California's World-Class Strawberries"
The Salt/NPR, 05/22/2012"May is the month we see strawberries explode in the market. There are strawberry festivals in every corner of the nation celebrating the juicy ruby beauties, and Strawberry Queens crowned galore. Those traditional harvest time festivals make us think our strawberries are mostly grown on the farm just down the road. But in fact, one state — California — supplies 80 percent of America's strawberries, and the percentage is growing."
"Source Found for Missing Water in Sea-Level Rise"
Nature News, 05/21/2012"Climate change, with its associated melting ice caps and shrinking glaciers, is the usual suspect when it comes to explaining rising sea levels. But a recent study now shows that human water use has a major impact on sea-level change that has been overlooked."
"Maryland Set To Ban Arsenic-Containing Drug in Chicken Feed"
Wash Post, 05/21/2012Maryland is set to ban the arsenic-containing drug Roxarsone in chicken feed. Maryland is a major chicken producer, and that puts it ahead of most other states as well as the federal government. It is all the more remarkable, given that 'Big Chicken' is a major force in Maryland politics.
"At his family farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Lee Richardson raises thousands of chickens from fuzzy hatchlings to the juicy broilers stacked at grocery stores far and wide. Like a lot of farmwork, this seems simple, but it's not.
"Group Tracks Airborne Fungicide"
Minneapolis Star Tribune, 05/18/2012"FRAZEE, MINN. - Don and Norma Smith couldn't understand why their sheep stopped producing lambs in the mid-1990s. When half the animals died mysteriously over one winter, they gave up on the profitable hobby that had won blue ribbons for their kids at the Minnesota State Fair."
US Livestock Get Dose of Antibiotics From Spent Ethanol Grain: Report
Chicago Tribune, 05/15/2012"As the battle wages on over the safety of feeding antibiotics to livestock for growth promotion, a new report reveals yet another source of unregulated antibiotics in American animal feed--spent ethanol grain."
"Reaping What We Sow"
Ottawa Citizen, 05/14/2012"Chemical titans say they have what farmers need to fight superweeds, but will they only be adding to a growing problem?"
"USDA To Test Beef for More Strains of E. Coli"
Wash Post, 05/14/2012"On her 14th birthday, Kayla Boner got her driver's permit and then went home complaining of stomach-bug symptoms that landed her in the hospital two days later. Antibiotics didn't work. Kayla's condition deteriorated. Her kidneys failed. She had a seizure and went on a ventilator. Soon after, her brain activity ceased. Just 11 days after her symptoms surfaced, Kayla's distraught parents decided not to keep her on life support."
"Super Weeds No Easy Fix For US Agriculture -- Experts"
Reuters, 05/11/2012"A fast-spreading plague of 'super weeds' taking over U.S. farmland will not be stopped easily, and farmers and government officials need to change existing practices if food production is to be protected, industry experts said on Thursday."
"Wyoming Premium Farms Abuse Alleged By Humane Society (GRAPHIC VIDEO)"
Huffington Post, 05/09/2012New undercover videos of cruel treatment of pigs in a facility raising them for meat raised questions that resonated across the US meat industry.
Dow Rolls Out PR Campaign as USDA Weighs Herbicide-Resistant Corn Seed
Greenwire, 05/09/2012"The video shows corn being harvested against an orange sky as a pianist plays a somber tune."
"Fears of Gene Pollution Emerge In Tijuana River"
San Diego Union-Tribune, 05/08/2012"It’s the kind of scenario that might evolve in Hollywood: A college professor detects drug-resistance genes collecting in local wetlands, where they survive for weeks and are spread far and wide by seabirds.
But the discovery of extra-hardy DNA flourishing on the edge of San Diego isn’t science fiction. It’s the result of research by David Cummings, a microbiologist at Point Loma Nazarene University.
"Plant Study Flags Dangers Of Warming World"
Reuters, 05/03/2012"Plants are flowering faster than scientists predicted in response to climate change, research in the United States showed on Wednesday, which could have devastating knock-on effects for food chains and ecosystems. Global warming is having a significant impact on hundreds of plant and animal species around the world, changing some breeding, migration and feeding patterns, scientists say."
"Green Targets Being Watered Down For UN Summit -- Observers"
Reuters, 05/02/2012"Some of the main proposals in a draft text for negotiation at a U.N. sustainable development conference next month are being watered down at informal talks in New York, observers said on Tuesday, heightening fears the summit will fail to deliver."
"Genetically Modified Crops' Results Raise Concern"
San Francisco Chronicle, 05/01/2012"WASHINGTON -- Biotechnology's promise to feed the world did not anticipate 'Trojan corn,' 'super weeds' and the disappearance of monarch butterflies."




