Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009

TTT JULY 29: HENNEPIN COUNTY's GARBAGE BURNER: Should It Up Its Emissions 21%?

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The Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC), (Hennepin garbage burner) wants to bump its garbage-burning by 21%. The facility's MPCA permit expired in 2003, but it's been allowed to function without review or renewing since then. That permit allowed Covanta - the private operating firm - to send 2.2 million pounds of pollutants per year into the city's air. According to all documents, among the deadly compounds contaminating our breathing apparatus are 2,200 pounds of lead - the same lead we've been stripping off home and school walls for its effect on brain development in children, among other ills. Another? Mercury - already acknowledged as a fish killer and cancer creator in humans: 360 pounds per year. After the city's planning commission denied Covanta's and the Hennepin County's request for a conditional use permit (CUP) to increase that output by 21% - or 212 tons of garbage PER DAY more than the 1,000 tons currently permitted, they appealed to the Minneapolis City Council's Zoning Committee before consideration by the full Council. HERC's last-minute decision to postpone the Zoning Committee hearing for state review will delay the appeal for months.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL queries environmental advocates and citizens absent full participation by HERC officials.

GUESTS: • State Rep. FRANK HORNSTEIN, (DFL-60B) - Minneapolis • JUSTIN EIBENHOLZL - Environmental Program Coordinator for SECIA (Southeast Como Improvement Assn.) • DARRELL GERBER - Clean Water Action Program Coordinator • NANCY HONE of Neighbors Against the Burner and Minneapolis Neighbors for Clean Air • UNAVAILABLE: JOHN SIGMOND - Business Manager for Covanta Hennepin Energy Resource Co, LLP (or a representative of Covanta or Hennepin County)

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Wednesday, Jul 22, 2009

JULY 22: Feedlots and Pollution

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WEDS, JULY 22: RURAL FEEDLOTS: AIR- AND WATER-BORNE DISEASES PLAGUING GREATER MINNESOTA

The long crusade to halt air and water contamination from a dairy feedlot's open lagoons of fetid manure releasing upwards of 300 dangerous chemicals into communities surrounding Thief River Falls has thrown a glaring light on the unwillingness and inability of citizens, state agencies and the Attorney General to regulate the serious health impacts of Minnesota's corporate farms on rural life. Massive hog and dairy feedlots enjoy far greater legislative and judicial support than do the official rulings of the State Health Department and the federal Centers for Disease Control that such operations pose a provable health hazard to humans after in-home air quality monitoring.

These are not the friendly family farms we all grew up believing were integral to our Upper Midwest culture and sensibility, not to mention our economy. These corporate farms are the outgrowth of decades of erosion in the agricultural foundations we viewed as America's breadbasket, gobbling up land and cramming animals into immobility, never nurtured and literally milked of whatever market value their bodies can produce with little investment in their well-being and ignoring the effects of their toxic wastes on their surrounding communities.

A prime example of this agribusiness phenomenon sweeping the state is the case of Thief River Falls-based Excel Dairy and its three open lagoons of animals wastes feeding toxic chemicals into air and water, sickening, sometimes to death, the humans living in the communities surrounding its operations, but which has - in court - escaped the consequences of its flagrant violations of law and regulations governing such enterprises. Even the often-compliant MPCA joined with Attorney General Lori Swanson asked a local district court judge to declare the lagoons a health hazard and nuisance and to cease Excel's waste emissions. He dismissed the suit out of hand. Despite thumbing its nose at regulation, Excel was given a new permit.

Minnesota's watchdog Clean Water Action has taken this issue head-on, joined by activist neighbors who have felt the toxic sting within their families.

This week, TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and a guest co-host examine the Excel Dairy case in light of the larger issues plaguing many rural communities - and, by extension, all of Minnesota and the core cities downriver from many similar operations, seriously threatening our air and water quality, therefore the health of humans everywhere.

GUESTS: • JULIE JANSEN - Rural Communities Program Organizer, Clean Water Action; • JEFF BROUSE, Thief River Falls resident, small businessman, and anti-feedlot activist; • HOWARD PERSON - Pennington County Extension Educator/County Feedlot Officer

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Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009

TTT July 15: MINNEAPOLIS CIVIL RIGHTS DEPARTMENT

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MINNEAPOLIS CIVIL RIGHTS DEPARTMENT: Can It Survive the Budget Ax?

Mayor RT Rybak's revised 2009 budget recommends severing from the city's Civil Rights Department the key division that processes complaints and investigates discrimination cases occurring within the city and transferring its functions to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. (St. Paul's Human Rights Department does the same in that city.) The budget proposal eliminates five full time attorney-investigators, two contract attorney-investigators and an attorney-supervisor. Rare is the human and civil rights agency not plagued by complaint backlogs. Minneapolis is no exception. It takes upwards of two years to resolve complaints.

Is this a wise move, even under Governor Pawlenty's unallotments - slicing LGAs (local government aid)? Does this cut and transfer represent a political "gotcha" in the longstanding feud between Pawlenty and the City of Minneapolis? If backlogs double and discrimination balloons for lack of timely complaint determination and resolution, who wins? Who loses?

State Human Rights Department commissioner Velma Korbel, insists that the state department has no backlog. She also states flatly that not only would the department handle any increased caseload resulting from a transfer of Minneapolis' Complaint Investigation Unit, but Governor Pawlenty has personally assured her that whatever resources are required to maintain the legal case turnaround time of 312 days. This, despite a documented 24% cut in the MDHR budget, which Korbel denies is anymore than 5%.

An appointed Task Force (pushed by CM Elizabeth Glidden) formed to present alternatives to elimination of the MDCR Complaint Investigation Unit or find $300,000 to retain it, has just completed its study, findings and recommendations. The report will go before the Minneapolis City Council's Health, Energy and Environment Committee Monday, July 20th. Join the conversation as we dissect the task force report and test its chances for influencing the budget decision.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and Guest cohost NANCY SARTOR query Minneapolis officials and a few advocates from the communities most affected by these decisions and put some of these issues in historical context.

GUESTS:

• ELIZABETH GLIDDEN, Minneapolis Ward 8 City Councilmember

• DR. JOSIE R. JOHNSON - co-founder, Minneapolis Civil Rights Department; former University Regent and honoree of the Josie Robinson Johnson Human Rights and Social Justice Award

• KENNETH BROWN - Chair, Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission

• LOUISA HEXT - Member, Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission

• VELMA KORBEL - Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Human Rights

• NOT APPEARING: MAYOR RT RYBAK (or his representative)

• CAN'T GET US OVER THE AIR? STREAM TTT LIVE and LATER

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Wednesday, Jul 08, 2009

JULY 8: CitizensJury-ElectoralReform

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THE CITIZENS JURY and ELECTION REFORM

The Jury is IN.The Citizens Jury, that is, on Election Recounts. After the longest recount in Minnesota history ultimately giving Senator Al Franken a 312-vote victory margin over Norm Coleman, near universal kudos for the integrity of the recount process and the judiciary that decided the challenge nevertheless left open the question of how and who conducts Minnesota elections, counts its ballots, especially absentee ballots, triggers recounts and the tedious work that was left to county and state elections officials, let alone the State Canvassing Board and subsequent court trials and appeals. The Citizens Jury part of the Minneapolis-based Jefferson Center for New Democratic Processes is touted as "an opportunity for a microcosm of Minnesota's voters to examine and evaluate the recent recount in Minnesota, along with other recounts, and report on their findings. Not only will the Citizens Jury's views be made available to the general public, but the final meeting of the project is scheduled so that the Citizens Jury will be able to report its findings to a national meeting of Secretaries of State held in Minnesota July 17 and 18, 2009. Most of its findings will be available for discussion on July 8th, along with a larger discussion of election reform initiatives passed with broad support by the DFL-dominated Legislature last session, but vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and guest co-host TTT Capitol Correspondent MARTIN OWINGS talk with election advocates and Citizens Jury chairs about the latter's recount report and last session's reform initiatives and why we ended up with nothing.

GUESTS: JOHN HOTTINGER, former MN State Senate Majority Leader, co-chair, Citizens Jury REP. LAURA BROD, R-New Prague, Lead Republican on MN House election issues MIKE DEAN Executive Director, Common Cause Minnesota

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Wednesday, Jul 01, 2009

JULY 1: CopCulture#3

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TruthToTell continues to examine the dark and isolated world of local police culture and the nature of law enforcement in general.

Part III: Police Accountability and Public Policy In theory, police internal affairs units ride herd on their own - the only public agency at any level in charge of investigating itself (although some federal agencies host offices of inspectors general). Rare, indeed, does the Internal Affairs unit - in St. Paul, the Police Civilian Review Commission – crack down on its fellow officers, despite being despised by them for even looking into complaints.

Next stop is supposed to be the Civilian Police Review Authority (Minneapolis) or Civilian Review Board (St. Paul). Even here, what is supposed to be a check and balance on the internal review processes fails to sustain complaints at an alarming level or to hold officers accountable for cruel and irresponsible - sometimes criminal - behavior. Politics have placed cops on those boards and authorities, forgetting that the cops are not the only ones being charged, but already having been through cop-controlled investigations, should be free from intimidation and participation in deliberating complaints that reach them. Prosecutors are reluctant to bring charges against police officers, reliant as they are on the notion of deference to an an officer's reports - reports known to be cut from whole cloth, in many cases. Judges defer to police even when confronted with substantial evidence of wrongdoing. Juries, either from fear or undue respect for cops, acquit them of some of the most violent charges coming into court. How can society function without holding its armed, armored and powerful and violent law enforcement officers accountable for their violent, unfair policing and misdeeds, too often death-dealing - getting away with murder? How can law enforcement ever develop trust within the communities officers are constantly harassing, and why are urban police forces still so dominated by white males patrolling in a sea of color?

Our questions this week: • Why can’t we convict renegade cops and redress their abuses? 
• Where is accountability in law enforcement? • Is it recoverable? 
• Cops don’t live in the places they patrol anymore. What role has that played in the dissociation between police and the people they "protect?"

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and guest host NANCY SARTOR talk with current and former local and federal law enforcement, defense community, critics, policymakers, residents and reporters about what we can do to change these occupying armies back to community policing. Join us for this three-part series.

GUESTS: • MICHAEL QUINN, retired Minneapolis Police Officer; Author,Walking with the Devil (Inside the Code of Silence) • JILL CLARK, Criminal Defense Attorney; Plaintiff's Advocate; former candidate, Minnesota Supreme Court •MICHELLE GROSS, Executive Director, CUAPB (Communities Against Police Brutality) • NATHANIEL KHALIQ, President, St. Paul Chapter, NAACP; Legal Redress Chair, MN State Conference of the NAACP • PETER ERLINDER, Professor of Constitutional Law, Wm. Mitchell College of Law; National Lawyers Guild • RICHARD GREELIS, retired Bloomington Police Officer; Author,Cop Book

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