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Building Environmental Community: Owensboro, Kentucky

Working for a Healthier Environment in Kentucky

more Earth Day 2008 -- We've got a lot going on. Click here to learn more!
more Owensboro now has a hybrid program! Meet the new Prius here.
more Read about our programs: Tours de Stench, Locally Grown Food, Cool Cities, and Mercury Rising


Aloma Dew and her husband, Lee, send a message about the condition of the air as they stand in front of a huge pile of chicken manure in Kentucky. Photo by Tom Valtin.

Here in Kentucky, the Sierra Club's Building Environmental Community (BEC) program is working on two specific issues— Our Clean Air/Mercury Campaign and CAFOs/Clean Water. (CAFO stands for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.)

Kentucky’s main BEC work is in rural organizing and assisting threatened communities when concentrated animal feeding operations try to move in. Right now we are helping to fight 60 proposed hog barns in the far western part of the state,in Hickman and Fulton Counties. Anyone interested should contact Shirley Sharp sharpkyusa@webtv.net in Fulton County. We continue to work with problems of industrial chicken. Last year BEC KY was part of a successful lawsuit and settlement with Tyson Chicken. We do Tours de Stench upon request, averaging 3 or 4 a year. We take people out for the full sensory experience of CAFOs, talk with the neighbors and explain why this is not a sustainable form of animal agriculture.

One of the Kentucky efforts is to serve locally-grown, antibiotic and hormone free foods at all our events. It has gone a long way in helping with our relationships with farmers and in teaching about safe and sustainable food.


Green River Day was Great!

Betsy Bennett at Green River DayIt was okay to eat the fish at the annual Green River Day festival held by the Building Environmental Community program along with Water Sentinels and Watershed Watch.

The event was held on September 8. Betsy Bennett, the Kentucky Chapter's Conservation chair, donned a striking costume for the day. She handed out mercury-free Swedish fish at events. (For those who don't get it, Swedish fish are candy.)

 

 
 
Sign me up to help protect Kentucky from harmful policies about mercury and concentrated animal feeding operations.
 


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