Legislator seeks look into claims state researcher was silenced

[LeighAnn]

Source: Fargo Forum

A state lawmaker wants the Legislature to investigate the claims of a former state worker who contends in a whistleblower lawsuit that he was fired because he planned to testify about his research into the dangers of the farm chemical atrazine.

"My passion is to get good policy based on sound science, and I felt I was as qualified as anyone to talk about atrazine in the state's waters," said Paul Wotzka, who had been a hydrologist for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

According to his lawsuit, filed last week in federal court, Wotzka had planned to tell a legislative panel in March that the state Agriculture Department misrepresented its own data by claiming that atrazine levels in Minnesota rivers and streams were in compliance with water quality standards.

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Wotzka said he was told that he couldn't testify because he no longer worked for the Agriculture Department. A week later, he said he was told he was being put on leave and would be investigated. He was fired on May 8.


Read more: http://www.in-forum.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D8PSLB5O1&forumcomm_check_return

[Rick Myers]

1. This story was above the fold in today's Strib Metro section

In Minnesota Big Ag rules the roost!!! These compainies didn't pour millions into Repuke campaigns to hear the Truth, for God's sake!!!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Big changes are needed now. Hope Wotza's case will turn the tide.

From the article:Atrazine is a herbicide widely used on cornfields in the United States, but has been banned by the European Union because of environmental and health concerns. Wotzka's lawsuit describes atrazine as disrupting the endocrine system in a number of species and having the potential to interfere with reproduction.

The lawsuit also said Wotzka planned to testify that the Agriculture Department's "continuing support of corn for ethanol was a major contributing factor to increasing atrazine and nitrate concentrations in Minnesota."
(snip)

But Rep. Ken Tschumper, DFL-La Crescent, said that the agriculture community and agribusiness "went through the roof" this spring over his efforts to centralize the regulation of pesticides and herbicides in the state Department of Health, reducing the Agriculture Department's authority over the chemicals.

"Atrazine is the most widely used pesticide in this country. Half of the corn and soybean acres have atrazine applied to them. This is a big deal," said Tschumper, who is a dairy farmer.

Tschumper said he learned the day before Wotzka was to testify that he had been prohibited from doing so. He accused Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration of "stonewalling scientific review" of the research into water pollution. "They do not want the public to know what the research is indicating," he said.
(snip)

Gov. Tim Pawlenty

[kestrel91316]

3. Farmers who don't care about the health effects of the products

they are addicted to need to starve AND go bankrupt. Let people who care about their planet and their fellow humans be the farmers.