Dear Environmental Protection Activists,

Email Cancer Action NY <canceractionny@yahoo.com> and we will guide you in building an environmental health education campaign in your community.  Communities can educate themselves when various parts of the community, including:  students, local artists, civic organizations, environmental groups and the news media work together to provide information to the public in unique and inspiring ways.  Artists can create environmental health education posters and put them up in public buildings.  Public speakers can make environmental health presentations to school classes or civic groups.  Students can write PSAs for local radio stations.  Communities that have come to understand the connections between pollution and disease will take action to protect the environment.

Thanks for taking action.

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Dear Environmental Protection Activists,

The NY Farm Bureau's (NY FB) advocacy points for the 2004 legislative session include opposition to any further regulation of open waste burning. NY FB continues to be the major obstacle to obtaining passage of a statewide ban of open waste burning.  Please contact NY FB at: nyfarmb@fb.org, or 1 800 342-4143 to express your disapproval of this very outdated position. You may also wish to call Senator Joseph L. Bruno, Majority Leader of the NYS Senate (518 455 3191), to share your concerns on this serious matter.

According to the US EPA's dioxin reassessment:  (1) the average American is exposed to approximately 1 pg dioxin TEQ/kg BW/day; (2) a 1 in 1000 cancer risk is imposed by this quantity of dioxin intake; (3) over 96 percent of dioxin exposure occurs via consumption of animal fat foods; (4) open waste burning is considered to represent the largest source category for dioxin releases to the environment.

Please sign-on to our letter below, which calls upon NY FB to educate its member farmers on the health damaging effects of dioxin contamination of the food supply.  You can copy this letter, click on the email address above and paste the letter into that message; then just add your name and address before sending.

Thanks for taking action.

John Lincoln, President
NY FB
Route 9W
P O Box 992
Glenmont, NY 12207

Dear Mr. Lincoln,

Dioxin minimization and exposure reduction are matters of critical importance to the health of New York State residents.  Exposure to this class of chemical compounds has been associated with increased cancer risk, as well as developmental deficits, cardiovascular disease, type-II diabetes and numerous endocrine disruption disorders.  According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), over 90 percent of dioxin exposure takes place via consumption of animal fat, which has been contaminated by way of atmospheric deposition on animal feed crops.  On July 1st, the Institute of Medicine (IoM) of the National Academies published “Dioxins and Dioxin-Like Compounds in the Food Supply:  Strategies to Decrease Exposure”.  A key recommendation of this report is for girls and women of childbearing age to reduce their consumption of animal fat foods due to the dioxin contaminant. 

US EPA ranks open waste burning as the largest source of dioxin releases to the environment in the United States.  State legislatures in California, Washington, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have banned open waste burning.  The banning of open waste burning is a necessary step in restoring the quality of dairy products and meats produced by New York State agriculture. 

As environmental protection activists, we are very disappointed that NY FB continues to bring forward a policy that opposes the banning of open waste burning.  We request that the NY FB initiate an educational project that will raise awareness among its membership on the health protection that can be provided by the elimination of open waste burning.  Please make every effort to change the minds of your farmers so that a law banning open waste burning can become a centerpiece for dioxin minimization in the State of New York.

Thank you for your attention to this matter of safeguarding of the public health.

Sincerely,