[Originally posted at Food & Water Watch]

In the classic song Fishin’ Blues, roots and blues legend Taj Mahal romanticizes the simplicity of going down to his favorite fishing hole to partake in one of our oldest traditions. He sings, “Many fish bite if you’ve got good bait. Here’s a little tip that I would like to relate. With my pole and my line, I’m a-goin’ fishin’, yes I’m goin’ fishin’, and my baby’s goin’ fishin’ too.” Apparently, even if you want to bring along a few giant round fish cages and set them up off the coast of Hawaii, soon you can go fishin’ too. According to our federal government – fish farming is the same as fishing.

There are some in the seafood industry who want to expand factory fish farming into open ocean waters, similar to the industrial factory farms we already have on land. Open ocean aquaculture (factory fish farming) has a lot of companies seeing dollar signs, but there are lots of reasons why it’s a bad idea. Unfortunately, this bad idea is taking another step in the wrong direction thanks to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – the agency tasked with conserving and managing our ocean natural resources. READ FULL POST

If you’re following the fracking debate closely, it’s been a rather busy few weeks chock full of media coverage. Today, Pro Publica published an interview with Benjamin Grumbles, former EPA assistant administrator for water during the Bush years, who suggests that Congress should revisit the exemption of fracking from the Clean Water Act. That’s big news considering the EPA initially declared that fracking did not pose a threat to our drinking water. It’s especially big news for those of us who support an outright ban on fracking, which we are calling for this week.

Fracking threatens our water — water we use for drinking, farming and bathing — and the speed with which the industry is developing drilling sites while federal and local governments slowly figure out what to do is disconcerting. The interview with Grumbles reveals much about the rocky road that has brought us to this point.

Here’s a snapshot of last week’s (Feb 27 – March 4) speed round on fracking: READ FULL POST