July 28, 2010 The Department of Natural Resources announced today that the Natural Resources Commission authorized protection of more than 3,000 acres of Brown County State Park as a State Nature Preserve, to be called the Ten O'Clock Line Nature Preserve. Here's the press release. July 25, 2010 "Despite his peacenikish last name, Dove is no ELF. He's a former Marine and lawyer who, upon retirement in 1987, began living his lifelong dream as a commercial fisherman. Since then, he's lived and worked on the Neuse River along the coastal region of North Carolina, which he describes as one of the most beautiful watersheds in the country. "And then, all of a sudden, everything went belly up," Dove told more than 100 Hoosier farmers who gathered for the Indiana CAFO Watch Conference in Muncie on July 17. "The fish got sick. I got sick. My son got sick." The Bloomington Alternative continues its coverage of CAFOs. July 21, 2010 "Union City resident Wendy McCarter-Read knows first-hand the harmful effects of living near a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO). Her home on the far east side of Randolph County, near the Ohio border, is just a few miles from one of them, with its thousands of hogs and all the smell that comes with it." NUVO reports on animal factories. July 18, 2010 "While growing up in St. Louis, Jesse Kharbanda developed a bond with the Midwest and an urge to advocate for a cleaner environment and energy. He's combined both as director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to protecting Indiana's environment by using cleaner energy." Read more of this profile in the Indianapolis Star. July 11, 2010 "When Rick Dove began his crusade against concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in his home of North Carolina in the early 1990s, he was a pioneer in this particular field of citizen activism. When the Vietnam veteran and retired Judge Adjutant General first became alarmed about water quality in the Neuse River that flows past his home in New Bern, few outside the agriculture industry even knew what the term meant." More on CAFOs from the Bloomington Alternative July 11, 2010 "But the environmentalists think in terms of trees and other living things when they think of public forests, and the Forest Service thinks of board feet". More on biomass incineration from the Bloomington Alternative. July 3, 2010 The Indianapolis Star reports that "Colorado-based Abound Solar will invest $500 million in an unfinished Tipton, Ind., plant that had once been set for making cars. The unfinished plant will become a solar-panel manufacturing facility with the help of a $400 million loan guarantee, the state and federal government announced today." Read the rest... June 27, 2010 From the Bloomington Alternative: "If state or county officials were to post an honest welcome sign for travelers arriving across the Natcher Bridge, it would say, "Welcome to Spencer County, the Heart of Toxic Valley." Read More June 23, 2010 The Associated Press reports that "Ohio's governor has asked state environmental regulators to come up with a way to save 214 jobs at a northwest Ohio plant that is considering a move to Indiana because of an environmental rule." Read more from the Los Angeles Times June 10, 2010 Indiana "...will begin to acquire 43,000 acres located in the flood plain of the Wabash River and Sugar Creek in west central Indiana that will benefit wildlife, public recreation and the environment. The area, which follows 94 river miles along the Wabash River, stretches across four counties from Shades State Park to Fairbanks Landing Fish & Wildlife Area south of Terre Haute. The Wabash site is larger than the combined size of the Morgan-Monroe State Forest and Brown County State Park and will increase DNR-owned riparian wetland areas by more than 64 percent." Read the press release