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39<br />

Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces: The Bush Environmental Record<br />

I want to draw you a word picture of a lagoon. This is not an azure lagoon trimmed with<br />

pearly beaches and wrea<strong>the</strong>d with leafy palm trees, not <strong>the</strong> type of lagoon you may remember<br />

from Gilligan's Island, where a caged lion or an Indian in a canoe might wash up just to get<br />

that week's episode rolling. This lagoon is a rectangle <strong>the</strong> size of three football fields, lined<br />

with 40-mil high-density polyethylene and filled, to a depth of thirty feet, with pig shit.<br />

Now imagine that, at <strong>the</strong> bottom of <strong>the</strong> lagoon, pebbles have punctured <strong>the</strong> liner, allowing<br />

<strong>the</strong> liquefied pig shit to seep under and ferment. A bubble is growing. The polyethylene<br />

liner rises like a creature from <strong>the</strong> brown lagoon. It breaks <strong>the</strong> surface, spilling a pungent<br />

stew of untreated feces and urine into a nearby creek. An undocumented Guatemalan worker<br />

is ordered to puncture <strong>the</strong> liner with a shotgun blast. Retching, he fires. The swollen liner retreats<br />

into <strong>the</strong> fetid depths. Mission accomplished.<br />

The next day, however, one of <strong>the</strong> most magnificent sights in all of nature, a shit geyser,<br />

explodes into <strong>the</strong> afternoon sky. Those working nearby watch <strong>the</strong> pillar rise ten, <strong>the</strong>n<br />

twenty, <strong>the</strong>n thirty feet above <strong>the</strong> lagoon. It is as though <strong>the</strong> Earth itself is afflicted with a<br />

virulent case of projectile diarrhea.<br />

Hold that image in your mind.<br />

George W Bush is <strong>the</strong> worst environmental president in our nation's history. As you<br />

read this, his self-interested coterie of industry shills are dismantling <strong>the</strong> protections that you<br />

and I take for granted.<br />

Our air, water, and wildlife are under attack. How could this have happened under <strong>the</strong><br />

watch of a man who spoke so passionately and with such quiet eloquence to this very issue in<br />

his very first presidential Earth Day speech?<br />

Each of us understands that our prosperity as a nation will mean little if our legacy<br />

to future generations is a world of polluted air, toxic waste, and vanished forests...<br />

I encourage Americans to join me in renewing our commitment to protecting <strong>the</strong><br />

environment and leaving our children and grandchildren with a legacy of clean water,<br />

clean air, and natural beauty.

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