Climate & Environmental Protection
LSP Applauds State Supreme Court’s Rejection of Daley Appeal
“The Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision not to take up this appeal affirms the right of the people of Winona County to govern themselves, and to decide what the future of…
Protecting Iowa’s Clean Water from Meatpacking Pollution (DWD v. Agri Star)
Clean water is essential for communities and ecosystems to thrive. Unfortunately, the dominant industrial food system degrades our nation’s waters at every step, including slaughter and processing. The Agri Star…
U.S. Right to Know: Blood, body parts and bacteria pollute wastewater from meatpacking plants. New rules could help clean it up
Holly Bainbridge, staff attorney at FarmSTAND, a legal advocacy organization, agrees that the rules don’t go far enough. “After decades of inaction, it is not nearly enough to truly counter…
Driftless Water Defenders Files Federal Clean Water Lawsuit Against Agri Star for Polluting Iowa’s Yellow River and Hecker Creek
“People have the right to enjoy their local waterways, in the Driftless Region and everywhere,” said Holly Bainbridge, a staff attorney for FarmSTAND, and one of the attorneys representing DWD.…
CBS 2 Iowa: Iowa meatpacking plant sued over years of alleged water pollution
"People have the right to enjoy their local waterways, in the Driftless Region and everywhere," said FarmSTAND attorney Holly Bainbridge in the press release. "After 60 days of notice, it’s…
Sentient Media: Iowa Slaughterhouse Routinely Pollutes Waterways With Excessive Waste, Advocacy Groups Allege
The intent to sue notice was co-authored by Driftless Water Defenders, a non-profit Iowa-based group working to protect Iowa waterways from agricultural polluters, as well as Public Justice and FarmSTAND,…
CBS 2 Iowa: Iowa meatpacking plant faces legal threat over repeated, “unchecked” pollution
“The Clean Water Act does provide citizens like Driftless Water Defenders an avenue for addressing that government under-enforcement and protecting the right to clean waterways,” said attorney Holly Bainbridge of…
Vox: Meet the new neighbors: 7.5 million chickens and their mountains of manure
“Everyone has a right to use and enjoy their property” under common law, said David Muraskin, managing director for litigation at FarmSTAND. “What the Right to Farm laws have done…
Aquaculture’s Big Catch: Corporate Control
Nothing better illustrates the grim transformation of U.S. aquaculture than Maine’s Cobscook Bay. In the 1970s, local families in the bay employed local workers at smaller-scale salmon farms of 3-4…