The problem with poison

By Ed Felien

Earlier this month, on October 3, The Bell Museum was scheduled to premiere a new documentary film, “Troubled Waters,” about how pollution and industrial runoff has created a dead zone off the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

That premiere and the subsequent broadcast of the film on public television on October 5 was cancelled by Karen Himle, the University's Vice President for University Relations. She said she discussed the matter with Al Levine, the Dean of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and the two of them agreed it should be postponed. Levine said the film “vilifies agriculture,” and they want it to be reviewed by a scientific panel.

The film had been viewed by its funders: the McKnight Foundat-ion, Mississippi River Fund and the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, and they agreed the film was balanced, and the farmers who appear in the film insist it does not vilify agriculture.

According to the TC Daily Planet, the film's director, Larkin McPhee, said she and assistant producer Shanai Matteson, who also serves as community program specialist at the Bell Museum, contend that the film did undergo a scientific review and was extensively fact-checked to "NOVA standards."

McPhee has produced films for NOVA in the past.

"We verified every fact with at least three independent sources," Matteson says of the documentary project.

Matteson says that the film was also reviewed by as many as 12 prominent university scientists, including Jon Foley and David Tilman (both from the U of M's Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior department); Robert Diaz, a professor of marine science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and an expert on "dead zone" issues in the Gulf of Mexico; Eugene Turner, a zoologist at Louisiana State University who has done extensive research on wetland pollution and coastal erosion; and Nancy Rabalias, another LSU professor whose research has dealt extensively with pollution issues in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Troubled Waters” shows how industrial runoff, agricultural pesticides and the production of ethanol contribute to the pollution of the Mississippi River and the creation of a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that is affecting shrimp and other marine life.

The Land Stewardship Project, located in South Minneapolis, has charged that Karen Himle has a conflict of interest in censoring the film. Her husband, John Himle, is president of Himle Horner, a public relations firm that represents the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council (a Who’s Who of Minnesota agri-business). The Council is a strong proponent of ethanol. The possibility of a conflict of interest in the hiring of Karen Himle was raised last year by the Minnesota Daily when it noted her outside sources of income being Nebraska farmland crops and income from Himle Horner Public Relations which was representing Minnesota Agri-Growth Council as recently as a few months ago. The other half of Himle Horner is Tom Horner, Independent candidate for Governor (see page three).

After creating a scandal from canceling the premiere, U of M president, Robert Bruininks, decided to let it go forward. The result of this attempt at censorship was that they had to schedule an extra showing because of demand and the prejudices against organic farming and the biases in favor of agri-business were made apparent in the Office of University Relations and in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.

The problem with poison is that if you're too busy defending it—you're not aware that it's affecting your mind and the way that you think.