Why are anti-farm activists allowed to waste so many of our tax dollars?

9/26/2016

In this Yakima Herald guest editorial, Steve George of the Washington State Dairy Federation shows how the numerous complaints of Friends of Toppenish Creek are being rebutted by state agencies. That’s good, but we point out that Friends of Toppenish Creek were one of the sponsors of What’s Upstream and therefore are at least partly responsible for spending $655,00 of taxpayer money illegally.

Their numerous unfounded complaints against farmers in the Yakima Valley, including personal attacks on a highly qualified board member of the air quality authority, are also misusing tax dollars. We suspect there are very, very few individuals involved in this organization. But using legal interns (also supported by our tax dollars) they are making our government employees spend hundreds if not thousands of hours and dollars to respond to their nonsense.

I wonder if this would continue if those making knowingly false accusations that cause government employees to respond were held liable for the costs involved? Maybe this is something our legislators should be looking into.