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In your July 14 editorial ("Tribal dairy ban goes too far"), you recognized many of the problems faced by people living near CAFOs -- confined animal feeding operations -- but you also display the naivety of people uninformed and not being able to distinguish between facts and fallacy.

My position on CAFOs is not a NIMBY position. My position on these CAFOs is NUTS -- Nowhere Under The Sun.

In the Pew Commission Report on Industrial Farming, a panel of experts in the fields of medicine, economics, environmental issues, religion, and animal care all came to the conclusion that CAFOs are a detriment to rural life, endangering the health of people living in rural areas as well as destroying the environment and way of life of these people and the wildlife habitat around them. These operations are so dangerous that the commission strongly recommends that they be phased out in the next 10 years.

Let's face it; the feed goes in the front and lots of poop goes out the back. Until the dairies can control that huge source of contamination, it really doesn't matter how high tech their milk machines are. Until the dairymen can clean up the manure so the cows do not have to wade in it night and day and do not have to sleep in it, until the dairymen can control the manure to the point our fields are not turned into toxic waste dumps and acres of raw sewage is not allowed to ferment in the sewage lagoons, their "high tech" propaganda means nothing.

Check out the Granger Drain. In a study about water quality there, the Washington state Department of Ecology states, "The point source of the manure in the water is from five dairies." Anyone doing anything about that? No. Yet, you say we should trust agencies who blatantly turn a blind eye to any form of pollution the dairies pile on us.

Isn't it interesting that every dairy that has moved into the Valley has had high-tech state-of-the-art equipment? If you want to test out the validity of that statement, drive around Sunnyside. Bring a barf bag to use because this high-tech state-of-the-art propaganda just doesn't work. Another fantasy from dairyland.

The dairy people say they they want to be "good neighbors." But who needs neighbors coming in who pollute our air, our water and soil, while ruining our health? Who needs neighbors like that?

We suggest they move next door to our county commissioners. They could change the saying of "Got milk?" to "Got manure, flies, contaminated wells, polluted air and ill health?"

The editorial board's belief that environmental agencies are enforcing regulations is a fantasy. The goal of the state Department of Agriculture is to promote corporate agriculture, with a slight slap on the wrist to violators when the public becomes upset.

We have stench in the air so bad that tourists do not want to stop in this area and neither businesses nor professional people want to locate here. If enforcement is taking place, why do we have wells polluted with nitrates and e. coli to the point they are not safe to use and surface water so contaminated that people become sick if they come in contact with it? Why do we have grade-school children drinking water contaminated with cow manure and nitrates?

As far as the reservation being overly sensitive about the dairies targeting their nation as a new area to pollute, this is not an exaggeration at all!

Talk to people on the Rosebud Reservation or the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota where CAFOs have invaded their land and are destroying the people's way of life.

I commend the Yakama Tribal Council for looking into the hearts of its people and preventing a situation that would have destroyed our culture. The Nation has the right to do this. A recent court case (Longhorn Cattle Co. v. Montana Bank) clearly states that tribes have jurisdiction over non-Indians on deeded land on their reservations, if the health and welfare of the people is being effected. The Yakama people do have the right to protect what is theirs.

As I stepped out onto my front porch tonight, I smelled the putrid stench of the so-called regulated CAFOs. Only one has a legal permit to operate in Yakima County. The rest are operating without permits, illegally, while our elected county officials turn a blind eye to the problem.

Yet your editorial suggests we should not be concerned: Simply trust the dairies to regulate themselves, out of the goodness of their hearts, and trust that the agencies assigned to protect the environment will enforce regulations.

Based on the pollution of this Valley now you can see they haven't done the job in the past; what miracle will cause them to do their job this time around?

We pray to the powers that be that the tribal council will have the courage to withstand all the political pressure to change their minds that will be forced on them by the dairy federation, local dairy operators and politicians.

This is our land and we have the right to protect it!

* Jan Whitefoot, of Harrah, is a spokeswoman for the Concerned Citizens of the Yakama Reservation.