Pork producers respond to column

If you were to interview yourself, then write a story based on the interview, it’s a safe bet the story might be more self-serving than, say, what your neighbor or mother-in-law might write about you.
Safe?
Memo. In fact, certain – as the boss at the National Pork Producer Council (NPPC) proved recently in a lengthy, 16 question-and-answer memo to “NPPC Board Members, State Executives, NPPC Staff” in reply to column here two weeks ago that outlined an Environmental Protection Agency audit of Validus Services, LLC, a for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit NPPC.
The memo, from Neil Dierks, CEO of the council, did not dispute the reported facts; it couldn’t because all came from a February 2007 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Inspector General report that recommended the agency seek to recover nearly $25.2 million of the $25.4 million given America’s Clean Water Foundation (ACWF) in three federal grants, $21.1 million of which went to the pork producers’ Validus for on-farm environmental assessment work.
Selective. Instead, Dierks takes exception to how the column “selectively uses words contained in the EPA