Factory Farms Pollute the Environment and Poison Drinking Water
The health risks associated with living in close proximity to factory farms is becoming increasingly clearer. A recent study found that those who live near hog farms have higher death rates from a variety of health issues.
DANIEL ROSS: ‘In recent decades, livestock numbers have soared in the US, while the number of actual farms has shrunk — a dynamic fueled in part by the government’s acquiescence to industrial farming mega-mergers. In 2015, for example, just four companies accounted for 85 percent of the nation’s beef packing industry. This has given rise to what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), livestock operations where animals — primarily cows, pigs and chickens — are kept and raised in confined spaces.
The amount of animal feces and urine produced in these facilities is staggering — more than 40 times the waste generated in wastewater treatment plants. Most CAFO waste is spread over farmland as fertilizer. But unlike strictly regulated human waste, the waste generated by CAFOs isn’t held to the same standard and is largely untreated…
What actually happens is that potentially toxic chemicals, drugs and bacteria in untreated animal wastes drain off or leach through the soils, making their way into the nation’s rivers, streams, groundwater and drinking water at alarming rates, directly impacting communities. Iowa’s largest municipal water utility provider, for example, recently sued a number of upstream drainage districts for excessive drinking water nitrate levels caused by farmland runoff…
The health risks associated with living in close proximity to CAFOs is becoming increasingly clearer. A recent study out of Duke University found that North Carolinians who live near hog farms have higher death rates from a variety of health issues — including anemia, kidney disease, septicemia, tuberculosis and infant mortality — compared to those who live further away from such facilities… More broadly, critics highlight ethical issues inherent in CAFOs, pointing to instances of animal abuse and cramped living conditions…
The regulatory framework exists — in federal laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act — to force CAFO operators to properly dispose of their waste, said Sacoby Wilson, associate professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. The problem is, “They [CAFO operators] have a very strong hook in the legislature,” he said, pointing to the political clout that large agricultural organizations wield. That’s why CAFO operators have for so long circumvented more stringent waste disposal laws, according to Wilson. SOURCE…
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