As factory farming continues to be a booming business in the U.S, the damage to the environment becomes more and more severe. Just one example of this can be found in how these farms manage the waste of their animals.

In 2005, 3 million gallons of liquid manure spilled into the Black River in upstate New York. First of all that killed about 225,000 fish and other aquatic life. Second of all- ew! An entire town had to stop getting their water from Black River while officials scrambled around assessing damage and adding up fees. Marks Dairy Farm, the manure culprit, had to pay over $2 million in fees after the earthen barrier containing all that hog waste wreaked havoc (excuse the pun.) Even worse, 10 years prior to that incident, 25 million gallons of hog waste spilled over 8 acres of land in North Carolina basically killing everything in its path, wetlands included.

rFactory farms pose a major threat to our drinking water

What happens when you find yourself knee-deep in hog crap, or worse—when a hurricane strikes (I’m thinking of Hurricane Floyd in North Carolina) whipping up all the waste so that it is literally falling from the sky? Well the EPA will help you get a little vengeance by fining the bajeezus out of the factory farms. But then what? You can’t necessarily rely on the government to proactively protect you because farm lobbyists hold a lot of clout in Washington. All too often, the EPA offers farms immunity from Clean Air Act regulations.

Case in point: The American Farm Bureau is currently pushing (and pushing hard) to kill congress’s climate action bills.

You should be wondering why your government isn’t doing more to protect your water from pollution caused by factory farms. More and more livestock get crowded onto fewer and fewer farms. And guess what? Animals poop. A lot. And their waste has to go somewhere. Because there is such a high concentration of animals there is almost no sustainable or healthy way to manage the manure. Instead the waste lays around in lagoons for months and months, all the while emitting dangerous gases like ammonia into the air, and it often seeps into ground water causing irreversible environmental harm. Ultimately, that leads to hog crap falling from the sky—a situation I think we’d all like to avoid.

You have a right to a clean environment and quality drinking water. Contact your local officials and demand to know what chemicals are in your water.

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