(MADISON) The unchecked growth of factory farms — and their resulting mountains of untreated livestock manure — are polluting drinking water and increasing public health risk in Wisconsin and at least 29 other states according to a new report released today at a gathering of concerned Wisconsin citizens.
The report, "America’s Animal Factories: How States Fail to Prevent Pollution from Livestock Waste," by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Clean Water Network, was released locally by the Sierra Club, Family Farm Defenders, farmers, citizens and locally elected leaders in Madison, WI.
"Livestock factories force small farmers to cut costs to the bone. Then, after one bad year, they buy them out, re-open and push production levels as high as possible. The threat to local economies and communities by these huge operations are very real -- they deplete the land while putting most of their profits into pockets miles away," said John Kinsman, President of Wisconsin Family Farm Defense Fund.
Local concerns stem from:
"People of Wisconsin should never forget the nations worst outbreak of water-borne illness. Easter of 1993 over 400,000 Milwaukee area residents were struck with Cryptosporidium," said Caryl Terrell, legislative director for the John Muir Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We know that Crypto is a manure-related parasite, we need to insure we control all possible sources of pollution from contaminating our drinking water."
Manure storage, treatment and disposal practices, when shortcuts are taken or severe weather events occur, threaten human health. Improper waste management threatens drinking water supplies and food safety with bacteria, parasites and other pathogens.
"These livestock operations are not farms and never should be looked at as farms. They can’t operate without contracting with others to help them deal with their manure," said Brett Hulsey, Midwest Representative of the Sierra Club. "As large as they are they should be treated as an industry and a factory – factories which need permits for their air, land and water discharges."
Over-production or bankrupted operations threaten the economies locally and nationally by putting local residents or taxpayers at risk from the negligence of the operators. Livestock factories and feedlots need to dispose of vast quantities of manure and other wastes from processing which, if not correctly dealt with, can lead to environmental health problems such as fish kills and choking insect populations.
"While EPA and the state agencies fiddle with a plan of action to protect drinking water from livestock factory pollution, Rome, WI is burning," said Eric Uram, Associate Representative of the Sierra Club, Midwest Office. "We need a comprehensive plan that will protect public health and rural economies, not sacrifice them. EPA and our own DNR need to come up with more than what they have now."
In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a draft strategy to better regulate factory farm waste. As part of the government’s practice of collecting public comment, listening sessions have been held in Madison and Eau Claire.
The NRDC / Clean Water Network report documents — for the first time in one place — how little the states do to protect their citizens. Most states have few regulations, and do little to enforce what laws might be on the books. At the same time, federal rules do little to fill in major loopholes left by the states. The result is unchecked pollution leading to contaminated well water, fish kills, sickness from toxic gases in the air, and plummeting property values for neighboring land owners.
As large, corporate entities have come to dominate the nation’s farm landscape (10 corporations produce 92 percent of the nation’s poultry, for example), animal factories have been built that raise thousands of animals on the same acreage on which a family farm would raise, perhaps, several hundred. In many cases, pollution problems occur when shopping mall-size storage "lagoons," filled with manure, spill in heavy rains or leak into groundwater. In other cases, manure runs into rivers or lakes after on crops in quantities far in excess of crops’ ability to absorb it.
"America’s Animal Factories" offers several recommendations to control factory farm pollution. They include:
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 400,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Clean Water Network is an alliance of more than 1,000 organizations that endorse its platform paper, the National Agenda for Clean Water, which outlines
Sierra Club is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots conservation organization with over 500,000 members working to protect our environment, for our families, for our future.
