Factory Farms: Polluting Rural Communities, Part III |
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October 8, 2008
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Factory farms generate huge lagoons of waste. |
Tainted Water
According to the EPA, the agricultural sector is "the leading contributor to identified water quality impairments in the nation's rivers and streams, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs." In particular, the agency has noted that water quality concerns are most pronounced in areas "where crops are intensively cultivated and where livestock operations are concentrated."
Water quality issues arising from factory farm-generated waste include contamination of surface water and ground water. This can be caused by overapplication of manure to available land, storage tanks and lagoons overflowing or leaking, and pollutants that had been released into the air redepositing into waterways.
In February 2008, a group of Tulare County, California, residents filed a lawsuit over pollution permits the state water quality control board had issued to 1,600 dairies in the area, which has the country's highest concentration of cows used for the dairy industry. Testing had revealed that wells and public water systems in the county contained unsafe amounts of nitrates. According to one civic leader, "We're talking about poor communities who are paying for water they can't drink."
Pig and dairy factory farms typically liquefy the manure and store it on-site until it is applied to land. One customary manure storage system used in factory farms confining pigs or cows is the liquid "lagoon" system. In a lagoon system, liquefied manure is stored in an outdoor, open-air pit that can hold as much as 20-45 million gallons of waste and emit pollutants into the air, including methane, a gas implicated in climate change. The stored liquid manure is ultimately sprayed onto fields.
Manure lagoons have been known to leak, poisoning both surface and groundwater. Between 1995 and 1998, factory farms were responsible for 1,000 manure spills or other instances of pollution in ten states. In one incident, more than 20 million gallons of waste spilled from a manure lagoon on a pig factory farm into a nearby river in North Carolina, causing a massive fish kill. In 2005, a manure lagoon at an upstate New York dairy farm burst, polluting the nearby Black River with millions of gallons of manure and killing more than 375,000 fish.
Although it takes no more than a single factory farm to cause a spill or leak, the trend toward concentrating factory farms within discrete geographical areas raises concerns over the ability to maintain water quality for residents within a particular watershed. As the Congressional Research Service has noted, "[g]eographically, areas with excess farm-level nutrients correspond to areas with increasing numbers of confined animals," adding that "[c]ounties with potential animal waste problems tend to be grouped together."
Next: Besides the terrible odors near factory farms, their air pollution can cause health problems—including sudden death.
Related Links
Factory Farms: Polluting Rural Communities
Help Farm Animals...Follow the Three Rs
