Foster County Planning & Zoning Board

~Citizens against the Mega-Dairy LOCATION ~

Join Us, and Prevent the STINK!

Read about a recent manure spill from a mega-dairy lagoon in Maryland.  Do we want to take a chance that something like this could happen to Carrington?

Manure spill could mean months of temporary water supply
Originally published

January 30, 2008
By Gina Gallucci - Frederick News-Post Staff - Maryland

WALKERSVILLE -- For town residents who remember the 1999 sewage spill that forced them to use a makeshift water supply for five months, this could be worse. Test results this week from untreated water show the levels of bacteria and E. coli are greater than in 1999, said Mike Marschner, director of the county's Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management.

The contamination is the result of a manure lagoon pipe that burst last week, said town commissioner Chad Weddle. The burst actually created two spills, one on Jan. 22 and a second Friday night into Saturday morning.

This spill took about four days to infiltrate the town's water supply, compared to 1999 when it took nine days, Marschner said.

These findings were released during a press conference Tuesday afternoon at Town Hall. The meeting room was packed with media, town and county officials and concerned residents.

More...

Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008
Farmer apologizes for massive manure spill

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"One fear is that what happened in Walkerton, Canada, could happen in our community. In the small Ontario town, which is the site of several dairy farms, seven people died and 2,300 became ill  ...  after drinking water polluted with E. coli, a bacteria contained in cow manure. Cow manure washed into a nearby well after a heavy rain, causing the health crisis, says Peter Rehak, spokesperson for the Walkerton Inquiry, a public commission established to investigate the tragedy."

-Metro Times - Detroit-

Links to Informative Web Sites (Page 2)

[Please click on the blue link at the beginning of each excerpt to peruse the entire web site.]

Saturday, January 24 at 2:00 p.m.
Property Owners' Club, 2000 Territory Drive, Galena
Join us to learn about the threat to Jo Daviess County that Robert Kennedy, Jr. calls an "Apocalytpic Evil" and what you can do to help HOMES stop it. Get a legal update and find out why another factory could be built near the Galena Territories.
Latest News!
Judge Orders No Bond Required from Plaintiffs in Mega Dairy Injunction.
Public Health and Safety Trump Investor's Demand for $4.3 Million Bond.
On December 18, 2008, Judge Kevin Ward ruled that the plaintiffs opposed to the 5,500-head mega dairy being built near Nora, Illinois, do not have to post a bond for the preliminary injunction he issued on October 20, 2008. This ruling is the second major court victory for the plaintiffs, who include the non-profit group HOMES and about a dozen individual citizens living near the proposed facility, which would endanger their health by heavily polluting the surrounding air and water.

Chicago lawyers, hired by industry groups to represent the California dairy investor, demanded that HOMES and the individual plaintiffs post a $4.3 million bond.

Many of the individual plaintiffs are retired and living off of modest pensions or social security, yet the investor's lawyers relentlessly questioned them about whether they could mortgage their homes to pay the requested bond. His lawyers even recommended that one plaintiff sell the life insurance annuity he bought to provide for his wife.

Corporate Farming Notes—Permit Granted for Mega-Dairy Despite Intense Local Opposition
September 2008 Newsletter
In Jo Daviess County, Illinois, a particularly disconcerting brand of corporate farming is coming to town. Perhaps I am biased because I know so many dairy farmers in northeast Iowa, southwest Wisconsin, and northwest Illinois, but I find the location of an 11,000 head (or more) mega-dairy so close to the heart of family farm dairy country is the epitome of adding insult to injury.

A.J. Bos, the Bakersfield, California, dairy magnate with a dairy empire of over 50,000 cows in multiple states, is seeking to build two industrial dairy sites with at least 5,500 cows and heifers. Illinois law would allow him to double the number of cows at each site within two years, with no additional supervision, if the cost of the expansion is less than 50 percent of the initial cost of construction. More...

DeGroot Mega-Dairy barred from operating in Indiana
Story Published: Mar 25, 2008 at 9:57 AM EST

A controversial confined cattle feeding facility in Huntington County is getting new operators, and the former owner is being barred from operating livestock facilities in Indiana. DeGroot Dairy has been the focus of state environmental investigators because of water pollution generated by their Huntington County facility.

(From Press release issued by Indiana Department of Environmental Management)
"All Indiana livestock operations must meet their environmental responsibilities or face serious consequences," said Thomas W. Easterly, IDEM commissioner. "We have utilized the courts and worked effectively with all parties, including Johannes DeGroot, area residents, and new operators for the facility, to ensure it is managed in a way that protects area streams and the Salamonie Reservoir."

Under the agreement, DeGroot will not operate any animal feeding operation, confined feeding operation or concentrated animal feeding operation in Indiana through 2048
 

Published Sunday, August 31, 2008

A T-bone will cost a lot more - By Paul Roberts,
 

...In May, a distinguished panel of scientists and meat industry officials concluded that the current “factory farm” method for mass-producing meat poses so many threats to public health – contaminated water supplies and deadly epidemics of E. coli, for example – that the entire system needs to go. ...  The report, from a Pew Charitable Trusts commission, takes a hard look at “confined animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs, which produce most of the U.S. meat supply. These massive facilities house tens of thousands of cattle, hogs and chickens and generate not just huge amounts of meat but rivers of sewage, clouds of contaminated dust and nearly one-fifth of all greenhouse gases. ...  The crowded, often unsanitary conditions promote disease, which has led to the overuse of antibiotics and to a class of superbugs that are resistant to those same antibiotics. ...   Taxpayers spend $4.1 billion cleaning up livestock sewage leaks and $2.5 billion treating salmonella. All told, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, CAFOs might be costing taxpayers $38 billion a year – costs that aren’t reflected in the retail price of meat.    More...

Saturday, July 19, 2008: 'Mega dairy' litigants to wait -
Judge: More information needed before I can rule on an injunction - By BEKAH PORTER Telegraph Herald staff writer - Iowa

GALENA, Ill. -- The courtroom door opened, and they trailed out.

Friday's hearing was the latest in an eight-month battle to stifle Bos' efforts to build what the opposition deems a "mega-dairy."

The non-profit organization, Helping Others Maintain Environmental Standards, or HOMES, and more than 20 individual plaintiffs say that the dairy could pose hazards to neighbors' health, suffocate local dairy operations and ruin the family farming lifestyle the Jo Daviess County township of little more than 100 has come to love.

An expert on the subject agreed with at least one of their claims.  For the past 20 years, Sam Panno, a geologist with the Illinois State Geological Survey, has studied karsts -- a section of land that has cracked and formed sinkholes or caverns that allow surface contaminants to drain into the underlying aquifers that provide drinking water. During his two hours of testimony, Panno said that three vital things are wrong with the Bos dairy site:

* The dairy sits on an aquifer.

* If manure spilled or leaked from the ponds containing the dairy's waste, it would sink into the aquifer.

* The contaminants would then rush along the aquifer and eventually end up in area wells. More...
 

Sunday, June 29, 2008 - Will flood of factory farms reach your community?  What's in it for you if you help stop the Jo Daviess project - By Martin Hippie 1015 E. Schapville Road, Elizabeth, Ill.

As the Flood of 2008 recedes, many area residents can finally stop fighting the rising water and start getting their lives back to normal. Unfortunately, some of our friends and neighbors in Jo Daviess County are still actively involved in a continuing struggle to save their homes from a different kind of destructive incursion. A mega-dairy factory farm -- with more than 10,000 cows, buildings as big as airplane hangars and lake-sized manure pits -- is about to be built within a mile of Nora and a few miles of Warren.
 

The county board soundly rejected the mega-dairy by an 11-5 vote. The Illinois Department of Agriculture approved the plan anyway, despite the fact that the design failed to meet all of the necessary criteria, particularly in the areas of environmental protection and social impact.

It is just plain wrong to impose environmental degradation of this magnitude on local residents, and all citizens of Jo Daviess County, without substantial public input or adequate environmental, social and financial safeguards. The current laws and bureaucracy favor big-business interests over human values and needs, and profits over civil rights and the environment. It's un-democratic and downright scary. More...
 

June 20, 2008  State sues pungent dairy farm near Thief River Falls - By TOM MEERSMAN / StarTribune
updated 9:32 a.m. CT, Fri., June. 20, 2008

A large dairy in northwestern Minnesota with odors severe enough to drive nearby residents from their homes last week now faces legal problems.

State Attorney General Lori Swanson and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency today jointly sued Excel Dairy, just north of Thief River Falls, charging that the 1,544-cow operation has repeatedly violated air-quality standards, environmental-protection laws and feedlot-operating permits.

"Neighbors shouldn't be driven from their homes because a feedlot fails to comply with basic regulations," Swanson said.

State health officials advised neighbors of the dairy on June 8 to leave their homes if possible after residents measured levels of foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide at more than 200 times higher than state air-quality standards allow. More...
 

June 11, 2008 - Smell drives residents from homes near dairy - Ryan Schuster Grand Forks Herald
Published Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Jeff Brouse and his family have been sleeping on the floor of his parents’ living room since leaving their home Thursday.

Brouse, his wife and two children ages 3 and 5, are among several area residents who say they have been driven from their homes by fear of health effects caused by hazardous fumes omitted by nearby Excel Dairy north of Thief River Falls. The Minnesota Department of Health has recommended that some living near the dairy leave if they can.

Some residents have joined in a planned class-action lawsuit against the dairy. Marshall County also has filed a public nuisance charge against the dairy, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is considering action. The dairy’s operators say they are working to lessen the smell.

“You can’t even describe it,” Brouse said of the smell. “It takes your breath away it’s so noxious. It’s not a manure smell. It’s not a farm smell. It’s a hydrogen sulfide-ammonia gas smell.”

Neighbors say they have taken hand-held air measurements in the last week that show levels of hydrogen sulfide more than 200 times higher than what state air quality standards allow. About 40 residents live within a mile of the 1,500-cow dairy near U.S. Highway 59.

Mona Loe and her husband, Paul, whose house is about 300 yards from the dairy’s lagoon, left their home Sunday night after getting a call from the Minnesota Department of Health recommending they evacuate.  More...

June 11, 2008:  Sweet relief? Thief River Falls dairy says it's reduced its odors
Tom Meersman - Star Tribune

One neighbor who left his home last week disputes those claims. Jeff Brouse said he returns to his house to check on things and retrieve clothes, and measured hydrogen sulfide on Monday and Tuesday evenings at 15 to 60 times higher than state standards allow.

Brouse said that four to six families within a mile of the dairy have left their homes to stay with families or friends, and one or two others are staying in a motel.

On Sunday, Minnesota health officials advised people living near the Excel Dairy dairy just north of Thief River Falls to leave their homes if possible. The recommendation came after local residents said they measured hydrogen sulfide gas near homes that were more than 200 times higher than state rules allow.

The rotten-egg smell of the hydrogen sulfide is a nuisance at low levels, but at high concentrations can cause dizziness, memory loss, respiratory irritation and other serious health problems.

Opponents of proposed 'megadairy' in northwest Illinois promise to fight its construction -
Some Jo Daviess County residents worry thousands of cows will be an environmental and health threat
By Jeff Long | Tribune reporter
10:30 PM CDT, June 12, 2008

The state permit was approved after months of heated debate and despite an advisory against the project by the Jo Daviess County Board.

Supporters see the project as an economic boon, with the potential to revive a sagging part of the state's agricultural economy. The number of dairy cows has dwindled over the last decade in a state where herds average just 80 head.

But opponents say that does not justify the potentially harsh impact the big dairy could have on neighbors' quality of life or the quality of their drinking water.

"Public health trumps all other laws," said Matthew Alschuler, spokesman for the opposition group Helping Others Maintain Environmental Standards, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Jo Daviess Circuit Court against Bos and the state Department of Agriculture.

More than 700 people have signed the group's petition against the project, Alschuler said. About 100 have agreed to put their names on the lawsuit as plaintiffs



 

June 13, 2008
A Noxious Cloud Over Proposed "Mega Dairy"
The Tribune reports today about a battle starting to heat up between residents of Jo Daviess County in Northwest Illinois and a California dairy farmer who just received approval from the state Department of Agriculture to build a "megadairy."

A. J. Bos, who seems to specialize in these ginormous dairy farms, received approval to build a farm housing 4,400 head of milking cattle on 1,450 acres of land in Nora, Illinois. If you think that's ridiculous, you should see what he was asking. Residents in Nora, near Galena, raised concerns about the environmental impact of the dairy farm. Bos plans to dig three manure ponds totaling 30 acres on the site. An engineer for Bos had an answer for those concerns, stating that they plan on installing a "methane digester" which can control the odor of that much cattle. The methane produced by the cattle will also be used to power generators on the farm.

Still, the environmental impact of such a huge farm goes beyond the smell. Residents have rightful concerns about how their drinking water can be affected, not to mention the additional carbon footprint from hauling feed and product to and from the farm.

May 22, 2008   IDOA weighs request for 10,000-cow dairy, amid worries over water contamination by Lauren Williamson-Medill Reports-Chicago

In February, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn wrote a letter to Marvin Schultz, chairman of the Jo Daviess County Board, urging the board to reject the Bos dairy plan.

“The proposed ‘mega-dairy,’ and the animal waste lagoon that would be created by a facility of this size, would endanger area groundwater and streams,” he wrote. “These wastes, if recycled responsibly as agricultural fertilizer, would cover a massive acreage of farmland; if concentrated over a smaller area, the over-application would result in serious environmental hazards.”

In January, the County Board voted to reject the dairy, but the Illinois Department of Agriculture used that vote only as a non-binding recommendation, said Warren Goetsch, bureau chief of environmental programs at the IDOA.

“Concentrated animal waste and associated possible contaminants from IFAP systems pose a substantial environmental problem for air quality, surface and subsurface water quality, and the health of workers, neighboring residents, and the general public,” said the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, in a study released in April.

The amount of manure spread from CAFOs often exceeds the ground’s ability to absorb the nutrients in it, the report said. More than 30 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorous that ends up in fresh-water sources is a result of animal farming.
 

May 16, 2008  Fayette County manure spill among many recent incidents:  The Gazette
A severed manure hose line allowed manure to enter the North Branch Volga River, causing a fish kill Thursday, about two miles northwest of Randalia in Fayette County. The spill is one of many manure and farm chemical spills the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has investigated since fields have dried out enough to plant, said Mike Wade, an environmental specialist in the Manchester DNR field office.

May 30, 2008 Dairy shut down over manure spills
The Associated Press
HUNTINGTON, Ind. — A dairy farm with a history of manure releases that threatened a nearby reservoir will be sold to an Ohio-based company as part of an order barring the farm’s current owner from operating livestock farms in Indiana through 2048. The agreement resolves several legal proceedings that had been pending against DeGroot Dairy and its owner, Johannes DeGroot, because of several manure discharges that had spilled into tributaries of northeastern Indiana’s Salamonie Reservoir. In the past decade, Vreba-Hoff has helped nearly 50 Dutch families set up dairy farms in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. But the company has had regulatory skirmishes in other states because of an overpowering stench and pollution from its concentrated animal feeding operations. Those farms generally hold thousands of cows and produce hundreds of thousands of gallons of manure each day.

Toxic fumes, blisters & brain damage : The cost of doing business?
By: Rebecca Lerner - An investigative report - Ithaca Journal      Thursday, April 03, 2008

Karen Strecker is bracing. She’s about to turn on the faucet, and there’s a chance liquid manure is going to stream from the spout. “I’ve been taking a bath and actually had cow shit pour into the tub,’’

Strecker says, matter-of-factly. She uses well water. “It’s nasty.” Yet the threat of a sewage bath pales in comparison to a more dangerous problem: Breathing poisonous fumes. After years living next to Willet Dairy, the largest industrial farm in the state, Strecker and her neighbors in Genoa are reporting the kinds of health problems eco-watchdogs lose sleep over, from blistering eyelids to brain damage.

Manure is known to release gases that, in high concentrations, are linked to those scary symptoms.
Strecker’s plight takes on national relevance as the EPA prepares to roll back air-pollution-reporting requirements for industrial animal farms like Willet in October - even as environmentalists warn that regulation is already too lax in New York.  More...

Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Pew Commission Questions EPA On CAFO Air Release Exemption
Feb 29: A release from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) indicates that as the U.S. EPA considers lifting a requirement that industrial farming facilities report their toxic gas emissions, the Commission's panel of experts told Congress that the vast amounts of animal waste and byproducts from such facilities pose significant risks to human health and the environment, requiring greater -- not lesser -- scrutiny. Members of the PCIFAP said the traditional methods used to dispose of animal waste are often insufficient to deal with the amount of waste generated by the high-volume industrial facilities that today produce food products for much of the nation. The waste run-off from these facilities can contaminate groundwater and drinking water supplies, and the toxic gas emissions can be harmful -- and even fatal -- to farm workers and surrounding communities.

Conditions and waste management methods common to IFAP facilities can also produce emissions of harmful gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. PCIFAP indicated that, "Many of these compounds are known to be toxic to the nervous system in sufficient concentration, and can cause respiratory symptoms, disease and impaired function. . ."

More...

Know the Truth about Animal Factories

April 12, 2008

North Dakota families are facing a growing health problem caused by giant animal factories in our state that are exempt from health and safety regulations and even exempt from state taxes. The giant animal factories are operating in our state pretending that they are not an industry, so that they do not have to follow rules for how they treat animals and how they produce our food. Our legislators have allowed them to hide what they are doing as the waste from their mega animal factories poison our land and water and endanger our health. We need a law to tell the truth and to treat these factories like an industry, to make them pay their fair share of taxes, to secure the public's right to know what they are doing, and to protect our land and health from irresponsible dumping of animal waste. More...

Ramsey County livestock zoning fight goes to high court
By MARVIN BAKER, Staff Writer - March 9, 2008 mbaker@minotdailynews.com

DEVILS LAKE — A legal battle over livestock zoning in Ramsey County is headed to North Dakota’s highest court.

According to Belford, the Ramsey County Planning and Zoning Commission isn’t against CAFOs, but it wanted specific guidelines written into law as a safeguard to county residents and to Devils Lake tourism.

“We wanted regulations put in place to save the taxpayers in case of disaster,” Belford said. “We were really after this going to a study committee.”

Gary Larson, a Towner County producer who lives near a CAFO recently approved for the Wolford area, said he is worried about property values decreasing. Larson said he is going to have his property appraised now and after the 7,500-hog facility is in operation near Wolford.

“My property may be lowered in value and I’ll take the hit,” Larson said of Pierce County after its commission granted a permit to set up the CAFO. “They’re taking life, liberty and property and I don’t think they have that authority.”

Larson is also concerned with health issues that may arise and said his property should be protected by the government instead of being placed in jeopardy.

“Factory farms are not farming and should be treated legally like the industrial polluters they really are,” Larson said. “The (Dec. 28) ruling says loud and clear that North Dakotans have the right to defend their communities against the negative economic and environmental impacts of factory farming.”

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Socially Irresponsible Corporate Ownership
The True Costs
Industrially produced food appears to be inexpensive, but the
pricetag doesn’t reflect the actual costs that we taxpayers
bear. Factory farms pollute communities and adversely affect
public health, thereby increasing medical costs for those
living near such farms—costs that are often shouldered by
public budgets.iv Taxpayers fund government subsidies,
which go primarily to large industrial farms. Jobs are lost and
wages driven down, as corporate consolidation bankrupts
small businesses and factory farms pay unethically low
wages for dangerous, undesirable work.

Because factory farms are considered “agricultural” instead
of “industrial,” they are not subject to the regulation that their
scale of production (and level of pollution) warrants.v
Because they employ powerful lobbyists that can sway the
government agencies responsible for monitoring agricultural
practices, industrial farms are left free to pollute, to hire
undocumented workers (and pay them next to nothing), and
to locate their businesses without regard to the impact that
has on surrounding communities. More...

Big ag's big stink
Factory farms are fouling the country's waterways with millions of tons of animal waste. And the EPA's proposed regulations may not solve the problem.
By Amanda Griscom Little

The Bush administration wants to let factory farms determine whether the animal excreta that ooze from their facilities into waterways should be regulated, say environmentalists, who argue that the plan, well, stinks.

Agriculture has long been a top source of water pollution in the United States, but in the past two decades the problem has grown dramatically with the proliferation of large-scale pork, poultry, beef and dairy facilities, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). From 2002 to 2005, the CAFO industry in the United States expanded by about 22 percent -- with substantially more animals per facility, and ever larger piles of their droppings.

Today these facilities are responsible for some 500 million tons of animal manure a year -- three times the waste that humans in this country produce, activists say. According to a 1998 report from the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, CAFO muck has fouled roughly 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and groundwater in 17 states. More recent data show that 29 states have reported water contamination from these feedlots.

Take the example of Illinois, she says, a major farm state where nearly 85 percent of the total public lake acreage is contaminated. "There are at least 500 large CAFOs in the state; only about 40 have permits, and only about a fifth of them have even been inspected," Merkel says. The state EPA has an inventory of only 30 percent of the CAFOs operating in Illinois. "They don't even know where the vast majority are," Merkel says.

Says Shepherdson, "You'd be hard-pressed to find any other industry that is as loosely regulated as this one." She says it's no coincidence, noting that the ag industry is well-known for flexing its political muscle: "All of the big players have their trade groups out there on their behalf, lobbying both the EPA and friendly members of Congress to rewrite the [discharge] rules and exempt them from Clean Water Act requirements. The EPA is clearly kowtowing to industry and abdicating its role as protector of public health."  More...
 

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Heavy rain causing concerns for manure lagoons
Thursday, March 20, 2008, 2:43 PM
by Dave Russell

Heavy rain in parts of Indiana is causing some concerns for
livestock producers with manure storage lagoons. Ryan
Westerfeld, Agricultural Liaison for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) tells Brownfield
producers with a potential problem should contact IDEM
immediately.

“They can call the spill line at 1-888-233-7745,” said
Westerfeld. “They can provide technical assistance to the
producer and explain some emergency actions that can take
place.”

Westerfeld says options available to producers with potential problems include building a dike around the existing lagoon to control any overflow, or they could construct emergency storage, but before doing that the producer must contact IDEM.   More...

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Posted March 6, 2008
Response, weather mitigate manure spill's impact
More than 20,000 gallons pour from Brown Co. farm
By Paul Srubas and Joanne Zipperer

HOLLAND — Quick work by Mike Gerrits prevented a
manure spill at his family's 1,700-cow dairy farm from
becoming a major environmental disaster, a DNR watershed
expert said Wednesday.

More than 20,000 gallons of liquid manure gushed from the
manure lagoons at Country Aire Farms and rushed toward
roadside ditches taking it to a tributary of the East River, said
Craig Webster of the state Department of Natural Resources.

At least part of the spill made it to the East River and
traveled north as far as Wisconsin 96, Webster said. The
flow of melting snow and other tributaries likely would dilute
the manure enough to prevent it from having a harmful effect
on fish or on nutrient levels of the water, he said.

Jason Moeller, the DNR's spills coordinator, called the
discharge a major spill that probably eventually will reach the
Fox River.  More...

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Human Health Hazards - State of Wisconsin
Manure Contamination of Rural Residential Wells

Answers to questions about residential well contamination from manure and agricultural runoff.  What are the potential health concerns?

When people drink water that is contaminated with manure they can become very sick. Bacteria and other organisms found in manure can cause many diseases. Some of the more familiar organisms include Cryptosporidium, E. coli O157-H7, and Salmonella. Common symptoms include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, cramps, or fever. When people bathe or shower in this contaminated water, it is less likely that they become ill. However, they can still get sick with ear and respiratory infections, skin rashes, or infections in open wounds.  More...

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Family Farm Defenders: by Jim Goodman

Faming has evolved to this, it's gotten big, it's gotten very dependent on fossil fuel and if you live next to a CAFO, it has gotten very smelly. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that if you work on or live near a CAFO it has gotten potentially hazardous to your health as well.

Specialized manure holding facilities are required, but due to the large volumes produced, heavy rain, snow, storage leaks or improper handling, CAFOs create a very real potential for big manure spills. Thousands of animals, millions of gallons of manure and you could be asking for problems. According to the CDC, manure can contain pollutants such as antibiotics, pathogens, nitrates, pesticides, hormones, trace elements and heavy metals, none of them good, especially if they enter the drinking water. In May 2000 an e-coli contamination of the municipal water system of Walkerton, Ontario, killed seven and sickened thousands. It was traced to manure runoff.

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Manure Spills Harm Public Health and Cost TaxPayers’ Money

Manure spills are threatening the health of Wisconsin’s citizens and costing taxpayer’s money by:
--Polluting drinking water used by rural Wisconsin families and sickening children;
--Destroying our lakes, rivers, and trout streams;
--Undoing public and private financial investments in stream and lake improvements.
 

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Manure Spills by CAFOs Can Pollute Drinking Water

 In the first few months of 2006, almost 70 wells in southern Brown County were contaminated with bacteria. The contamination caused many people to become ill, suffering from stomach cramps, nausea, diarrhea, and chills. Between 2004 and 2005, approximately 34 rural wells became contaminated in northeastern Wisconsin from what the DNR believes was liquid or solid manure. In one case, a CAFO is alleged to have contaminated six wells in Dodge County, and in another case, a CAFO is alleged to have contaminated as many as 11 wells. The map to the left was compiled by the DNR. Manure contamination makes people sick. Manure contains harmful bacteria that cause serious illness in people that unknowingly drink contaminated water. In some cases, children have gotten sick from drinking tap water that
their parents did not know was contaminated with manure. One infant in Kewaunee County was rushed to a hospital for emergency care.  More...

SUBSIDIZING MANURE LAGOONS
By Jim Hightower - Wed., 2/6/08

Washington is about to pass a humongous farm bill, and it's full of crop subsidies for large agribusiness operations-while 60 percent of family farmers get not a dime. However, there's another agribusiness subsidy stuck in this whopper of a bill that gets little media coverage. Under the guise of environmental improvement, it provides about $180 million to huge corporate entities that run industrialized hog and cattle operations. These factory farms keep the animals confined, feeding and medicating them in an assembly-line process.

Having hundreds of thousands of animals crammed in these factory facilities creates a special problem for industrial agriculture: waste. Hogs and cattle defecate and urinate. A lot. What to do with this excrement? Agribusiness channels it to lined ponds or "manure lagoons."

In 2002, as these massive-scale livestock operations were spreading across rural America, corporate lobbyists quietly changed a farm conservation program to make these outfits eligible for funding-and to declare that manure lagoons could be paid for with government funds as a "conservation measure."

How ironic since these lagoons are notorious for leaking into groundwater, overflowing into nearby streams, and fouling the air for everyone downwind. The factory operations also are squeezing small, sustainable farmers out of business.

For years our nation's environmental laws were based on the ethical precept that the polluter must pay. Now that's been perverted to the unethical notion that we must subsidize the polluter.

Animal Waste, the Environment, and Human Health

Where there are animals, there is animal waste, and as the growth of industrial farming concentrates thousands of animals on increasingly fewer farms, it produces massive amounts of animal waste on relatively small plots of land. When too much waste is produced in one place, there’s no safe, cost-effective way to either use it productively or dispose of it. While government regulation and better waste management practices can make a difference and should be encouraged for existing farms, the problem of livestock waste will never end so long as we rely on concentrated industrial farms to produce our food.

Manure is usually stored for many months, often in giant outdoor pits known as “lagoons.”vii As it decomposes, the manure emits harmful gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.viii Meanwhile, these lagoons often leak or rupture, polluting the surrounding soil and water systems.

People often believe that animal manure is harmless, but in truth it can be quite hazardous. Factory livestock facilities pollute the air and release over 400 separate gasses, mostly due to the large amounts of manure they produce.xiii The principal gases released are hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide.xivgasses can be dangerous air pollutants that threaten both the environment and human health. Nitric oxides are also released in large quantities from farms through manure application,xv and are among the leading causes of acid rain.xvi

The risks of lagoon leakage, overflows, and illegal discharge of waste also pose a direct threat to the quality of soil and water systems. A report for the U.S. Geological Survey documented over one thousand spills and dumps of animal waste in the ten Midwestern states it surveyed over the course of three years.xv

Mega-Factory Farms and American Well Being: A Story
Daniel Downs -February 28, 2007
Ohio rural citizens are in good company with their fight against Mega-Dairy Farms. From California to Maine, citizens are rising against the continued onslaught of factory farms, mega dairies, and corporate agribusiness. Why all the stink?

The problem with factory farm operations is the ferocious smell polluting the air. Like the smell of rotten meat, the obnoxious smell emanating from those farms is symptomatic of a more serious problem. Just as eating rotten meat will make you ill, so will breathing the air polluted by factory farms.


 

Click here to print out a copy of the petition.

Near a Large Dairy in ID

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AS-1155
Scott Birchall, Livestock Waste Management Specialist

"One of the most important decisions when planning any livestock facility is site selection. The site for the feedlot operation must not only be suitable for housing, handling and feeding cattle, but also must ensure that surface and ground waters are protected and that the impact from odors is minimized. Whether you are planning a new facility or modifying an existing one, the following checklist may help avoid costly mistakes....

Odor
Minimizing the impact of odor on neighboring residents is a combination of:

~Recognizing the prevailing wind direction. In North Dakota, this is usually from the north west or south east (or north/south in the Red River Valley).
~Using topography to your advantage. Odor tends to "drain" down slope in the evening in summer.
~Reduce visual impact. Visual confirmation of dust is more likely to result in odor complaints. Windbreaks will also help break up odor plumes and provide stock protection.
~Providing a buffer distance to the neighbors. It is difficult to specify a particular buffer distance without taking into account the previous factors. Be aware that odors from some larger facilities have been detected 4 to 5 miles distant. Anyone planning a facility within 1 to 2 miles of neighboring dwellings will have to provide more detailed information on how they plan to minimize odor."

Read More...

(The above web site

-produced by the North Dakota State University
NDSU Extension Service-

is extremely informative about the precautions that should be taken regarding livestock waste management.  How does the proposed MEGA-dairy intend  to address these concerns?)

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When the wind blows across the MEGA-dairy lagoon and toward town, say good-by to outdoor family gatherings and visits on the front porch.