posted by: Angel Flinn 18 Oct 2009

"Agricultural runoff is the single largest source of water pollution in the
nation's rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency (E.P.A.). An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year
from waterborne parasites, viruses or bacteria, including those stemming
from human and animal waste, according to a study published last year
in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and
Toxicology."

- The New York Times

The NY Times recently ran an illuminating story about the pollution of
Wisconsin drinking water caused by the run-off from neighboring animal
farms.

"In 2006, an early thaw in Brown County melted frozen fields, including
some that were covered in manure. Within days, more than 100 wells
were contaminated with coliform bacteria, E. coli, or nitrates -
byproducts of manure or other fertilizers... As parasites and bacteria
seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea,
stomach illnesses and severe ear infections."

The Times states that the federal laws created by the EPA - intended to
prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources - only apply to the
largest farms, meaning those with at least 700 cows. According to the
EPA:

"Thousands of large animal feedlots that should be regulated by those
rules are effectively ignored because farmers never file paperwork."

In other words, thousands of intensive animal farms do not comply with
laws that require the responsible treatment of waste. And further (listen
carefully folks), small farms - which are growing in popularity as a result
of the increased awareness of the problems with factory farming - are
not even obligated to comply with federal laws.

In Virginia, small animal farms make up approximately one-tenth of the
87,000 farms in the huge watershed of Chesapeake Bay, the largest
estuary in the United States.

According to The Washington Post:

"Manure that washes off their plots, which tend to be small and filled
with livestock, causes harmful algae blooms in the Chesapeake."

Amongst other things, algae blooms can lead to the development of
'dead zones'. In 2005, scientists reported finding more than a third of
Chesapeake Bay was a dead zone.

The problem is not confined to meat production either.

"In Brown County, part of one of the nation's largest milk-producing
regions, agriculture brings in $3 billion a year. But the dairies collectively
also create as much as a million gallons of waste each day. Many cows
are fed a high-protein diet, which creates a more liquid manure that is
easier to spray on fields."

Mmmmm. Liquid manure. Veganic agriculture is starting to sound
better all the time.

The problem is not only with cows, and it's not limited to Wisconsin and
Virginia.

"In Arkansas and Maryland, residents have accused chicken farm owners
of polluting drinking water. In 2005, Oklahoma's attorney general sued
13 poultry companies, claiming they had damaged one of the state's most
important watersheds."

Back in May, I wrote about the Smithfield pig factory in La Gloria Mexico,
which was alleged to have given birth to the H1N1 Swine Flu virus. A
reporter from Rolling Stone Magazine did an investigation into Smithfield's
US operations back in 2006.

"From 1991 to 1995, Smithfield's North Carolina 'lagoons' spilled two
million gallons of pig waste into the Cape Fear River, 1.5 million gallons
into its Persimmon Branch, one million gallons into the Trent River and
200,000 gallons into Turkey Creek. In Virginia, Smithfield was fined
$12.6 million in 1997 for 6,900 violations of the Clean Water Act --
the third-largest civil penalty ever levied under the act by the EPA."

Simply put, using animal agriculture to feed a vast human population brings
with it the unavoidable problem of dealing with vast quantities of sewage.
According to the Environmental Resources Defense Council:

"As farms stagger under the vast burden of manure they are generating,
environmental disasters are inevitable. The scale of this unprecedented
outpouring of animal waste is staggering: 130 times the waste generated
by humans in this country each year. "

In other words, as a result of our desire for animal products, we have
the waste management problem of a population 130 times the size of
what our population actually is. Here in the US, we might as well be
managing the waste of 39 billion people.

In addition to hundreds of millions of hens and turkeys, approximately
60 million pigs and 10 million sheep, we have 100 million cows in this
country. Each of these cows generates as much waste as 18 people,
according to Bill Hafs, an official of Brown County, who asserts:

"There just isn't enough land to absorb that much manure."

Read more: pollution, bacteria, conservation, parasites, epa,contamination,
viruses, environment & wildlife, animal farming, drinking water, agricultural
runoff, dead zones

http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/fecal-matters/