We want readers to know that we are a dedicated group of volunteers who over many years have investigated CAFOs. Some of us have lived experience with CAFOs. We’ve researched primary sources and evidence corroborated by secondary resources to create these Fact Sheets. We only use non-biased sources such as university research (including agricultural colleges), Environmental Protection Agency and state regulator data, judicial court findings, and local, state, and national news reports. Only when an environmental organization actually finds the evidence of pollution do we report their specific findings as well as corroborate the data.
The Sierra Club CAFO Subteam members are watchdog researchers who hail from most of the environmentally CAFO-manure-damaged coastal, river, and inland water bodies in America. We also investigate soil, air, and neighborhood damage caused by CAFOs.
We gather together monthly and report CAFO pollution events from the Washington Yakima Valley, California Sonoma Valley, Ohio Lake Erie, Michigan Saginaw Bay and Lake Michigan, Wisconsin Green Bay and Lake Michigan, New York Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and Iowa-Kansas-Kentucky in the Mississippi River and Missouri River watersheds, North Carolina Cape Fear watershed, and the Virginia Chesapeake Bay. We confer with farmers across America.
Our backgrounds and training include: Physician, Registered Nurses, PhD professor in Biology, Licensed Member of Waterkeeper Alliance, Licensed Professional Engineer, Qualified Environmental Professional(QEP), Electrical and Computer Science Engineer, Environmental Attorney, Veterinarian, Elected official, Master of Fine Arts Film, Video & Computer Animation instructor, School Secretary, Nonprofit Executive, PhD professor in Computer Science, Business owner, PhD and adjunct professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, radio Broadcaster and print Editor on climate and the environment. The group also includes environmental organizers and fundraisers, grassroots activists in food and agriculture who submit comments for regulatory proposals and CAFO permit applications, and promoters of community food systems based on local and regional organic and free-range farms.
Many of us over the years have become part of Sierra Club Core Leadership and Executive Committees or received local, Sierra Club state chapter or national awards for our deep dives into environmental water quality protection and CAFO work, such as the National Sierra Club Environmental Alliance Award, and the Michigan Chapter Sylvan Award. We also include a recipient of the Climate and Energy Project lifetime achievement award, a Selected Fellow from the Society of Wetlands Scientists National Science Foundation project, and a recipient whose technical achievements earned the Best Animation Award at the International Festival of Cinema and Technology.
Our backgrounds are varied but this large group shares a commitment to finding a better food system for America than CAFOs.