In November, 90,000 gallons of hog manure contaminated a neighbor’s land and a stream near Quincy, Illinois when an underground sewer line at a 6,000 hog-raising facility became dislodged -- a vivid reminder that the technology of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) does not guarantee safety, and that too many of the costs of large-scale confined animal feeding are not borne by CAFOs but are imposed on the community and the environment.
“It sounded like a gushing, Rocky Mountain stream,” said the neighbor. “Then I started to smell this stench.” (STEVE EIGHINGER, Herald-Whig Staff Writer, 11/13/2008) When people build dwellings in rural areas, they assume that fresh air will be one of the big benefits they are obtaining. But if a CAFO is constructed upwind across the road, neighbors may find that their enjoyment and the value of their home is damaged. The threat to their lungs is not imaginary.
In November, Dr. Amy Peterson, a veterinarian and now a researcher from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, told a northeast Missouri audience about the damages that air pollution from CAFOs can cause. At http://aphg.jhsph.edu/?event=browse.subject&subjectID=11 you can find these dangers summarized in this statement:
“Air emissions from confined animal feeding operations may include a toxic mixture of contaminants, such as hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter from decaying fecal waste, odors, microbes and toxins. These pollutants can pose a serious health risk to vulnerable populations. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in pesticides contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, which can harm human health and plant life.”
Furthermore, animals in close confinement are dosed with antibiotics to avoid epidemic disease, and this can reduce the effectiveness of antibiotics for control of disease among humans. For all of these reasons, confined animal feeding operations need close regulatory scrutiny to limit the heavy risks they impose upon society. So what our regulatory agencies doing?
Here’s an overview: At the federal level, this December 2008 the EPA finalized a rule that allows farm operators (including CAFOs) to avoid having to get a permit if they claim the facility will not put harmful discharges into nearby waterways. The CAFO operators are required to develop waste management plans, but no federal agency has power to routinely check on those plans.
Foxes are allowed to guard the henhouse. This rule will be difficult to dislodge; it is based on a federal appellate court decision which held that manure from the CAFOs is beyond the authority of the Clean Water Act unless there is proof that the manure has actually reached and contaminated navigable waters of the United States -- essentially that means continuously flowing streams or wetlands in close proximity to those streams.
Until some conservative judges and justices are replaced or the Clean Water Act is amended, the likelihood of overturning that decision is uncertain, and it may be difficult for the EPA to protect us from pollution by CAFOs. Meanwhile, the CAFOs are receiving at least $35 million per year through the U.S. Environmental Quality Incentives Program to help them manage this pollution, but they do not have to disclose what they are doing with the money or its effects on protecting our environment.
In Missouri, our statutes merely require that CAFOs be at least 3,000 feet away from occupied dwellings -- scant protection for neighbors who are subjected to offensive and harmful odors from CAFOs. Our state courts have provided some protection for our parks, but while a Cole County judge ruled in August that CAFOS must be at least fifteen miles away from our parks and historic sites, this December she has revised that down to a narrower two-mile buffer.
Meanwhile, there is much criticism that our Department of Natural Resources is attempting to classify Missouri streams in a way that would in effect legalize the status quo for many streams that are impacted by polluting runoff (it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss that further.)
With weak supervision of CAFOs at the national and state level, it has been left to our Missouri county commissions to enact health ordinances that set stricter protection for rural residents from encroaching CAFOs. During the last two sessions of the Missouri Legislature, the CAFOs have sought a statute to invalidate those county ordinances. But thanks to strong leadership from the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and supportive contacts from concerned constituents, those efforts failed and several Missouri counties continue to have effective health ordinances. Our Missouri Sierra Club and several other organizations are united in are united in supporting effective regulation of CAFOs. The CAFO situation continues to evolve in ways that brings new challenges.
At http://www.kansascity.com/746/story/946430.html, Karen Dillon of the Kansas City Star reports that livestock corporations are moving toward use of smaller farms: “Instead of building mega farms, they work with several smaller farms, each of which has fewer animals than would trigger the state pollution rules.” These smaller farms can collectively have a large impact on Missouri’s air and water, and they should not escape regulatory attention.
Our consumption patterns can also influence animal raising. If we eat less meat or choose meat from local non CAFO sources, we are casting a vote against the dominant meat industry. Of course vegetarianism is another choice. To find out what you can do regarding legislation see the “What You Can Do” section on page 2 to sign up for legislative alerts which will included CAFO issues.