2022.12.01
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In Lenawee County, Michigan the number of dairy cows has increased steadily since 1980 while the number of farms has decreased. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/ Circle of Blue

Opposition to CAFOs Mounts Across the Nation

Toxic manure discharges from large livestock operations is major source of water pollution.

For decades, Americans mostly turned a blind eye to the industrial-scale livestock production operations that churn out cheap supplies of meat and dairy for the masses. Occasional opposition to local pollution problems and the casual animal cruelty that characterize conventional US dairy, hog, and poultry production did little to alter practices that are embedded in the rural landscape.

That may be changing. A wave of frontline resistance is now breaking across the Upper Midwest and around the country as organized campaigns aimed at regulating concentrated animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs, are being felt at every level of government, and in state and federal courts.

Opposition to large livestock operations is more intense than at any time in recent memory, say environmental advocates.

“It’s been building and building,” said Rob Michaels, an attorney for the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), a Chicago-based legal group, who is working to limit CAFO manure discharges in Ohio and Michigan. “It’s now being raised as a political issue. As a legal issue. As a legislative issue.”

Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue

What’s Up With Water -November 22, 2022

Tune into What's Up With Water for your need to know news of the world's water on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and SoundCloud.

Featured coverage from this week's episode of What's Up With Water looks at:

For the last two weeks, world leaders and diplomats were in Egypt for the annual UN climate summit, COP27. Those who gathered in the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh had several main objectives. One was to bolster commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Water sought a place at the table at COP27. For the first time, the summit dedicated a day to discussing water issues. Many speakers pushed for a greater role for water in climate response. The Water and Climate Leaders are a group of UN officials, private sector representatives, and current and former government ministers. They urged countries to integrate their climate and water plans.
Officials from Israel and Jordan were especially active, using the summit to sign two agreements related to water and energy. The first reaffirms an existing arrangement, in which the Middle East neighbors committed to trade water for energy. Jordan will export solar power to Israel in exchange for desalinated water. The second agreement, still in the outline stages, aims to protect the shrinking Jordan River.
If leaders want proof that even small projects can add up to big benefits, they can look to Pakistan. Officials in the capital, Islamabad, are taking initial steps to secure their groundwater. Last summer, Pakistan made global headlines when one third of the country was submerged in monsoon flooding. Despite the deluge, there is still not enough clean drinking water in the country’s major cities

From the Archives:

Michigan’s extensive drainage infrastructure carries nutrient-rich water from 3.8 million acres of farmland and directs it into streams, rivers, and canals that terminate in the Great Lakes. Photos © J. Carl Ganter/ Circle of Blue

Danger Looms Where Toxic Algae Blooms

Circle of Blue’s penetrating assessment of the causes, impediments, and solutions to harmful algal blooms that are more numerous and in many cases getting more dangerous in Michigan, Ohio, and the other Great Lakes states.

The project comes on the 50th anniversary of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a high point of environmental diplomacy, and the U.S. Clean Water Act, a pivotal piece of American environmental law. Together they were established to clear Lake Erie and other waterways of harmful algal blooms. For the first 20 years after enactment, working in tandem, the Water Quality Agreement and the Clean Water Act did just that. Lake Erie, which was famously declared ecologically dead in the 1960s, recovered.

It’s sick again. According to assessments by five federal agencies and every state in the Great Lakes basin, Lake Erie is among the country’s most visible examples of waters fouled by toxic blooms. There are many others. In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency surveyed more than 49,000 lakes across the country and found that 30 percent contained toxins produced by the blooms. Last year, the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research organization, counted 476 harmful blooms in 41 states, five times higher than in 2010.

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