Factory "Farms" Harm Our Health & Environment, New Report Reveals

The recent 3 million gallon liquid manure spill preventable; 100,000+ fish killed in Black Creek needless tragedy

(August 17, 2005) Citizens' Environmental Coalition and Sierra Club today released "The Wasting of Rural New York State: Factory Farms and Public Health" which reveals the damage that gigantic, poorly-regulated factory "farms" are doing to our health, environment and economy.

For a complete copy of the report, download the .pdf file, or contact CEC's Albany office for a printed copy. 

To find out if there is a factory "farm" near you, check out www.ecothreatny.org -- select the "CAFOs" data set and enter your zip code.

pollute our air

pollute our water

endanger our health

drive out responsible family farmers

Every state in which CAFOs operate acknowledges these dangers. The NY Department of Agriculture and Markets, on the other hand, is steadfastly enforcing so-called "right-to-farm" laws by surpressing efforts by locally elected governments to protect citizens from the adverse effects of factory farms.

Lagoons and Sprayfields Pollute the Environment
The factory farms are plagued with pollution problems. Lagoons at many of these operations have broken, failed, or overflowed, leading to major fish kills, groundwater contamination and other pollution. Operators have sprayed waste in windy and wet weather, on frozen ground, or on land already saturated with manure. Increasingly, local communities and environmental groups are looking to the courts to remedy environmental violations.



Lagoons and Sprayfields Can Make Us Sick
Hundreds of gases are emitted by lagoons and the irrigation pivots associated with sprayfields, including ammonia (a toxic form of nitrogen), hydrogen sulfide, and methane. The accumulation of gases formed in the process of breaking down animal waste is toxic, oxygen consuming, and potentially explosive. Exposure to lagoon gases has even caused deaths. People living close to hog operations have reported headaches, runny noses, sore throats, excessive coughing, respiratory problems, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, burning eyes, depression, and fatigue.

The pathogenic microbes in animal waste can also infect people. Water contaminated by animal manure contributes to human diseases such as acute gastroenteritis, fever, kidney failure, and even cause death. Nitrates seeping from lagoons and sprayfields have contaminated groundwater used for human drinking water. Nitrate levels above 10 mg/l in drinking water increase the risk of methemoglominemia, or blue baby syndrome, which can cause deaths in infants.

Over-use of Antibiotics Alarms Scientists
The practice of feeding huge quantities of antibiotics to animals to promote growth has contributed to the rise of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, making it more difficult to treat human diseases. Scientists recently found bacteria with antibiotic resistant genes in groundwater downstream from hog operations.



Lagoons and Sprayfields Harm Water Quality
Lagoons filled with manure have spilled and burst, dumping millions of gallons of waste into rivers, lakes, streams, and estuaries. The impact of runoff from sprayfields can be severe over time since manure is often over-applied or misapplied to cropland and pastures. There are also often cumulative effects from sprayfield runoff within local watersheds because multiple large-scale feedlots cluster around slaughterhouses. Watersheds as far as 300 hundred miles away are also affected by the atmospheric deposition of ammonia emitted from lagoons and sprayfields.

Lagoons and sprayfields are often located in close proximity to waterways and floodplains, which increases the likelihood of ecological damage. Lagoon breaches and leaks and runoff from sprayfields have killed fish, depleted oxygen in water, contaminated drinking water, and threatened aquatic life. In many cases, lagoons leak because they are not lined, but leakage may even occur with the use of clay liners, with seepage rates as high as millions of gallons per year. How much a lagoon or sprayfield seeps depends, in part, upon where it is sited. In many places, lagoons and sprayfields have been given permits for places where groundwater can be threatened, such as over drinking water aquifers and in locations with shallow groundwater tables. The lagoon system also depletes groundwater supplies by using large quantities of water to flush the manure into the lagoon and spray it onto fields.

Existing Alternatives Are Rarely Used by CAFOs
Alternative approaches include sustainable agriculture practices that prevent pollution, such as management intensive rotational grazing, hoop houses, and composting. Alternative technologies that treat the wastewater, including anaerobic digestion, wetlands treatment, an sequencing batch reactors also mitigate some of the risks to surface water, groundwater, air, and health.