A proposed dairy CAFO in mid-Michigan is fueling a heated fight over clean water, manure pollution and the future of industrial farming — as supporters tout jobs and renewable energy, and critics warn local rivers are already overwhelmed.
Three years ago Chris Jones was a highly regarded research engineer at the University of Iowa, where he directed stream pollution monitoring work and published details about the state’s dismal water quality in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Jones also authored a university-sponsored blog, where he regularly identified agriculture as the primary source of the state’s calamitous water pollution.
More than 30 food, health and environmental organizations are urging the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to disqualify digesters that turn animal waste into gas from a federal renewable energy grant program, alleging that such funding causes pollution and benefits large factory farms.
A coalition of food, environmental and animal welfare groups is appealing a recent federal court decision that upheld a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule exempting factory farms from publicly disclosing hazardous air emissions information.
By Brian Bienkowski
Roughly a quarter of the nation’s large cattle, dairy and hog farms are located in just 30 US counties, a new satellite-mapping study has found. The research also links large farms — whether in these dense hotspots or scattered elsewhere — to elevated air pollution.
By Shannon Kelleher
When voters head to the polls on Tuesday to decide the next US president, residents of Sonoma County, California, will be asked to decide another contentious issue – they will be voting on a measure that would make their county the first in the nation to ban factory farms.
AMES, IOWA – In a gathering that drew the attendance of both farmers and Wall Street financiers, US regulators joined with oil giant Chevron at a November conference here to promote what backers promise will be a monumental breakthrough – systemic changes that would turn polluting agricultural waste into a source of renewable energy that replaces fossil fuels and slows climate change.
There’s no way to describe farm-related nutrient pollution other than what it is – a national scandal. A tiny minority of Americans, half of one percent, is grossly fouling the waters for tens of millions of others.