Despite the rapid national growth of factory livestock production and the environmental calamities associated with it, state and federal governments have failed to adequately regulate the enormous concentrated output of sewage. Not long ago, the total amount of livestock in the United States was largely spread out over small, independently-operated farms that dotted the countryside. Today, however, while the total amount of cattle, hogs, and chickens has not increased considerably, these animals are more likely to be confined in factory buildings and feedlots that also concentrate the huge amounts of manure they produce into small areas, which creates a serious, unregulated hazardous waste problem. A handful of companies own these mass-production systems. The spill killed 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing.
Smaller spills are common and create chronic problems.
For example, in 1996 forty spills in Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri killed close to 700,000 fish. In 1997, Indiana feedlots were responsible for 2,391 manure spills. A 100,000-gallon spill in 1998 into Minnesota's Beaver Creek killed close to 700,000 fish. In 1996, the Centers for Disease Control linked the high nitrate levels in Indiana well water near feedlots to spontaneous abortions in humans. The deadly microbe pfiesteria, which kills fish and causes disorders in people that have been misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's disease, thrives in waterways overloaded with nitrates and phosphorus from sewage and fertilizers.