This report documents dozens of spills and other problems in the year and a half since our reporting period ended. When all the data is in, there will likely be hundreds, not dozens, to report. During the past three decades, the Clean Water Act helped reduce water pollution from most point sources of pollution such as industrial and municipal sources. Feedlot pollution problems are not caused by the production of more animals but rather by the concentration of those animals on a relatively small amount of land. Concentrated numbers of animals causes a concentration of manure and urine, which often leads to concentrated amounts of pollutants seeping through the soil and into our water.
Today s large livestock facilities operate more like animal factories than animal farms.
Thousands, and in some cases millions, of hogs and hundreds of thousands of chickens are raised in these facilities. A single factory farm can generate the waste equivalent of a town or city. However, while towns are required to build sewage treatment plants for human waste, similar volumes of waste produced by livestock go untreated. Nutrients in manure and urine, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, contaminate our water. When present in high concentrations in water, these nutrients increase algal growth, cause fish kills, threaten public health and jeopardize the enjoyment of recreational activities.