A “Cow Palace” in Washington State that threatens public health with its acres of untreated animal waste. A city in Iowa spending $1 million a year to keep illness-causing nitrates from farm runoff out of public drinking water.
And who can forget the plight of Toledo, Ohio, residents whose water last summer was so contaminated by farm runoff that they couldn’t even bathe in it, much less drink it?
For decades, America’s chemical-intensive, industrial farming operations have spewed nitrates and other toxic chemicals, animal waste, ammonia, antibiotics, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane gases into public air, waterways and communities.
How do they get away with it? Largely because lobbyists have seen to it that Big Ag is exempt from many of the rules and regulations that other industries, and even municipalities, are required to follow under laws such as the Clean Air Act (comments on exemptions here), the Clean Water Act (comments on exemptions here) and the Resource and Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA).
Concerned about the growing threat to public health, and tired of picking up the tab for cleaning up the mess, citizens and local and state governments are turning to the courts for help.
In some cases, they’re winning. But the real win will come when the conversation turns from mitigating pollution, to preventing it, by transitioning to pesticide-free, chemical-free, non-GMO organic regenerative agriculture.
TAKE ACTION: Tell the EPA: Please Protect U.S. Waters from Factory Farm Pollution!