EPA Will (Finally) Investigate Pollution From Factory Farms

Take this, factory farms: Last night, a settlement was reached on a lawsuit filed by environmental groups. Under the settlement, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will begin tracking down and investigating thousands of factory farms that may be polluting America's waterways. Once the agency identifies polluters, strong regulations can be put in place to prevent animal waste and other contaminants from making their way into rivers and lakes.

And the settlement comes not a moment too soon: For decades, some factory farms, or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), have been operating under a loophole in the Clean Water Act. Thirty years ago, Congress declared that factory farms' animal waste pollution should be regulated under the Clean Water Act's permit program. The problem was that facilities could simply claim that they weren't discharging waste into waterways—no outside verification required. If only everything in life could be so easy ("Yes, credit card company, I totally paid my bill on time this month...").

The lax situation means that for years and years, manure, raw animal waste, and harmful contaminants have been running off from CAFOs into nearby waterways. (Translation: We've all been drinking, fishing, and swimming in cattle poo). Factory farms are responsible for filling waterways with waste, bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Just to put things into perspective, confined livestock operations generate about three times as much waste as people do. And while human sewage is pretty strictly regulated, animal waste from CAFOs goes largely untreated. In fact, the EPA estimates that CAFOs are one of the most common sources of E.coli found in waterways.

Thanks to the lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and Waterkeeper Alliance, the settlement closes the Clean Water Act loophole for CAFOS and ensures greater government oversight. According to an NRDC press release, thousands of factory farms are operating without Clean Water Act permits. The EPA's regulatory initiative will track down all of these potential polluters, examine their waste situation, and then decide whether individual operations needs further regulating. Based on how much gunk ends up in America's rivers and lakes every year, I'm guessing the EPA will be laying down the law on a lot of CAFOs.

This victory is a huge step forward in cleaning up America's factory farming system, but the process obviously can't happen overnight. In the meantime, consumers can cut back on the problem by sourcing meat from responsible purveyors. Obtaining beef, pork, and poultry from small farmers or from your local farmers' market ensures that the meat didn't come from a massive factory farm. Plus, the meat is less likely to contain chemicals like antibiotics and growth hormones.

Photo credit: Felagund via Wikimedia Commons