{"id":67263,"date":"2024-04-11T17:14:45","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T22:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67263"},"modified":"2024-04-11T17:14:45","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T22:14:45","slug":"large-scale-factory-farms-have-become-the-biggest-source-of-water-pollution-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67263","title":{"rendered":"Large-scale factory farms have become the biggest source of water pollution in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Large-scale factory farms have become the biggest source of water pollution in the U.S.<\/a><\/h3>\n
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The EPA can change that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Your hotdogs and burgers may be doing more than feeding friends at a barbeque.<\/p>\n

Large-scale factory farms and confined\u00a0feedlot operations<\/a>\u00a0have become the biggest source of water pollution in the\u00a0United States.<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)<\/a>\u00a0announced plans to monitor factory farm pollution back in 2005 \u2014 but it has yet to actually do so. We can\u2019t afford to wait any longer.<\/p>\n

Factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs, generate millions \u2014 if not billions \u2014 of gallons of waste each year. In fact, the largest factory farm has been known to generate up to\u00a0369 million tons of waste per year.<\/a>\u00a0And while every animal produces waste, this level of highly concentrated manure can wreak serious havoc on the health of the environment and on the public.<\/p>\n

When massive amounts of fertilizer, animal waste and other pollutants aren\u2019t managed properly, they foul our waterways and release harmful chemicals like ammonia and methane into the environment. Extended exposure to these potent chemicals can result in serious health consequences such as asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and other\u00a0respiratory diseases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Additionally, animal waste can leach toxic heavy metals and nitrates into waterways. Elevated nitrate levels in our drinking water can be dangerous for our health, and even cause low oxygen levels in infants and\u00a0low birth weight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These risks are why the EPA announced plans to monitor factory farm pollution almost 20 years ago. However, the agency has yet to release finalized plans to observe factory farm pollution and ultimately make decisions based off of the observations. This delay has allowed factory farms to continue emitting hazardous pollutants without\u00a0sufficient oversight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the EPA\u2019s duty to hold major polluting industries responsible and to safeguard public health and the environment in the process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Large-scale factory farms have become the biggest source of water pollution in the U.S. The EPA can change that. Your hotdogs and burgers may be doing more than feeding friends at a barbeque. Large-scale factory farms and confined\u00a0feedlot operations\u00a0have become the biggest source of water pollution in the\u00a0United States. The\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)\u00a0announced plans to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34243,299,34244,5720,638,9703,3184,1411],"class_list":["post-67263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-factory-farming","tag-farming","tag-gina-goldenberg","tag-industrial-agriculture","tag-pollution","tag-us-environmental-protection-agency","tag-us-epa","tag-water-pollution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67264,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67263\/revisions\/67264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}