- Animal Agriculture’s Role in Water Pollution
- Links to resources
- Resources and articles not available on-line
- Walkerton should be a wake-up call (Jun 07, 2000)
- The dangerous consequences of factory farming are being felt all across the country by Andrew Nikiforuk.
- Tonnes of trouble by Brian Bergman
- Coming up roses in Saskatchewan by Danylo Hawaleshka
- A Strategy for Sustainable Manure Management in Saskatchewan
- Holding pond site selection and design. Livestock operators may need to contain contaminated runoff from feedlot facilities, silage pits or manure piles to prevent surface water pollution.
- Chapter 1: Introduction to agricultural water pollution
- Chapter 2: Pollution by sediments
- Chapter 3: Fertilizers as water pollutants
- Chapter 4: Pesticides as water pollutants
- Chapter 5: Summary and recommendations
- Animal Farming and the Environment
- Environmental Aspects of Vegetarianism: The Australian Experience
- Rural residents' perspectives on factory farms: a patchwork of rural injustice by Karen Hudson. Paper presented at the February 1998 Soil and Water Conservation Society Conference, and revised in May 1999 for presentation as a poster at the Manure Management '99 Conference, June 22-26, 1999, Saskatoon, Canada
- Federal Court Ruling [USA] upholds EPA's authority to identify waters polluted by runoff (April 5, 2000)
in Water Pollution
A recent campaign by the Council of Canadians
to prevent Canada’s water from being sold off to large corporations for
export, combined with the recent Walkerton scandal, has caused me to spend
some time recently thinking about one of our most precious resources: Water.
>References
Animal
Agriculture’s Role in Water Pollution
Three quarters of the world's surface is
water and yet according to the United Nations, more than 1.4 billion people
in the world do not have access to safe drinking water. (1)
Eighty per cent of disease in the world is related to poor drinking water
and sanitation. (2) Five million people die annually from
water-borne diseases. (3) One percent of the Earth's
water is usable, 99% is found in oceans and glaciers, and Canada is home
to the largest supply of freshwater in the world. Here in Canada, water
is so basic that many of us take it for granted. But do we really
have so much to spare? And are our clear Canadian waters really as
pristine as we think they are?
One of the main consumers and polluters of water resources in North America is animal agriculture. In fact, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States, agriculture is the single largest non-point source of water pollution, surpassing all other industries. One-third of this pollution is due to animal production operations. (4) And the problem is not just a few isolated streams. According to the EPA, between 35% and 45% of America’s rivers and lakes are classified as “polluted”, (4) and a US Senate Agriculture Committee report estimates that 60% of streams and rivers are “impaired”. Agricultural run-off is considered to be the largest contributor to that pollution. (4,5). Here in Canada, a 1998 study found that over half of 27 Alberta streams exceeded water quality guidelines for phosphorous, nitrogen and disease-carrying bacteria, three indicators that are commonly suggestive of intensive livestock operations and improper manure disposal. (6)
Farmers are traditionally known as good stewards of the land, however the move to factory farms has made them, in effect, general managers of small, crowded cities of animals that generate huge volumes of waste. A typical factory farming operation with ten thousand hogs will create waste volume equal to a city of twenty-five thousand or more people. (7) And Alberta's livestock industry may well hold a national manure record producing waste equivalent to 48 million Canadians. (8) That’s more animal waste produced in one province than by Canada’s entire human population. So what does one do with it all?
Human waste is required by law to be treated at sewage facilities before being released into Canada’s environment. But animal waste has no such requirements, although regional storage and disposal standards may exist. (1) Common practice across Canada and the United States is to keep the waste in underground pits or large open cesspools called lagoons until it is spread onto the land as fertilizer (7) or dumped into local waterways. (9) This causes concern to many experts who feel that animal waste should be properly treated before it even leaves the barn. (8)
Why all the fuss? Animal urine and faeces often contain a variety of heavy metals, nutrients and pathogens such as e. coli, the deadly strain of bacterium which was responsible for the Walkerton disaster (3,8). This is partly due to the nature of animal waste itself, but also in no small part due to the regular mineral and antibiotic supplementation of animal feed. (7) Many of these nutrients, minerals and pathogens leach into local groundwater from storage facilities or run off into surface water due to poor containment of the lagoons. Misapplication of manure as fertilizer, often due to overapplication in an effort to dispose of the vast quantities of manure, also affects local water quality as excess manure runs off into local streams and rivers. (3,7)
Too much phosphorous released into local waterways can cause massive algae growth, depletion of the oxygen-supply for aquatic life and, consequently “fish kills”. (3,7,8) Such was the case in Lake Erie in the 1970s, where years of indiscriminate chemical and wastewater dumping by industry and municipalities choked the Great Lake, and Lake Erie was "officially" declared dead. Rivers flowing into the lake, such as the Cuyahoga and Black, were so polluted that advisories were issued warning against any contact with the water, and even Johnny Carson, a U.S. talk show host, commented that Lake Erie was a place fish went to die. The dire situation of Lake Erie eventually forced a clean-up of pollution in the area, (10) but now similar high levels of phosphorous are being found in Alberta streams. (6)
But the problem extends beyond our streams and rivers. A recent Health Canada study published last year (1999) found that 32 per cent of wells in rural Ontario exceeded the acceptable standards for fecal contamination. The study also noted that there was a strong association between e. coli infection and cattle density. (1) Although e. coli is a bacterium that is naturally found in our intestines, the ingestion of various strains e. coli and other pathogens associated with fecal contamination has been linked to gastrointestinal illnesses and in some severe cases, death. The Chinook region of Alberta, one of Canada’s most densely cattle populated areas, has reported some of the highest rates of gastrointestinal illnesses in the country, although an ongoing study has failed to link contamination to the livestock industry. (11) Similarly, Walkerton is also located in the heart of cattle-country and in an area that routinely reports higher than national-average rates of e. coli infection. (8)
Biological pathogens are not the only things we need to fear in well water. In the United States, tests of 1600 drinking wells near heavy animal agricultural areas revealed that one third of the wells were polluted and one in ten had dangerously high levels of nitrates. (7) In 1996, scientists from the National Cancer Institute (USA) found a direct correlation between nitrates in drinking water and cancer. (7) In fact, the study highlighted the health impacts from nitrates emanating from large animal agriculture operations. (7) Even the World Health Organization has drawn a correlation between levels of nitrogen in groundwater and "intensification of farming practice" (1993). (3) In Europe, nitrate levels have grown in some countries to the point where more than 10% of the population is exposed to levels in drinking water that are above the 10 mg/L guideline. (3)
In Quebec, manure mismanagement practices currently make pork production the most environmentally harmful agricultural activity in Canada, with over one-third of Quebec's farm operations found to be in non-compliance with local standards for manure treatment. (9) If industry or municipalities treated their waste in such a way, they would be fined and shut down. But forecasters expect the hog industry to triple in size over the next ten years. (9) This growth might spell success for the provincial pocket books, but at what cost to the environment?
What’s being done about animal agriculture and pollution? The federal Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Canadian Pork Council have jointly established the Hog Environment Management Strategy (HEMS). Through this program, a total of $3 million will be available for future initiatives to answer the environmental challenges of odour, soil and water degradation, and air pollution in Canada due to animal agriculture. (9) But beyond that, the involvement of the Canadian and Provincial governments is notably absent. In fact, Les Klapatiuk, who runs a Calgary firm specializing in water treatment, says there isn't a single government in Canada with adequate legislation to deal with these volumes of animal waste. (8)
Not so in the United States where some States have “had it” with factory farms polluting and poisoning their seaboard and communities. Kansas and Nebraska have banned large animal factories and Iowa has declared a moratorium on future developments in this industry. The EPA has also targeted factory farms for top priority inspections. (8)
So what should Canada do within animal agriculture to preserve our most precious resource? Following Kansas’ and Nebraska’s lead and limiting the size of animal agriculture operations would be a good start. Also developing a national standard and comprehensive management plan for the treatment of animal waste would be a step in the right direction. But these solutions are, in my opinion, just relieving the symptoms of a greater illness. Large animal agriculture operations in Canada are regulated much like the small family farms they are replacing. However, modern animal agriculture is not really farming at all. Rather, it is factory production involving huge amounts of industrial chemicals and waste. Therefore it should be treated like an industry and should be regulated as such with full industrial pollution controls. And perhaps as a society, we should be examining why corporate profits are often treated as a higher priority than our environment, and revisiting our modern farming practices altogether.
Notes:
Non-point source water pollution is pollution
of which there is no obvious point source. In contrast, point source water
pollution represents those activities where wastewater is routed directly
into receiving water bodies (i.e., discharge pipes). Non-point source
pollution is much more difficult to identify, measure and control than
point sources.
References:
1. David Suzuki.
Walkerton
should be a wake-up call. Science Matters. Jun 07, 2000.
2.
Fact file on water. New Internationalist. April 2000.
3. Control
of water pollution from agriculture - FAO irrigation and drainage paper
55. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.1996.
4. Water Quality Conditions
in the United States: A Profile from the 1998
National Water Quality Inventory Report to Congress. U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. EPA-841-F-00-006. June 2000.
5. Animal waste pollution
in America: An emerging national problem. Environmental
risks of livestock & poultry production. United States Senate Agricultural
Committee Report. 1997.
6. Andrew Nikiforuk.
Pollution
alarm sounded: Farming blamed for bad water. The Edmonton Journal.
January 21, 1998.
7. Karen Hudson. Rural
residents' perspectives on factory farms: a patchwork of rural injustice.
Paper presented at the February 1998 Soil and Water Conservation Society
Conference, and revised in May 1999 for presentation as a poster at the
Manure Management '99 Conference, June 22-26, 1999, Saskatoon, Canada
8. Andrew Nikiforuk.
The
dangerous consequences of factory farming are being felt all across the
country. Maclean's Magazine. June 12, 2000.
9. U. S. Department
of Commerce - National Trade Data Bank, Canada - Hog
Pollution. November 3, 2000
10. Doug Jeanneret.
Lake
Erie water quality: Past, present and future. Fact Sheet 046. Ohio
Sea Grant College Program. 1989
11. Brian Bergman.
Tonnes
of trouble. Maclean's Magazine. June 12, 2000.
12. Canadian Environmental
Defence Fund (CEDF).
Factory Farming.
Canadian Environmental Defence Fund (CEDF).
Factory
Farming.
David Suzuki Foundation. Science
Matters Archive.
Maclean's Magazine. When
Water Kills
The Edmonton Journal. Pollution
alarm sounded: Farming blamed for bad water by Andrew Nikiforuk. (January
21, 1998)
Agriculture and Agri-food Canada.
Government of Saskatchewan. Agriculture and Food Saskatchewan:
Agro-Environmental
Portrait of Hog Farming Operations in Quebec. (GREPA - Groupe de recherche
en économie et politique agricole).
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Control of water pollution from agriculture - FAO irrigation and drainage paper 55
Animal waste pollution in America: An
emerging national problem. Environmental
risks of livestock & poultry production. United States Senate Agricultural
Committee Report. 1997.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Water Quality Conditions in the United States: A Profile from the 1998 National Water Quality Inventory Report to Congress (summary). EPA-841-F-00-006. June 2000.
Ohio State University Lake Erie Program. Lake Erie water quality: Past, present and future. Fact Sheet 046. by Doug Jeanneret (1989)
New Internationalist Magazine:
The International
Vegetarian Union:
Families Against Rural Messes (FARM):
Youth
for Environmental Sanity (YES!) Water
Pollution.
Resources
and articles not on-line:
The Meat Business - Devouring a Hungry Planet.
Eds Geoff Tansey and Joyce D'Silva. Earthscan, 1999, 249pp
Anderson, Curt. Little Control on Runoff Pollution. Associated Press, Sept. 20, 1997.
Andreoli, C.V. 1993. The influence of agriculture on water quality. In: Prevention of Water Pollution by Agriculture and Related Activities. Proceedings of the FAO Expert Consultation, Santiago, Chile, 20-23 Oct. 1992. Water Report 1. FAO, Rome pp. 53-65.
Bangay, G.E. 1976. Livestock and poultry wastes in the Great Lakes Basin: environmental concerns and management issues. Social Science Series No. 15. Environment Canada.
Calamari, D. and Barg, U. 1993. Hazard assessment of agricultural chemicals by simple simulation models. In: Prevention of Water Pollution by Agriculture and Related Activities. Proceedings of the FAO Expert Consultation, Santiago, Chile, 20-23 Oct. 1992. Water Report 1. FAO, Rome. pp. 207-222.
CCREM. n.d. Canadian Water Quality Guidelines. Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers (CCREM), Produced by the Ecosystem Conservation Directorate, Environment Canada, Ottawa, periodically updated).
Coote, D.R. and Hore, F.R. 1978. Pollution Potential of Cattle Feedlots and Manure Storages in the Canadian Great Lakes Basin. International Joint Commission PLUARG Report, Windsor, Ontario.
FAO. 1993a. An overview of pollution of water by agriculture. J.A. Sagardoy. In: Prevention of Water Pollution by Agriculture and Related Activities, Proceedings of the FAO Expert Consultation, Santiago, Chile, 20-23 Oct. 1992. Water Report 1. FAO, Rome. pp. 19-26.
Jolankai, G. 1986. Non-point source pollution modelling results for an agricultural watershed in Hungary, In: Land Use Impacts on Aquatic Ecosystems. J. Lauga, Décamps and M.M. Holland. Proceedings of the Toulouse Workshop, MAB-UNESCO & PIREN-CNRS, France, pp. 165-189.
Lampman, W. 1995. Susceptibility of groundwater to pesticide and nitrate contamination in predisposed areas of southwestern Ontario. Water Qual. Res. Jour. Canada 30: 443-468.
Sagardoy, J.A. 1993. An overview of pollution
of water by agriculture. In: Prevention of Water Pollution by
Agriculture and Related Activities, Proceedings of the FAO
Expert Consultation, Santiago, Chile, 20-23 Oct. 1992. Water
Report 1. FAO, Rome. pp. 19-26.
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