Thursday, March 07, 2013

Protecting Factory Farms

The Farm Bureau  is a fairly powerful organization, particularly when it comes to protecting its factory farm members.  Many of these members are known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); these operations have often been exposed for abusing livestock, passing off sick cattle as healthy, and polluting water and air quality with massive amounts of animal manure. Drinking water pollution has been a serious problem for communities near these operations, which the US Geological Survey identified as the largest source of nitrogen pollution in the country. 

The bureau is successful at state and federal levels.  It was even able to get the EPA to rescind a rule which would have allowed the EPA to track how many animals each CAFO holds, how much manure is being discharged into the water supply, and which facilities are violating the Clean Water Act. 

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