Manure and Disease

Pandemics Ahead: Number 10 in a series looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

According to the US EPA, food animal waste has polluted in excess of 27,000 miles of rivers and contaminated groundwater in dozens of states. In addition, the EPA determined that nitrate is the most widespread agricultural contaminant in drinking water wells, and estimates that 4.5 million people are exposed to elevated nitrate levels from wells.(923)

Tens of thousands of miles of rivers in the US, Europe, and Asia are polluted each year. In the US, approximately 40% of fresh water is deemed unfit for drinking or recreational use because of contamination by dangerous microorganisms, pesticides, and fertilizers. Upwards of 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure. Each year, waterborne diseases cause 940,000 infections and 900 deaths. And, pathogenic Escherichia coli and related food-borne pathogens account for 76 million infections and 5,000 deaths.(924)

Also, using human waste as fertilizer might be making humans infertile. Eating flesh from animals grazed on land treated with commonly-used “human sewage sludge-derived fertilizer” might have serious implications for pregnant women and the future reproductive health of their unborn children. Chemical contaminants in human-based manure can mimic sex hormones and disrupt ovary development, with the potential for long-term damage to adult female fertility.(925)

After a severe rainstorm in 1993, an outbreak of cryptosporidium in Milwaukee's drinking water supply caused 100 deaths, sickened 430,000 people, and produced $37 million in lost wages and productivity. Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina may have spawned outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss, and other cognitive problems in local people.(926)

In 1995 an eight-acre pig-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons (9.4m liters) of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres (570 sq mi) of coastal wetlands. In 2011, an Illinois pig farm spilled 200,000 gallons (757,000 liters) of manure into a creek, killing over 110,000 fish.(927)

In February 2014, in Michigan’s Allegan County, a storm-water system failure at a cow milk farm with a 1-million-gallon (3.8m liters) manure lagoon spilled manure into nearby waterways, creating a visible plume five miles (8 km) long. In Canton, Minnesota, a wall on an above-ground manure storage tank broke in April 2013, spilling roughly 1 million gallons of manure.

In one of the largest cases of manure pollution, an estimated 15 million gallons (57m liters) of manure, water, and other matter spilled in 2010 into a slough that drains into the Snohomish River in Washington state, when a berm on a cow's milk farm’s manure lagoon failed. In 2005, 3 million gallons (11m liters) of manure spilled from a New York cow milk farm into a river, killing thousands of fish.

Chapter 25: WASTE POLLUTION, page 240 

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Rivers of Waste

Pandemics Ahead: Number 9 in a series looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

Animal-based agribusiness generates a lot of manure and excretions that decompose and turns into greenhouse gasses (GHGs) and cause disease. Lagoons and spray-fields are the most common methods that concentrated animal feed operations (CAFOs) use for dealing with animal waste, or sludge. Farms generally collect waste from the area containing a concentrated number of animals and store it, untreated, in huge open-air waste lagoons, often as big as several football fields, and holding as many as 40 million gallons.

The quantity of livestock manure and other wastes produced each year in the US is vast, estimated to be 1.5 bTons. A single cow raised for milk excretes around 88 lbs (40 kg) of manure for every kilogram of edible cow flesh it puts on. Each cow produces approximately 120 lbs (54 kg) of wet manure per day, equal to that of 20 - 40 people. Disposing of billions of gallons of sludge is a serious environmental issue.(918)

A farm with 2,500 cows raised for milk produces the same volume of waste as a city of 411,000 people. The massive waste lagoons often break, leak or overflow, polluting underground water supplies and rivers with nitrogen, phosphorus, and nitrates. In recent decades, livestock production systems have moved closer to urban areas, causing water and food to be frequently contaminated with manure.(919)

Some of the sludge are applied at agronomic rates as fertilizer onto land called spray-fields. Agronomic rates provide nitrogen for vegetation growth while minimizing the quantity that passes below the root zone. However, factory farms have superfluous quantities of sludge and routinely spray excess amounts on fields which leeches out and damages the environment. Industrial animal agriculture is the largest sectoral source of water pollutants which includes fertilizers, pesticides, animal wastes, antibiotics, and hormones. To boot, the sector is responsible for water pollution from chemicals in tanneries and sediments from eroded pastures.

Animal waste can contain pathogens like Giardia and Cryptosporidium, as well as heavy metals. Excess sludge sprayed on fields can contaminate food crops meant for humans and lead to disease outbreaks. Manure contamination often result in Listeria outbreaks on fruits and vegetables. Medical treatment generates further CO2 pollution and other problems. For example, the cost of cleaning up the soil under US hog and dairy CAFOs could approach US$4.1 billion.(920) 

The manure problem from factory farms will only worsen with intensification and expansion. And, wastage of food represents another huge loss to the environment, and to the animals themselves. Waste chemicals often seep from lagoons and spray-fields into groundwater, streams, and wetlands, and contaminate drinking water. In addition to numerous adverse effects on human health, contaminated runoff and spills are causing dead zones and fish kills.(921) 

The volume of antibiotics being used on factory farms pose serious hazards to public and environmental health as well. Antibiotic residue is conducive to antibiotic resistance in pathogens that cause illness in people.(922) In the US alone, animal agriculture consumes 29 million pounds of antibiotics, about 80% of the nation's antibiotics use in total. The effects of pollution on biodiversity from antibiotics are largely unknown. One concern is that some wells and waterways have tested positively for estrogenic and endocrine-disrupting compounds.

One pending lawsuit alleges that manure spreading by five large dairies has caused nitrate and other contamination of groundwater, and violates the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The plaintiffs contend that the way the manure is being applied is the equivalent of dumping solid waste. This activity is covered by RCRA but it has not been applied to manure spreading.

Chapter 25: WASTE POLLUTION, page 239. 

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Five Sisters

Gaia is blessed tonight

her five sisters visiting

on a beautiful cloudless sky

Jupiter leads the Goddess procession 

big sister, oh so bright 

approaching the sky's center

as Saturn trails behind

still far in front of  Mars

part of the inner circle,

and Venus, returning in 2020

Our closest sibling

tagging along the crescent Moon

with Mercury in the rear

an incredible parade of Goddesses

goes entirely unnoticed 

by humans, young and old, below

too drunk in ego

consumed by desire for fun

to care about our solar family

people in long beach city

live in an alternate universe

a nihilist world 

engrossed in machismo

a magical place in which

corona virus does not exist

friends and strangers alike

mix and mingle, merrily

as if the pandemic is gone

also likely, it never happened

groups and gatherings galore

block after block

strangely, uncomfortably

we are the only one 

social distancing

sirens blaring...

in one month 

mid-june to mid-july

california went from having 

2,000 corona virus cases daily

to 10,000 new cases every day

every day 

even with inadequate testing

newsome, our 'liberal' governor 

re-opened too soon

beaches, bars, restaurants, theaters 

now desperately trying 

to close it all back down again

but it is too little, too late, gov

the golden state has left the barn

we will soon pass

new york's 406,000 cases 

to lead the US in infections

what a difference a month makes

then, 'rona was spreading slowly

now, she is widely out of control

Venus knew this would happen

the Goddesses all knew

we are the only ones in the dark