What Factory Farms Are Doing to Fish

You might think this is a departure from my normal fare, but it’s all related to quality of life — especially if you live in a rural area like I do:

What to do with animal poop? It’s a question that plagues organic and factory farmers alike, and in areas with lots of factory farms (also called concentrated animal-feeding operations, or CAFOs), animal manure is accused of adding high levels of nitrogen and phosphorous to nearby waterways, robbing them of oxygen and killing the fish that call them home.

Animal-farm owners have attempted to solve the problem by selling all that manure off to farmers, who can apply the nutrient-rich manure from CAFOs to their fields as fertilizer. But in doing so, the farmers introduce another problem to the beleaguered streams, according to a new study in Environmental Science & Technology—that of too many hormones.

Full story at:  What Factory Farms Are Doing to Fish | Rodale News.

Our county only has about 20,000 people but thanks to the factory farms in our area, the county has a ‘poop equvalent’ of a city of 1.3 million people as cattle alone produce the effluent of 43 humans. There’s a double whammy for us here in Kewaunee County as a large part of our economy depends on sport fishing during the summer [we are the salmon and trout capital of the Great Lakes here in Algoma]. Concerned citizens need to ask if factory farms or CAFOs are killing a huge segment of the local economy [in addition to all the other damage they are doing] while lining their own pockets. Unconcerned citizens need to wake up!