“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” ~ Native American Proverb via 15 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day Every Day « Positively Positive.

Follow the ‘via’ link above if you want the 15 ways. I’m not much of a tree hugger, but I am becoming more and more concerned about the environment especially a phenomenon that affects rural folks more directly than city folks, but it affects us all the same. The issue is CAFOs…

A Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is a term that was first coined by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to describe animal agricultural facilities that have a potential pollution profile. Specifically, the EPA defines a CAFO as an animal feeding operation (AFO) that (a) confines animals for more than 45 days during a growing season, (b) in an area that does not produce vegetation, and (c) meets certain size thresholds. The EPA’s definition of the term “captures key elements of the transformations” observed in the animal agriculture sector over the course of the 20th century: “a production process that concentrates large numbers of animals in relatively small and confined places, and that substitutes structures and equipment (for feeding, temperature controls, and manure management) for land and labor.”[1]

via Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Kewaunee County, Wisconsin is a paradise of sorts, but we have 17 CAFOs in our county. Although our population is only 20,000, CAFOs produce the effluent [manure] equivalent of a population of 1.3 million people. Futhermore, Wisconsin law does little to protect its citizens against these big operations. I’m celebrating Earth Day by learning more about CAFOs and their impact on my family and community…