shawnhenning's Flickr photostream/Creative Commons

Agricultural runoff of waste from farm animals is contaminating local water supplies across the country, putting the people’s health at serious risk, while remaining dangerously unregulated.  It sounds crazy that just by turning on the tap you could be putting yourself and your family at risk for chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections, but that is the frightening reality for households in farming regions around the U.S.

Industrial-scale dairy farms produce millions of gallons of manure every year and the excessive waste, rich in bacteria and chemicals, is sprayed onto nearby fields as fertilizer.  All it takes is an early thaw or heavy rainfall for it to seep into drinking water supplies.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 does not usually apply to these contaminants and loopholes and patchy laws that often only apply to the largest of farms allow for much of the pollution to go unregulated.

And while stricter regulations are called for to help protect human health and the environment, we also need to accept that these large-scale operations are unsustainable and find ways to scale them back and support farming practice that enrich, not endanger, the land (e.g. Polyface Farm).

One young visitor to one of these massive dairy operations summed up the problem of agricultural run-off quite well:

Where does the poop go?  And what happens to the cow when it gets old?

Use the action link below to help protect America’s drinking supply and support sustainable farming practices.