The Water We Drink, The Land We Live on: A Call to Action Against Confined Animal Feeding Operations

Friends of FLOW,

As a descendant of early Montana homesteaders, I’ve been blessed to spend much of my life close to pristine trout streams and millions of acres of wilderness. I’ve pulled lambs, witnessed calves being born on open range, and found myself way too close to grizzlies and bison. Both the responsibility of an animal whose life is in our hands and the awe of a brush with a truly wild creature offer insight into our humble human place in the universe.

As an environmental lawyer, I’ve also witnessed the insidious creep of industrial agriculture, which disrupts these natural rhythms and threatens the very foundation of our rural communities by replacing careful husbandry with the profitability of volume. Nowhere is this threat more evident than in the rise of the confined animal feeding operation (CAFO), an industrial model of livestock production that undermines the quality of the food we eat every day, while dumping cities’ worth of untreated sewage onto our land and into our water.

“[CAFO] waste contains a noxious cocktail of pathogens, antibiotics, hormones, and excess nutrients, all of which can and do seep into our groundwater, contaminate our rivers and lakes, and pollute the air we breathe.”

— Carrie La Seur, FLOW Legal Director

CAFOs, as you likely know, are large-scale facilities where thousands of animals live foreshortened lives fueled by diets nature never intended. Their cramped, unsanitary conditions contribute to the current avian flu outbreak. CAFOs generate massive amounts of sewage, often stored in open cesspits or spread onto fields as fertilizer in quantities even the poorest soil could never absorb. This waste contains a noxious cocktail of pathogens, antibiotics, hormones, and excess nutrients, all of which can and do seep into our groundwater, contaminate our rivers and lakes, and pollute the air we breathe.

When I started working with For Love of Water in Michigan late in 2023, one request rose above all the other urgent water quality issues on this water-obsessed peninsula: please, people said, help us do something about CAFOs. Michigan has nearly 300 permitted CAFOs, a number that’s doubled in the last 20 years, as the total number of farms plummeted. They’re concentrated in rural areas where residents rely on private wells for drinking water. These communities, full of generational residents who value open spaces and the gifts of nature, are now at increased risk of water contamination, with potentially devastating consequences for public health. We’ve all witnessed outbreaks of waterborne illnesses, elevated levels of nitrates in drinking water (especially dangerous for infants), and even the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

See EGLE, Regulated Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) map and MSU Extension, Small Farm Manure Management Planning. <​​https://egle.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=0fae269e1c45485f876c99391403bd3e>, <https://www.canr.msu.edu/animal-agriculture/uploads/files/Small%20Farm%20Manure%20Management%20Planning.pdf> (visited April 18, 2024).

But the damage doesn’t stop with threats to human health. CAFO waste can also degrade soil quality, contribute to harmful algal blooms, and drive the decline of fish and wildlife populations. The sheer scale of these operations places an immense strain on local infrastructure, from roads and bridges to downstream wastewater treatment plants. Residents on municipal water pay more to cover expensive filtration of CAFO pollution.

And let’s not forget the toll CAFOs take on rural communities – displacing small family farms and concentrating economic power in the hands of a few corporations. Industrial agriculture churns workers through low-paying, dangerous jobs often held by migrants who don’t dare report health and safety violations. Unlike the traditional family farm, these animal factories change the feel of a community. They breed a sinister atmosphere, where complaints are met with threats of violence and penalties for complaining written into state law: Michigan’s Right to Farm Act allows the ag department to bill its investigation costs to anyone who complains more than three times about a CAFO, if the department finds that the CAFO is complying with a set of loosely defined, industry-friendly standards called “Generally Accepted Agricultural Management Practices”, or GAAMPs. The point is clear: don’t complain.

So, what can we do? We won’t stand by and watch as our water is poisoned, our land is degraded, and our communities are hollowed out. We must raise our voices in defense of clean water, healthy food, and vibrant rural communities.

“CAFO waste can also degrade soil quality, contribute to harmful algal blooms, and drive the decline of fish and wildlife populations. The sheer scale of these operations places an immense strain on local infrastructure, from roads and bridges to downstream wastewater treatment plants.”

FLOW, with its deep commitment to protecting Michigan’s waters, is uniquely positioned to lead this charge. I urge all our members and allies to expand your advocacy efforts to include the fight against CAFOs in favor of an agriculture that honors people, land, water, and animals. This means working with legislators to strengthen regulations, supporting community-led initiatives to monitor water quality, and expanding public understanding about the dangers of an unethical, corporatized agriculture.

But we must go further. We must challenge the notion that CAFOs are the only way to produce food. We must support farmers — they’re all around us, please go meet them! — who are raising livestock in a way that respects the land, the animals, and the people who depend on them. We must build a food system that is not only sustainable but also just and equitable.

This is not just an environmental issue. It’s a moral issue. It’s a question of how we want to live, how we want to eat, and what kind of future we want to create for ourselves and our children. It’s a question of whether we will continue down a path of pollution and exploitation, or whether we will chart a new course toward a more sustainable and humane way of life.

I believe that we have the power to choose a different path. I believe that we can build a food system that nourishes both body and soul, a system that honors the land and the people who work it. I believe that we can create a future where clean water flows freely, where rural and urban communities thrive, and where all beings are treated with dignity and respect.

Let us work together to make this vision a reality.

In solidarity,

Carrie La Seur

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