Civil Eats

This is a story about crap–literally, tons of it. Piling up in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and being sprayed onto farm fields, animal manure is polluting the nation’s waterways and is nearly impossible to regulate.

Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a ruling [PDF] reversing the decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requiring CAFOs to obtain a Clean Water Act permit in order to pollute. The court did uphold the EPA’s right to fine those that do pollute after the fact. Here’s the rub: Farmers are not responsible for manure that exits their property and enters waterways when it rains. Read More

What happens in Iowa doesn’t stay in Iowa. This is the lesson illuminated in Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney’s latest film, Big River, a companion to their successful film King Corn (made with director Aaron Wolff). In King Corn, Ellis and Cheney grew an acre of corn and followed it to the plate by way of the processing that brings us most of our packaged food and the confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that bring us 99% of our meat. This time around, they follow the top soil, fertilizer runoff, and pesticide residues from the acre they planted into the local water system and further to the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone. Read More

It’s not often that I get to write about a positive food policy story coming out of my home state, but it turns out that Oklahoma Attorney General (and Democratic candidate for governor in 2010) Drew Edmondson is suing the more lenient Arkansas poultry industry for its waste, which is polluting the Illinois River on the states’ shared border. This case brings the spotlight to a huge, oft-ignored issue that many legislators in other states should take note of, too: agricultural pollution. Read More