In the last few years, 12 livestock factories, most of them dairies, have been built near the town of Hudson, Michigan.  Large livestock operations that confine animals year-round are called Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan (ECCSCM) developed this website to provide information on the pollution and the damage CAFOs have caused in our community and its watersheds, and to promote Sustainable Alternatives (buy local food & pasture-based meat--see sources). We support vanguard, responsible agriculture, farming that looks ahead to the next generations, preserves biodiversity, raises animals in a healthy environment, does no harm to its neighbors, enhances the natural assets of living communities, and protects our natural resources -- air, soils, groundwater, streams, and lakes.

As family farmers and neighbors, we believe agriculture must take responsibility for its actions in rural communities. CAFOs have failed us. They have damaged our farming communities, degraded our natural resources, and polluted our watersheds.

STENCH/EMISSION ALERTS!

NEW: Fall Newsletter - focus on Groundwater Contamination & CAFOs (Part 1 in a series)

MANURE EMISSIONS INCIDENT REPORT -- ONLINE FORM
ONLINE FORM: If manure emissions are making you sick, changing your daily activities, report your distress to ECCSCM on this form. We'll keep a log of health impacts from CAFO emissions and let agencies and legislators know where the health Hotspots are.

OR ORDER the print version, our MANURE EMISSIONS LOG BOOK, which you can mail back to us. Send us your name and address, and we'll mail you a copy:
ECCSCM, P.O.Box 254, Hudson, MI 49247 or contact-us@nocafos.org



BULLETINS: 

2009

Dec 28 – Pressure rises to stop antibiotics in agriculture – AP – "Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year — more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs — 28 million pounds — went to pigs, chickens and cows."
(see full article)

Dec 14 - DEQ Files New Lawsuit against Vreba-Hoff for Ongoing Permit Violations – see DEQ press release
DEQ has filed a new lawsuit - the fourth in 5 years - against Vreba-Hoff, alleging more than 700 permit violations (see full Complaint). “Once again we find ourselves having to ask the court to enforce the numerous agreements that Vreba-Hoff has failed to live up to, and enough is enough,” said DEQ Director Steve Chester. Vreba-Hoff is prohibited from irrigating treated effluent unless it meets certain concentration-based limits. Despite failing to achieve those limits, Vreba-Hoff irrigated waste at multiple locations over 128 days during the summer and fall of both 2008 and 2009.

Dec 13 - Runoff from field application of Bakerlads manure leads to foamy discharge at Plank Rd, South Branch of the River Raisin.

12-13-09 – foamy discharge from Bakerlads manure field, South Branch of the River Raisin.
Dissolved Oxygen level tested at 2.2 mg/L, well below fish-kill level.

Aug 11 - Another manure discharge from Chesterfield Dairy, this time in Michigan. One neighbor reports that Chesterfield "had to bring two tankers to suck out a major manure runoff at the corner of Mulberry Road and the Sand Creek Highway. Chesterfield has been spraying manure ... all day and the rain washed the manure into the nearby creek...I believe the DEQ has been called already, the police, the health department, the road commission, the MDA, probably other agencies." Another neighbor writes, "AS DUSK APPROACHED THE STILLNESS CAME WITH IT. THERE HAS BEEN NON STOP LIQUID MANURE SPRAYED, THIS IS THE THIRD WEEK IN ALL OF 120 ACRES. IT FINALLY RAINED SO HARD THAT MANURE RAN OFF THIS ROLLING GROUND INTO THE DITCH, WHICH DUMPS INTO THE NILE WITHIN 40 YRDS. CHESTERFIELD DAIRY BARRICADED A CULVERT WITH A BLOWN UP BLADDER BALL 2 HRS.LATER. HUGE VACUUMS ARE SUCKING OUT THE POOL THAT IS BUILDING UP. STILL PUDDLES OF WATER THAT LAY AROUND THE DITCH SMELL LIKE MANURE TOO. NOW EVERYONE IS GONE THE DITCH IS FILLING UP AGAIN IT LOOKS AND SMELLS HORRENDOUS NOW ITS JUST LYING THERE NO ONE AROUND TO SUCK IT OUT MY 9 YR OLD COULDN'T TAKE THE SMELL ANY MORE AND THREW UP. WE WENT HOME DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO."

Aug 6 - Dust storm of particulates, fecal matter, emissions from Hartland Farms dumping manure in stockpiles (in violation of NPDES permit) along Beecher Rd, and spreading with more haulers, front-end loaders driving on dry ground. See Stench Alerts for more details.

Dust storm of particulates, fecal matter from Hartland Farms manure application, Beecher Rd, 8-6-09

Aug 5 - DEQ investigates North Medina Drain; Vreba-Hoff begins pumping manure-laded water from this tributary of Bean Creek, which is already listed as impaired - added to Michigan 303(d) list in 2004 - because of repeated manure discharges.

Aug 4 - Blackwater in North Medina Drain, immediately downstream from Vreba-Hoff 1 fields. ECCSCM notifies DEQ emergency hotline. At Vreba-Hoff 2 on US-127, field tile south of the facility is running gray water.

blackwater from North Medina Drain at Vreba-Hoff 1, 8-4-09; graywater from field tile along US-127 at Vreba-Hoff 2, 8-4-09

July 16 -At 10 p.m., emergency responders report a manure discharge from Chesterfield Dairy, Lyons, OH just east of Morenci, to Little Bear Creek, a tributary of the River Raisin. Pollution Incident Report says "the creek is running black from the manure." On Friday, July 17 at least 3 mi. of the stream are still black with manure and full of dead fish.

July 17, 2009 - Chesterfield Dairy fish kill, black manure water in Little Bear Creek, a tributary of River Raisin

June 24 - The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the public has the right to know what CAFOs do with their millions and millions of gallons of manure. CAFOs' Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans (CNMPs) will now be submitted with their pollution control NPDES permits and will be available to the public, following a Sierra Club suit that argued the same information is required and is public in all other industrial and manufacturing NPDES permits.

May 18 - Vreba-Hoff paid its $223,500 fine; Vreba-Hoff still owes $180,000 in fines, due when the EarthMentor "treatment" system is certified as operating as designed. Vreba-Hoff says it's working fine, but ... why haven't they got the certification?

May - Livestock found to be the main source of E. coli in Lake Huron. After years of arguments over where the disease-carrying bacteria come from -- humans, livestock or wildlife -- DNA "fingerprinting" says human sewage is only a tiny fraction of the problem. Manure from cattle and pigs far outweighs human sewage as the source of E. coli pollution in Lake Huron, says a new Canadian study, published in the March issue of the Canadian Journal of Microbiology. See article in Ottawa Citizen (May 5, 2009) or read the abstract or full scientific study, "(REP)-(PCR) analysis of Escherichia coli isolates from recreational waters of southeastern Lake Huron" in the March issue of Canadian Journal of Microbiology.

2 RECENT REPORTS DOCUMENT RISKS, COSTS OF CAFOS:
1)POLLUTION, DISEASE RISKS FROM CAFOS. 2-yr study by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health cite risks from the huge amount of animal waste industrial farms generate, use of antibiotics by such facilities leading to the development of drug-resistant bacteria and the high concentration of animals on industrial farms increasing the risk of disease spreading. The report recommends phasing out the most inhumane production practices within 10 years; implementing federal performance-based standards to improve animal welfare; and expanding and reforming animal agriculture research. See the summary and full report.

2) CONFINED ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIONS COST TAXPAYERS BILLIONS. The Union of Concerned Scientists calls for POLICIES THAT REDUCE CAFO SUBSIDIES AND ENCOURAGE MODERN, SUSTAINABLE MEAT, MILK AND EGG PRODUCTION. See "CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations" for details of the policies that have allowed CAFOs to dominate U.S. meat and dairy production. "CAFOs aren't the natural result of agricultural progress, nor are they the result of rational planning or market forces," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist in UCS's Food and Environment Program and author of the report. "Ill-advised policies created them, and it will take new policies to replace them with more sustainable, environmentally friendly production methods."

See animation on livestock factories, The Meatrix! And now, The Meatrix II: Revolting (on dairy CAFOs)

Living a Nightmare: Animal Factories in Michigan
click for more information and order form

What are CAFOs?
Dairy CAFOs confine 700 or more cows, often several thousand cows, in long steel barns, year-round. CAFO cows never graze. CAFOs look like factories, and they are -- animal factories.

Untreated CAFO waste is liquified with clean groundwater -- instantly polluted -- then pumped to cesspits or holding "lagoons" until it is pumped again and injected or sprayed onto fields around Hudson (pop. 2500). Some manure makes good fertilizer. But too much manure, especially the liquid manure from CAFOs, is a major pollutant of soils and waterways. Animal manure and and animal carcasses contain many pathogens (disease-causing organisms such as Cryptosporidium, E. coli bacteria, Listeria -- see a comprehensive list of pathogens and symptoms posted by the Environmental Protection Agency.). These pathogens can threaten human health, other livestock, aquatic life, and wildlife when introduced into the environment.

When liquid manure enters streams or lakes, it is called a discharge. Discharges that violate Michigan's water quality standards are illegal.

CAFOs in this area, all of them, have discharged illegally. Since 2000, there have been 1,077 violations and discharges, many of them multiple-day violations, confirmed by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in the Hudson area (see violations list). A 100% failure rate in pollution prevention.

On the Local Pollution pages, look at what we see around here every day -- waste-polluted water, silage leachate runoff, drainage tile discharges, the destruction of vegetation along streams, violations of manure management practices. Too bad the photos aren't Scratch & Sniff!

 ECCSCM, P.O.Box 254, Hudson, MI 49247
 contact-us@nocafos.org
To become a member of ECCSCM
click here