Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan (ECCSCM) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organized to educate the public on the health risks and the environmental damage Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have brought to our community and its watersheds.
There are over 130 CAFOs in the Western Lake Erie Watershed. We developed this website to provide documentation on the pollution here, and to promote Sustainable Alternatives (eating local food & pasture-based meat, eggs, and dairy).
As family farmers and neighbors, we are concerned about Lake Erie, our drinking water, and the massive risk of liquid manure systems, including liquid manure on tile-drained fields. Liquid manure, like rain, may drain to field tiles, that drain to streams, then flow to Lake Erie. Contaminated flow that reaches a stream is a discharge, and discharges that violate Michigan’s Water Quality Standards are illegal. ECCSCM monitors and reports illegal activities by 12 of the 13 CAFOs in Hillsdale and Lenawee counties, which are nearly all of the CAFOs in the Lake Erie Watersheds (Raisin, Bean, St. Joe of the Maumee).
ALL of the CAFOs in our area have discharged illegally or violated their CAFO Permits. Since 2000, there have been over 4,700 violations and discharges in our area, many of them multiple-day violations (see complete violations list).
For more information about CAFOs
in the Western Lake Erie Watershed (WLEW) click on the image below
to view the Sierra Club Less=More website
ECCSCM contact information
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 206, Hudson, MI 49247
Email: contact-us@eccscm.org