CAFO-polluted streams

We've seen CAFO brown water, white water, green water, black water in our streams.

Downstream from Bruinsma CAFO, and close-up, DEQ confirmed illegal discharge, Sept. 2000

Blackwater from North Medina Drain, 8-4-09

Pollutants in liquid manure from CAFOs can include ammonia, nitrates, phosphorus, causing algal blooms, fish kills; antibiotics, hormones, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, fecal coliform and E. coli bacteria, which can contaminate drinking water supplies and pose serious risk to human health.

Water monitoring of streams near CAFOs shows frequent spikes in E. coli bacteria, as high as 297,000/100 ml (297 times the level Michigan allows for partial body contact). The CAFOs in our area have illegally discharged manure, silage leachate (chopped feed, high in moisture, acidic, lowers Dissolved Oxygen in streams), milk and milkhouse wastes. These pollutants have contaminated stretches of three watersheds -- the Bean/Tiffin/Maumee watershed, which supplies drinking water for Archbold, OH, and serves as a recharge area for groundwater wells in Hudson and Morenci, MI, Bryan, OH, and other communties; the River Raisin watershed, which supplies drinking water for Adrian, Blissfield, and other Michigan communities; and the St. Joseph River watershed.

Durfee Cr Extension (on Michigan's list of impaired waters) is foamy, clotted, gray - March 11, 2015. This stream originates on and drains only Milk Source's Medina Dairy, Dillon Hwy (Bean/Tiffin Watershed).

Downstream from CAFOs: (left) Vreba-Hoff II milkhouse waste discharge, (DEQ confirmed) November 2002;
(right) dead snails in wetland, Dillon Hwy