Latest News – All

Latest CAFO News – All

July 2, 2020

July 2, 2020

Another beautiful country summer day … except for the stench that can be smelled for miles around. 

Get ready, Lake Erie!  You were hoping for fireworks?  Sorry … you’re getting cowshit instead.

Steady stream of manure tankers leaving Hudson Dairy, headed north. 

Another tanker convoy leaving Bleich Dairy.  Here’s one application, west side of U.S. 127 just south of...

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Let’s Go to the Lake! Oh wait . . .

July 1, 2020

Briskey draglining liquid manure on cut hay field, northwest corner of Posey Lake Highway and Beecher Road, Bean/Tiffin/Maumee watershed.  Pee-eew, bottom-of-the-lagoon stench, wind blowing northeast right towards Posey Lake, just before 4th of July weekend. 

Briskey 6.30.2020

Briskey box 6.30.2020

Moving on...

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Ohio EPA agrees to TMDL for western Lake Erie – Toledo Blade

February 13, 2020

The state of Ohio appears ready to institute something environmental groups have been clamoring for since Toledo’s 2014 algae-driven water crisis: a Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, for western Lake Erie.

TMDLs are so-called “pollution diets” for ecosystems. They are designed to track down specific sources of pollution, and hold polluters accountable. In the case of Ohio’s agricultural industry, a TMDL would, in...

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U.S.- CANADA Board: The Great Lakes Have a Manure Problem

January 26, 2020

The Center for Public Integrity - Jamie Smith Hopkins, Environment Editor and Senior Reporter

“It is a profound injustice that the citizens of Toledo have had to clean up a mess that other people have made,” Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said in an interview.

An advisory panel for a U.S.-Canada commission is calling for government agencies in the Great Lakes region to...

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Lake Erie Turns Toxic Every Summer. Voluntary Approach Total Failure

January 23, 2020

The Center for Public Integrity - Jamie Smith Hopkins, Environment Editor and Senior Reporter

OREGON, Ohio — It was sunny and 82 degrees, a perfect August day for a trip to the public beach just outside Toledo. But hardly anyone was here. And no one was swimming. “DANGER,” warned a red sign posted in the sand near the edge of Lake...

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‘It’s The Dairy Farm Sewer’: Neighbors Say State Is Failing To Regulate Agricultural Pollution

December 9, 2019

VPR News - John Dillon

Laurel Casey counts herself as a casualty of farm pollution.

Her small, lakeshore house in Bridport has been damaged by runoff from the farm fields above her. She said she’s had trouble renting out a camp on the property because the bay just feet away is often choked with potentially toxic blue-green algae....

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Slip-slidin’ Away

November 19, 2019

Livestock sewage dumping on farm fields continues in the Western Lake Erie Basin.  Today, we have two more examples of manure application on snow, thawing, saturated ground.  Snow from last week is melting, freeze/thaw soil conditions, ground is saturated.  The roads around these fields are a mess, with a trail of manure and mud on Beecher Rd. in Hudson Township.

Cash...

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Sewage Disposal on Snow

November 18, 2019

Up here in the Western Lake Erie Basin  tributaries, we’re finally starting to get rid of last week’s 8” of snow.  Sun is out, temps are finally above freezing, it’s thawing.  Slushy snow, saturated ground everywhere.

Then this morning, we have this. 

Warner dry solids, very recent, manure application on snow-covered ground.  Pentecost Hwy. and Dowling Rd., Wolf Creek/South...

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Manure, Interrupted

October 27, 2019

October 27, 2019
 
Manure madness continues here in the tributaries to the Western Lake Erie Basin, interrupted only by heavy rains.  Under the rules of Michigan's NPDES CAFO permit (similar to Ohio's CAFF permit), and the guidelines in Michigan's Right-to-Farm GAAMPs for non-permitted livestock farms, manure is not to...

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A Never-Ending Story

October 23, 2019

October 23, 2019
 
Wednesday, Oct. 23 - Despite the fact that we've had nearly 12" more rain than normal in these parts so far this year, the sewage must go on.  Manure dragline from dump box operation, from Hudson Dairy.  M34 just west of Nye Rd., Hillsdale County  (Bean/Tiffin/Maumee watershed)  Heavy rain forecast...

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