By Christina Youngren
For along time in Mini-School the environment has been an important issue. Doug and Randy’s trips, filled with Earth-friendly info and teachings, are a mainstay of any Mini-Schooler’s memories. Right now, there’s a big problem with our water that not many people know about.
Huge corporate animal farms, or factory feed lots, are the worst water polluters in Minnesota. What they are doing is accidentally, or purposely, dumping hog manure in lakes and rivers, killing all the fish and putting anybody who drinks it at huge risk. They have as many as 70,000 pigs, and that’s a lot of manure: 3 times as much as a human per pig. They store it in huge pits called lagoons, which can get as big as 10 acres.
Instead of properly disposing of it, some feed lots have been caught deliberately putting manure straight in our water, just so they don’t have to pay for it. On top of that, the gases from the manure pits are so strong and dangerous that people have miscarried and gotten extremely ill just from the smell. They even get government money, or tax dollars to clean up the many manure spills, even though they have enough of their own money to lobby with billions in Washington.
The laws that are supposed to protect us from them aren’t enforced, so they get rich and we get sick. Right now, most of the POO problems are in southern Minnesota but if they get their way any feed lot, farmer, logger, or miner could dump whatever they wanted, and not get in trouble. They are lobbying to get rid of part of the Clean Water Act, the law protecting us, so they can have their profits.
Lots of groups in Minnesota are fighting back, like Clean Water Action Alliance and the Isaac Walton League, by going door to door telling people and organizing and doing studies to see how the feed lots really are. The national law is under attack, and we’ll be the ones to pay.
Contact your local legislator and let them know how you feel about this, or contact CWAA, Sierra Club, or IWL to get involved. Our water is too valuable to fill with manure.