It’s been months since I’ve seen such a good article about how factory farms evade responsibility for damaging the environment. This New York Times piece does a magnificent job of showing how dairy interests are able to dodge government regulation:
To address [problems with agricultural runoff contaminating drinking water], the federal Environmental Protection Agency has created special rules for the biggest farms, like those with at least 700 cows.
But thousands of large animal feedlots that should be regulated by those rules are effectively ignored because farmers never file paperwork, E.P.A. officials say.
And regulations passed during the administration of President George W. Bush allow many of those farms to self-certify that they will not pollute, and thereby largely escape regulation.
Here’s how one family was affected:
“We were terrified,” said Aleisha Petri, whose water was polluted for months, until her husband dumped enough bleach in the well to kill the contaminants. Neighbors spent thousands of dollars digging new wells.
Agribusiness may not be competent at curtailing pollution, but it’s great at lobbying legislators to betray the public interest:
After intense lobbying, the farmers’ association won a provision requiring the state often to finance up to 70 percent of the cost of following the new regulations. Unless regulators pay, some farmers do not have to comply.
Once again, we see animal agribusiness externalizing its environmental costs onto society. People who don’t drink milk have every right to be especially pissed off. (Via Sullivan.) Link.
