The Danger of Livestock Waste?

"The Danger of Livestock" is more appropriate. Can't have livestock without livestock waste. And of course, you can't have livestock without people. The animals perceived as the economic/food units "livestock" wouldn't exist in nearly such numbers, certainly not in such thick concentrations, and in some (many?) cases, wouldn't exist at all, as people have bred and altered them into new versions of their ancestors.

So here we are, a few decades down the line from having invented the atrocity of industrial agriculture, and like everything else that we've "improved," it has come back to bite us in the ass in a whole lot of ways. In this instance, it's the massive contamination of drinking water in rural areas around these farms.

Agricultural runoff is the single largest source of water pollution in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the E.P.A. An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from waterborne parasites, viruses or bacteria, including those stemming from human and animal waste, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.

As usual, it's nobody's fault and just kind of happened. Nothing like a complete lack of foresight matched with an obstinate reluctance to admit wrongdoing on anyone's part. As though this is how it is, how it's got to be, and we have to figure out ways to deal with it. Like it's some immutable force of nature. Well, here's a video report of what dealing with it means.

Aside from the unconscionable abuse, torture and degradation that goes on in these prison hell rape factories, the people running them also don't give a fuck about people who aren't them. They don't care about the people who live around them. If they did, they would not keep "waste lagoons," they would not dump the chemical filled shit back onto the ground and they would own up to the environmental devastation they force upon the communities around them in the name of profit. If they cared about the people who bought the dairy products they sell, well, they wouldn't sell them.

They do whatever they want because the farm lobby is so strong. The farm lobby is so strong because people have appallingly low standards for what they eat as food. One more thing we could do something about but won't. "Isn't that a shame..."

Don't worry though, these farmers do soil tests and "follow strict regulations." It's working out really well. I'm just making a big noise about nothing.