In the United States, we recently had one of the worst droughts in history. Our grass shriveled and turned dark brown. Our crops died. Food prices spiked. It was quite a foreboding preview of the future we would like to avoid.
America is fast running out of clean fresh water. California is the premier example of a state that is already in a water crisis. Experts estimate that the state, an agricultural powerhouse, only has about twelve to eighteen months left of water use.[1] Currently, aquifers are being drawn at extreme rates, 250 times their ability to refill. Already, the twelve-million-year-old Ogallala Aquifer is predicted to run dry within the next twenty years because of overuse and abuse by the livestock industry. We also have climate conditions that are causing a drought. According to Jay Famiglietti, a NASA scientist in Pasadena who studies water supplies in California, “The withdrawals far outstrip the replenishment. We can’t keep doing this.”[2] The problem is not a secret, but many people remain unaware of the culprit.
From climate change to the decimation of our waterways, the main culprit is our meat- and dairy-laden diet. Farms, not factories, are now the greatest contributors to polluted waterways in the US.[3] Think about this: if the amount of animal manure from the estimated twenty thousand factory farms were packed into boxcars, there would be enough manure-filled cars to encircle the whole world fourteen times![4] The animal manure is stored in thirty-foot-deep holes as large as football fields; thousands of these cesspools are now lining our beautiful countryside, turning our land into a fetid swamp.[5]
While many consumers have heard about the Amazon rainforest disappearing and climate change, few have heard about the massive manure spills from factory farms that are decimating our oceans, despite the fact that these manure spills are larger than oil spills, which often receive huge publicity.
In 2010, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made the front pages of newspapers for weeks, as images of the disaster took over the nightly news. The CEO of BP came under tremendous scrutiny for the accident, which sent 4.9 million gallons of oil into the Gulf and was even larger than the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which impacted 1,300 miles of ocean and killed an astounding 250,000 birds. There was a public outcry, and hundreds of groups helped to clean up the spill.
While oil spills receive nationwide coverage and public outcry, lagoon spills occur all the time with virtually no coverage from national outlets and limited local coverage. Some of these lagoon spills are comparable to the Exxon Valdez spill. For instance, when a 120,000 square-foot lagoon at Oceanview Farms in North Carolina burst in 1995, it sent twenty-five million gallons of feces and wastewater into the New River.[6] The spill killed at least ten million fish and polluted 350,000 coastal acres of shellfish habitat. Dead fish began lining the banks of the river within two hours of the spill. The manure sludge was so dense that it took two months for the sludge to make the sixteen-mile stretch down the New River to the ocean.
While the Oceanview Farms spill is double the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and considered the largest environmental spill, most Americans have never heard of it. Neither did the citizens who were swimming in the river downstream. The government officials failed to warn them of the hog manure contaminated with E. coli heading their way. The Oceanview Farms spill has gone down in history as one of the greatest environmental disasters, which killed nearly every living creature in its path in the North Carolina waterways.[3]
In comparison to oil spills, which rarely happen at the level of the BP and Exxon Valdez spills, lagoon spills are frequent. They pose comparable environmental damage with less coverage and support. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “from 1995 to 1998, one thousand spills or pollution incidents occurred at livestock feedlots in ten states and two hundred manure-related fish kills resulted in the death of thirteen million fish.”[6] Not much has changed since that time.
Fast-forward, and we can see that, for some reason, we are not learning lessons from the past. These manure spills are still happening and not being reported as they should be. Did anyone hear about the pair of three-hundred-thousand-gallon manure spills in Wisconsin in 2013? One of these massive spills produced a mile-long trail of animal waste.[7] Manure spills are becoming ever more frequent. In fact, Wisconsin had a total of seventy-six manure spills in 2013 alone, totaling more than one million gallons of manure.[8] This is a 65 percent increase in manure spills from 2012. An alarming statement from the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund Board President, Lori Nelson, highlights the problem: “Every factory farm in Iowa is a ticking time bomb that could have a spill at any time.”[9]
This ecodevastation, causing nitrate pollution and dead zones, does not even take into account the amount of water required for livestock rearing. Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes toward raising animals for food. The animals destined for your plate consume about 2.3 billion gallons of water per day, or about 800 billion gallons per year.[10]
Leading international organizations are predicting that the wars of the future will not be over oil, but clean water. Water wars are just the beginning because clean water is a foundational necessity for all living beings. As the population is expected to reach more than nine billion by 2050, our water supply will become an ever more precious and scarce resource.[11] With only 1 percent of fresh water available and a growing population of over eight billion, our water resources are currently strained even without having to worry about manure destroying what we have left.
All hope, though, is not lost. One of the most effective strategies for curbing climate change, preserving our water sources, and being healthier ourselves is to adopt a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle. Factory farming and the livestock sector arguably have the largest human-induced destructive impact on our planet. We have the recipe for a food system that will keep us happy and healthy, and keep our environment pristine and green. Just remember, what is at the end of your fork is more powerful than anything at the bottom of a pill bottle and more effective at preserving the environment than an energy-saving light bulb or an electric car.
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