Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Road Salt Damage (2008)

Each year about 118,000 people are hurt and 1,300 people are killed on the roads during snowy and icy conditions. So, snowplows hit the roads, scraping snow and ice off the surface… and spreading incredible amounts of salt on highways, streets and roads to help keep them clear. Lester Graham reports there’s some concern about the long- term effects of all that salt:

Transcript

Each year about 118,000 people are hurt and 1,300 people are killed on the roads during snowy and icy conditions. So, snowplows hit the roads, scraping snow and ice off the surface… and spreading incredible amounts of salt on highways, streets and roads to help keep them clear. Lester Graham reports there’s some concern about the long- term effects of all that salt:


This dump truck is getting ready for a load of salt for a coming winter storm. Salt helps make icy roads safer. It helps prevent people from slipping and falling on sidewalks. And… it’s pretty cheap. But there are problems with salt. Salt pollutes and salt corrodes.


Mark Cornwell has spent a good deal of his career trying to convince highway crews that there are better ways to keep things safe and reduce how much salt is dumped on roads and sidewalks:


“Salt basically damages just about everything it comes in contact with. Salt moves through concrete and attacks structural steel, bridges, roads, parking structures; it eats the mortar out of bricks and foundations. It damages limestone, you know, just on and on and on.”


So, even though salt is cheap, the damage it does costs a lot. It’s a hidden cost that’s seldom calculated. Imagine the cost of having to replace a bridge five years early because the structure is weakened by salt. And then there are your direct costs: trying to keep salt washed off your vehicle, and still seeing rust attack your car.


Cornwell says there are some cities and road commissioners working to reduce the amount of salt spread on the roads. But in most places, the political pressure to get the salt trucks out early, and laying it on thick to keep drivers happy, outweighs any concerns about trying to reduce the salt:


“I’m sure the public expects full attention to snow and ice. And they have absolutely no understanding, however, of what it costs to provide that.”


Nobody thought a lot about the damage salt was causing until the last couple of decades. In a few places, the people responsible for keeping the roads and walkways safe have been trying to reduce the amount of salt they use and still keep public safety tops on the list of concerns:


“So, this is our shops. The brine-maker is right here.”


Marvin Petway is showing me some of the tools in his arsenal to reduce how much salt is used and still keep things safe. He works at the University of Michigan, where there’s a goal to cut the amount of salt used in winter in half. What they’ve learned is using innovative ways of putting down salt can actually help melt snow and ice faster. One way is to mix it with water to get the chemicals in salt working a little more quickly:


“Why use 5 pounds of rock salt when you can use 2 gallons of liquid salt? We’re able to get better coverage, quicker, better cost, and we’re putting the material that is effective in reducing ice build-up directly to the area where we don’t want ice located.”


The crews trying to reduce salt use computer assisted spreaders to measure out only the salt needed, they mix in less corrosive chemicals that make salt brine more effective, and even just wetting the salt in dump trucks with chemicals all help to melt snow and ice faster and in the end use a lot less salt.


Nothing is going to replace salt altogether, but those efforts can add up to a lot less salt. That means less destruction of infrastructure.


But there are more reasons for reducing salt than the damage to roadways and parking decks. Salt also damages the environment.


Mark Cornwell first noticed the effects of salt because he was a horticulturalist. He’d work all spring, summer and fall planting shrubs, make the grass green, tending beds of flowers. Then the winter would come:


“Unfortunately what we were doing in six months of winter was undoing everything we did in the other six months of the year. If you’re going to get ahead, you’ve got to solve the problem and in my mind, that was misuse of salt.”


Use too much salt and it kills plants. And it turns out the cost of using all that cheap salt could be even greater than anyone guessed. For decades, it’s been assumed that rain washed away most of the salt, but studies in Ontario find that a lot of the salt doesn’t get washed away.


Instead, a good deal of it is percolating down into shallow aquifers. Researchers predict that in the future we’ll start find salt is getting into the groundwater that supplies many of the wells where we get our drinking water.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Rural Voters Want Clean Water

  • Polls show that farmers do support the Clean Water Act and other government regulations to prevent water pollution. (Photo by Mark Brush)

A new survey finds a majority of rural voters believe the federal
government has not done enough to protect water quality. Rebecca
Williams reports:

Transcript

A new survey finds a majority of rural voters believe the federal
government has not done enough to protect water quality. Rebecca
Williams reports:


The survey found 55% of voters – more than half – said the government
has not done enough to stop water pollution. About a quarter of the
people polled thought regulations had gone too far.


Joan Mulhern is an attorney with Earthjustice. The environmental group
commissioned the survey:


“And the purpose of that was to test this notion of whether or not it
was true that farmers and other voters in rural, agriculturally-
dependent communities do not support the Clean Water Act… and it
turned out that the exact opposite is true.”


The Republican polling firm Bellwether Research & Consulting surveyed
900 rural voters in Ohio, Illinois and Tennessee.


Joan Mulhern with Earthjustice says the poll found farmers were just as
likely as non-farmers to say that stronger laws were needed.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Satellites Could Help Great Lakes

  • Scientists say there's no money to support using satellite images to help spot problems in the Great Lakes. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Scientists say satellite images could do more to help spot major problems in the Great Lakes, if
there were more federal money for those kinds of programs. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Scientists say satellite images could do more to help spot major problems in the Great Lakes, if
there were more federal money for those kinds of programs. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Researchers have occasionally used satellite data from the Great Lakes, including to map ice on
the lakes. But the International Association for Great Lakes Research says federal funds for
satellite programs to monitor water quality and other conditions in the lakes have dropped
substantially since the 1990s.


Research group Executive Director Robert Sweeney says the lack of infrared and photo data
means it’s hard to tell if pollution clean-up programs are working:


“We don’t know if the removal of certain pollutants really make sense in terms of how the water is
responding.”


Sweeney says there are not enough research boats or coastal programs to get the answers. The
Bush Administration has been trying to coordinate Great Lakes environmental efforts through a
collaboration plan, but scientists complain there’s no new money.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Factory Farms – Water Pollution

  • Hog manure being injected into the ground and tilled under. The manure fertilizes the crops, but if too much is applied it can foul up waterways. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Transcript

(sound of giant fans)


About a thousand cows are in this building, eating, lolling around, and waiting for the next round of milking.


There’s a sharp smell of manure hanging in the air. Big fans are blowing to keep the cows cool, and to keep the air circulated.


Stephan Vander Hoff runs this dairy along with his siblings. He says these big farms are good for consumers:


“We’ve got something here and we’ve been able to do it in such a way that we’re still producing at the same cost that we were fifteen years ago. It costs more now for a gallon of gas than a gallon of milk. And so, that’s something to be proud of.”


Vander Hoff’s dairy produces enough milk to fill seven tanker trucks everyday. They also produce a lot of waste. The cows in this building are penned in by metal gates. They can’t go outside. So the manure and urine that would normally pile up is washed away by water.


Tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater are sent to big lagoons outside. Eventually, the liquefied manure is spread onto nearby farm fields. It’s a challenge for these farmers to deal with these large pools of liquid manure. The farther they have to haul it, the more expensive it is for them. Almost all of them put the manure onto farm fields.


It’s good for the crops if it’s done right, but if too much manure is put on the land, it can wash into streams and creeks. In fact, this dairy has been cited by the state of Michigan for letting their manure get into nearby waterways.


(sound of roadway)


Lynn Henning keeps a close eye on Vander Hoff’s dairy.


(car door opening and closing)


She steps from her car with a digital camera, and a device that measures water quality.


(sound of crickets and walking through the brush)


She weaves her way down to the edge of this creek.


“This is the area where we got E. coli at 7.5 million.”


High E. coli levels mean the water might be polluted with dangerous pathogens. Lynn Henning is testing the creek today because she saw farmers spreading liquid manure on the fields yesterday. Henning is a farmer turned environmental activist. She works for the Sierra Club and drives all over the state taking water samples and pictures near big livestock farms.


Henning says she got involved because more of these large animal farms expanded into her community. She says when the farmers spread the liquid manure, it can make life in the country pretty difficult:


“The odor is horrendous when they’re applying –we have fly infestations–we have hydrogen sulfide in the air that nobody knows is there because you can’t always smell it. We have to live in fear that every glass of water that we drink is going to be contaminated at some point.”


Water contamination from manure is a big concern. The liquid manure can contain nasty pathogens and bacteria.


Joan Rose is a microbiologist at Michigan State University.


“If animal wastes are not treated properly and we have large concentrations of animal waste going onto land and then via rainfall or other runoff events entering into our water – there can be outbreaks associated with this practice.”


Rose tested water in this area and found high levels of cryptosporidium that likely came from cattle. Cryptosporidium is the same bug that killed people in Milwaukee back in 1993. Rose says livestock farmers need to think more about keeping these pathogens out of the water. But she says they don’t get much support from the state and researchers on how best to do that.


For now, the farmers have to come up with their own solutions.


(sound of treatment plant)


Three years ago, the state of Michigan sued Stephen Vander Hoff’s dairy for multiple waste violations. The Vander Hoff’s settled the case with the state and agreed to build a one million dollar treatment system. But Vander Hoff isn’t convinced that his dairy was at fault, and thinks that people’s concerns over his dairy are overblown:


“If we had an issue or had done something wrong the first people that want to correct it is us. We live in this area. So why would we do anything to harm it?”


Vander Hoff is upbeat about the new treatment system. He says it will save the dairy money in the long run.


The Sierra Club’s Lynn Henning says she’s skeptical of the new treatment plant. She’ll continue to take water samples and put pressure on these farms to handle their manure better. In the end, she doesn’t think these big farms have a place in agriculture. She’d rather see farms go back to the old style of dairying, where the cows are allowed to graze, and the number of animals isn’t so concentrated.


But farm researchers say because consumers demand cheap prices, these large farms are here to stay and there will be more of them. Because of this, the experts say we can expect more conflicts in rural America.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Epa to Survey Health of Us Lakes

The US Environmental Protection Agency will conduct an extensive three-year study on the health of the nation’s lakes. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

The US Environmental Protection Agency will conduct an extensive three-year study on the health of the nation’s lakes. Mark Brush has more:


The EPA says it will survey a total of 909 inland lakes, ponds, and reservoirs across the country. The survey will be done in cooperation with state agencies and some Native American tribes.


They’re hoping to determine how many US lakes are in good, fair, or poor condition. Researchers will test water samples for levels of nutrients, bacteria from human and animal wastes, some pesticides, and they’ll take a look at the conditions of the waterways’ shorelines.


This study is being done after criticisms have been leveled against the EPA. The Government Accountability Office and the National Research Council, among others, have said that the EPA doesn’t know enough about the condition of the nation’s waterways. They say there’s not enough data to make good water management policy at the federal, state and local levels.


The EPA says the nationwide survey will be completed in 2009.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Think Globally, Drink Locally

Some people have been looking at our relationship with water from a completely different perspective. Commentator Cameron Davis suggests how we might re-define our relationship with the water around us:

Transcript

Some people have been looking at our relationship with water from a completely different perspective. Commentator Cameron Davis suggests how we might re-define our relationship with the water around us:


Something really different came across my desk not long ago. A company called H2Om was introducing and selling the world’s first “vibrationally charged” bottled water. According to the California-based company, its bottled spring water would be the first ever to be infused with the “power of intention through words, music, and thought.” Inspired by the work of Japan’s Dr. Masaru Emoto showing that water reacts positively to positive emotions, H2Om’s water from underneath the San Diego Mountains is professed to be bottled with “love” and “perfect health.”


Interesting thought for a bottled spring water company. Part of the problem with bottled water is that when you buy it, you rarely know whether your money is supporting a company that’s damaging to the source of the water.


Ecological damage aside, there’s the issue of cost. According to The Green Guide, Americans pay 240 to 10,000 times for bottled water what they’d pay for tap water. But, here in the Great Lakes region where I live, water is plentiful and consistently ranked as some of the best for drinking in the world. Bottled spring water shouldn’t be selling for those prices here, right?


Wrong. Even though bottled water is so much more expensive, and with the risk of harming the source of the water, we’re drinking just as much bottled spring water as anyone, if not more.


I have a proposition: think globally, drink locally. If you get your water from a community within a certain watershed, drink that water. You’ll be doing your part to support “homegrown” water. If you’re nervous about tap water quality, filter it and check out your municipality’s Consumer Confidence Report for water testing results.


As long as we’re drinking water from someone else’s back yard, we don’t seem to have to care for it as much. At the end of the day, maybe H2Om has a thought. But rather than paying to infuse someone else’s water with someone else’s love, let’s love and drink our own.


Cameron Davis is the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Related Links

Protecting Water Supplies

Water is a vital resource no matter where you go. Commentator Cameron Davis recently had a first hand look at the threats to water supplies in other parts of the world. He returned from his trip with a renewed sense of the importance of protecting water supplies at home:

Transcript

Water is a vital resource no matter where you go. Commentator Cameron Davis recently had a first hand look at the threats to water supplies in other parts of the world. He returned from his trip with a renewed sense of the importance of protecting water supplies at home:


Not so long ago, my wife and I bought a couple of cheap one-direction tickets and ventured around the world to 11 countries in 11 weeks.


I couldn’t help but be reminded that we’re blessed when it comes to water where we live. My home is near the Great Lakes – with nearly 20 percent of the Earth’s fresh surface water.


Other areas of the world aren’t so fortunate. India struggles with water issues every day. The sacred Ganges River, which flows downward through the majestic upper Himalayas, is used for everything from ferrying the souls of the dead into their next life to the holy Hindu Aarti ritual in which millions of people wade annually for prayer. At the same time the Ganges is revered, it’s also used for sewage and waste disposal, to the point that if the Ganges flowed through the United States, it would violate water quality standards many times over.


In Vietnam, we learned that groundwater levels were dropping precipitously in the Bac Lieu Province. Few laws existed to protect aquifers from businesses that drilled to provide water to the aquaculture industry, namely for farm-raised shrimp. The practices were expected to have impacts on the fragile ecology of the Mekong Delta.


All of this was going on at the very same time that King Abdullah II of Jordan was convening the International Water Demand Management Conference in the Middle East and beyond.


While we’re hardly immune from water pressures and mismanagement here at home, we have some important opportunities to give something back to future generations. The Great Lakes states are contemplating policy changes that might be a model for the rest of the nation. In the coming years, the legislatures of the eight Great Lakes states must consider protections under a Great Lakes water use “Compact” that the governors of the eight states signed last December.


The only question is whether we’ll ensure these new protections are strong enough, or whether they’ll slip to the lowest common denominator of protections. After seeing how water is honored yet misused in many other parts of the world, I’m hopeful we’ll do the right thing. And in so doing, give other states and regions in the U.S. some ideas for better water conservation. After all, water is one of those rare things that bring us – all of us, from all walks of life – together to form a common regional identity. Our waters are more than a resource for us to use and protect. They’re the source of life.


Cameron Davis is the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Related Links

Too Much Manure?

  • Hog manure being injected into the ground and tilled under. The manure fertilizes the crops, but if too much is applied it can foul up waterways. (photo by Mark Brush)

Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
Dairy farms are getting bigger. Many keep thousands of cows in buildings the size of several football fields. These big dairy operations can make a lot of milk. That translates into cheaper prices at the grocery store.
But some worry these large farms are polluting the land around them. In the fourth story of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush visits a big Midwestern dairy farm:

Transcript

Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland. Dairy farms are getting bigger.
Many keep thousands of cows in buildings the size of several football fields. These big dairy
operations can make a lot of milk. That translates into cheaper prices at the grocery store. But
some worry these large farms are polluting the land around them. In the fourth story of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush visits a big Midwestern dairy farm:


(sound of giant fans)


About a thousand cows are in this building, eating, lolling around, and waiting for the next round
of milking.


There’s a sharp smell of manure hanging in the air. Big fans are blowing to keep the cows cool,
and to keep the air circulated.


Stephan Vander Hoff runs this dairy along with his siblings. He says these big farms are good for
consumers:


“We’ve got something here and we’ve been able to do it in such a way that we’re still producing
at the same cost that we were fifteen years ago. It costs more now for a gallon of gas than a
gallon of milk. And so, that’s something to be proud of.”


Vander Hoff’s dairy produces enough milk to fill seven tanker trucks everyday. They also
produce a lot of waste. The cows in this building are penned in by metal gates. They can’t go
outside. So the manure and urine that would normally pile up is washed away by water.


Tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater are sent to big lagoons outside. Eventually, the
liquefied manure is spread onto nearby farm fields. It’s a challenge for these farmers to deal with
these large pools of liquid manure. The farther they have to haul it, the more expensive it is for
them. Almost all of them put the manure onto farm fields.


It’s good for the crops if it’s done right, but if too much manure is put on the land, it can wash into streams and creeks. In fact, this
dairy has been cited by the state of Michigan for letting their manure get into nearby waterways.


(sound of roadway)


Lynn Henning keeps a close eye on Vander Hoff’s dairy.


(car door opening and closing)


She steps from her car with a digital camera, and a device that measures water quality.


(sound of crickets and walking through the brush)


She weaves her way down to the edge of this creek.


“This is the area where we got E. coli at 7.5 million.”


High E. coli levels mean the water might be polluted with dangerous pathogens. Lynn Henning is
testing the creek today because she saw farmers spreading liquid manure on the fields yesterday.
Henning is a farmer turned environmental activist. She works for the Sierra Club and drives all
over the state taking water samples and pictures near big livestock farms.


Henning says she got involved because more of these large animal farms expanded into her
community. She says when the farmers spread the liquid manure, it can make life in the country
pretty difficult:


“The odor is horrendous when they’re applying –we have fly infestations–we have hydrogen
sulfide in the air that nobody knows is there because you can’t always smell it. We have to live
in fear that every glass of water that we drink is going to be contaminated at some point.”


Water contamination from manure is a big concern. The liquid manure can contain nasty
pathogens and bacteria.


Joan Rose is a microbiologist at Michigan State University.


“If animal wastes are not treated properly and we have large concentrations of animal waste
going onto land and then via rainfall or other runoff events entering into our water – there can
be outbreaks associated with this practice.”


Rose tested water in this area and found high levels of cryptosporidium that likely came from
cattle. Cryptosporidium is the same bug that killed people in Milwaukee back in 1993. Rose
says livestock farmers need to think more about keeping these pathogens out of the water. But
she says they don’t get much support from the state and researchers on how best to do that.


For now, the farmers have to come up with their own solutions.


(sound of treatment plant)


Three years ago, the state of Michigan sued Stephen Vander Hoff’s dairy for multiple waste
violations. The Vander Hoff’s settled the case with the state and agreed to build a one million
dollar treatment system. But Vander Hoff isn’t convinced that his dairy was at fault, and thinks
that people’s concerns over his dairy are overblown:


“If we had an issue or had done something wrong the first people that want to correct it is us. We
live in this area. So why would we do anything to harm it?”


Vander Hoff is upbeat about the new treatment system. He says it will save the dairy money in
the long run.


The Sierra Club’s Lynn Henning says she’s skeptical of the new treatment plant. She’ll continue
to take water samples and put pressure on these farms to handle their manure better. In the end,
she doesn’t think these big farms have a place in agriculture. She’d rather see farms go back to
the old style of dairying, where the cows are allowed to graze, and the number of animals isn’t
so concentrated.


But farm researchers say because consumers demand cheap prices, these large farms are here to
stay and there will be more of them. Because of this, the experts say we can expect more
conflicts in rural America.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

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