Health Ills About as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18dairy.html?_r=2
Picture: This picture shows the process of groundwater contamination.
Summary: This article is about cow waste on farms that is contaminating runoff, tap, and well water. This problem is very scary and there is not much that we can do to stop it. Cows have to excreate their waste on the land that they are given and we just don't have enough land to absorb the manure. Manure contains many contaminants which when consumed by humans through water, can cause diarrhea, stomach illness, and severe ear infections. Also, evironmentalists aren't doing much to stop the water contamination. The Clean Water Act of 1972 only regulates chemicals that move through pipes, not chemicals that seep underground (manure). Also, farmers aren't forced to fill out paper work for the E.P.A (Environmental Protection Agency). This problem is very hazardous to humans and wildlife.
Opinion: This is a very scary situation and I hope we can find a solution to stop it. Although, it is going to be very difficult. As I said before, it is impossible to force cows to stop excreating waste unless you clean up after them everytime they "go". But on a farm with over 100 cows, that would be nearly impossible. Also, the farmers need some of the manure to fertilize their feilds. The effects of drinking some of the pollutants from the manure is also very scary. From personal experience, I know that ear infections are very painful and take some time to go away. I think that environmentalists should buckle down and solve this problem however they can becasue it is having negative repercussions.
Questions:
1) How are the cow wastes reaching water supplies?
2) What could be a possible solution to this problem?
3) Could we somehow regulate when the cows "go"?
Picture: This picture shows the process of groundwater contamination.
Summary: This article is about cow waste on farms that is contaminating runoff, tap, and well water. This problem is very scary and there is not much that we can do to stop it. Cows have to excreate their waste on the land that they are given and we just don't have enough land to absorb the manure. Manure contains many contaminants which when consumed by humans through water, can cause diarrhea, stomach illness, and severe ear infections. Also, evironmentalists aren't doing much to stop the water contamination. The Clean Water Act of 1972 only regulates chemicals that move through pipes, not chemicals that seep underground (manure). Also, farmers aren't forced to fill out paper work for the E.P.A (Environmental Protection Agency). This problem is very hazardous to humans and wildlife.
Opinion: This is a very scary situation and I hope we can find a solution to stop it. Although, it is going to be very difficult. As I said before, it is impossible to force cows to stop excreating waste unless you clean up after them everytime they "go". But on a farm with over 100 cows, that would be nearly impossible. Also, the farmers need some of the manure to fertilize their feilds. The effects of drinking some of the pollutants from the manure is also very scary. From personal experience, I know that ear infections are very painful and take some time to go away. I think that environmentalists should buckle down and solve this problem however they can becasue it is having negative repercussions.
Questions:
1) How are the cow wastes reaching water supplies?
2) What could be a possible solution to this problem?
3) Could we somehow regulate when the cows "go"?
Opinion/Reflection:
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting topic, and I understand how difficult of problem this is to control. I honestly have no idea how to BEGIN to solve this problem, and it is only going to get worse. Although, I do agree that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to do more to prevent this issue, and the fact that they don't do enough irritates me.
Expansion:
I found this article that talks about rural families getting sick, due to drinking water:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/09/cattlemanure_runoff_making_rur.html
Questions:
The cow wastes are reaching the water supplies when they seep into the groundwater sources.
1) How can we slow or even stop this process?
2)How can we get the EPA to do more about it?
3)Will there ever be a solution to our problem?
Reaction: I really do like this topic since clean water is important to everyone. Yet farmers and cows must be able to produce meat and milk since these are needed to help feed our population. In answer to the question of slowing or stopping this problem, it takes more than just having less cows, less farms or less cow waste. The EPA even if asked to check more than pipes would be overwhelmed. To check a pipe one has to take a sample from a specific pipe and run a test. To test outside of a pipe one would have to find all the run off points in a field and test them since all the cows might be standing and creating waste in the field off to the right. Testing the runoff on the left side of the field wouldn't show anything. So to solve the problem I think we have to go back and work with nature who normally purifies the water with wetlands. We have this problem because we are developing our old wet lands into housing developments and mall while not making new ones. Even our own government officials are talking about turning the air base into housing - no one even thinks about making it into wetlands since it's hard to tax wetlands.
ReplyDeleteExpansion: I found an article submitted to the EPA on how to preserve and expand wetlands and one of the places that they looked at was here in PA- Monroe County in the Poconos.
http://water.epa.gov/grants_funding/wetlands/local.cfm
Questions
How can we improve nature's water purification by wetlands to get the moset out of them?
How do we convince local and state officials to work to stabilize and expand wetlands in our communities such as our airbase?
Can we get governments to plan wetlands the way they plan parks and new roads?
Reflection: That is a vety concerning topic. There seems like there is no easy solution. I really hope someone can come up with one, we shouldn't have to concerned about drinking water filled with cow poop!(the contaminments)
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1: The cow waste it reaching the water supply by first run off then percolation to underground aquifers.
Reflection: Just the thought of cow droppings poisoning people's water supply makes me cringe. Even though it would be nice to fix this problem, the solution sounds far from reach. At first I thought it would be easy to solve like just getting rid of (or picking up) the wastes but then once I realized how many cows live on farms and how many times they "go" a day, the solution is unobtainable.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2: This may not stop the issue completely but maybe each farm can have a clean up crew of some sorts where at the end of each day they go and pick up the wastes. I know this may sound disgusting and a bit hard to do but it could lessen the amount of water being contaminated.