Photograph by Steven Higgs
CAFOs like this one in Randolph County house thousands of animals, all of which produce enormous amounts of waste. Threats to the air and water, as well as property values, have citizens across the state vowing to vote their interests this year. All but 12 of Indiana's 92 counties have CAFOs operating in them.
Randolph County farmer Allen Hutchison hasn't laughed as much as he should have since the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) began invading his space four years ago. But the headlines in a January-February 1999 edition of the Indiana Environment & Materials Exchange would no doubt elicit a respectable snort or two.
First in a series
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) newspaper, which Indianapolis Star columnist Ruth Holladay once dubbed the agency's propaganda "organ," headlined a story about confined feeding operations: "Keeping Indiana's waters clean: IDEM proposes rules to eliminate contamination from confined feeding."
In 1999, IDEM recognized only one category of confined feeding operation (CFOs), defined as, "Facilities where more than 600 hogs or sheep, 300 cattle or 30,000 fowl are fed in pens, sheds or buildings." Since then, the new category CAFOs has been added to the regulatory landscape.
Standing outside his home on a blustery-cold March afternoon, Hutchison rotates 360 degrees, his right arm a pointer, counting off the number of cows and hogs populating CAFOs around his home and farm -- 1,650 cows over there, 13,000 hogs there, 13,000 cattle, 12,000 hogs, 16,000 hogs, another 13,000.
"Within a five-mile circle of this house, there's 75,000 hogs," he said.
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As far as IDEM eliminating CAFO contamination from the "waters of the state" -- as rivers, creeks and streams are defined in state law -- Hutchison scoffs at the notion.
Frustrated by IDEM's failure to act, he took a one-day class in Richmond on water testing and diligently tests Sparrow Creek and other Randolph County waterways for CAFO contamination. He records his data in journals and videotapes and submits samples of pollution "spikes" to laboratories for documentation.
"If it ever comes to court, that'll stand up," Hutchison said confidently of his data. "That will stand up."
In 1999, Democrat Frank O'Bannon occupied the governor's office, and his long-time political advisor John Hamilton served as IDEM commissioner. CFOs were the emerging new form of agricultural production, and in November 1998, IDEM had published proposed rules for regulating them.
According to a story in the January-February 1999 Indiana Environment, the proposed regs called for "confined feeding operations to obtain IDEM approval for their operations."
"Over the past 26 years we've made progress reducing water pollution from 'point sources,' like industrial discharge pipes and wastewater treatment plants, but the job is not finished," Hamilton said in the "Keeping Indiana waters clean" article. "We must be equally as effective addressing pollution from 'nonpoint sources' like runoff from our streets and highways, agricultural fields and other sources."
CAFOs are nonpoint water pollution sources, where stored manure can escape into the environment through leaking containment structures like pits and lagoons, by migrating through the soil to drinking wells and by running off the land and into waterways during heavy rains.
"Improper collection, storage and application of manure can cause contamination to migrate through the soil into groundwater or run into lakes, rivers and streams," the Indiana Environment article said.
More than four out of every five miles of Indiana's rivers, lakes and streams -- 82 percent -- were "unfit for swimming due to frequent high levels of E. coli, a bacteria found in human and animal waste," the article said, citing IDEM's 1998 State of the Environment Report as the source.
- Loretta Miller, Randolph County
According to the IDEM Web site, the definition of CFO has not changed since 1999. CAFO "thresholds" for cattle and hogs today are:
* 700 for mature dairy cows;
* 1,000 for veal calves;
* 1,000 for cattle other than mature dairy cows;
* 2,500 for swine above 55 pounds; and
* 10,000 for swine less than 55 pounds.
In a March 7 e-mail, IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock explained the difference
Photograph by Steven Higgs
Allen and Judy Hutchison share the air around their Randolph County with 228,000 hogs in CAFOs. A 7.2-acre lagoon holding more than 20 million gallons of pig manure is visible from his back yard.
between CAFOs and CFOs.
"CAFO is a federal term - it stands for 'concentrated animal feeding operation,'" she wrote. "CFO is an Indiana term for 'confined feeding operation.' Indiana regulates both CFOs and CAFOs. The feds only regulate CAFOs. The difference is the number of animals. CFOs are smaller than CAFOs."
Kathryn Petry and Loretta Miller are Randolph County farm citizens who, like Allen and Judy Hutchison, live daily with the byproducts of CAFOs, most significantly but not exclusively, the vast quantities of manure that these "factory farms" produce.
Seated on her plush sofa next to Miller, a CAFO visible just outside the window, Petry explained the factory farm system.
Females spend two years in sow barns, where their offspring are moved to "nursery barns" when weaned at 17-21 days, she said. The piglets stay there until they hit 60 pounds, more or less, at which time they go to "finishing barns," where they are fattened to "market weight," 220-250 pounds.
Petry echoes Hutchison, reciting the numbers of confined animals near her home -- 23,226 sows at one facility, 19,200 at another.
Altogether, Randolph County has 44 CAFOs, with 228,000 pigs, she said, "and that's not counting baby pigs." That's also not counting the cows.
- Kathryn Petry, Randolph County
Each of those animals generates enormous amounts of urine and feces, which accumulate in pits beneath the animals and end up in exposed, outdoor storage lagoons before ultimately being applied to farmland as fertilizer.
Miller noted that all of the waste ends up in the lagoons. "Those hogs never see the light of day," she said.
Petry said female pigs "never walk anywhere" during their two years in the sow barns. When they finally are moved, the sows and the buildings are "power-washed," producing even more liquid waste.
A study of water usage on Michigan swine farms, using 2002-2003 data, found individual pigs, depending on age and type, require between 0.7 and eight gallons of water a day for drinking, cleaning and cooling.
The county's most notable manure lagoon is visible from the Hutchisons' back yard. At 7.2 acres, above ground, it looms on the horizon like a mini-landfill with a flat top. It holds 20.37 million gallons of manure, "give or take," Allen Hutchinson said. "Largest in the county."
According to data from an IDEM document titled "CFO and CAFO Program Information," Randolph County has the fifth highest number of CAFOs of any in the state, as of July 31, 2007. It was tied with Wabash County, north of the city of Marion.
Jay County, due north of Randolph, is No. 1. Koskiusko County, adjacent to Wabash in North-Central Indiana, is second. Carroll and White counties, north and east of Lafayette on the Wabash River, are third and fourth.
Barbara Sha Cox, a registered nurse and third-generation Randolph County farmer, said the explosion of CAFOs in these counties and the state of Indiana are the direct result of Gov. Mitch Daniels' goal of doubling pork production in Indiana.
foaming water traveled down the ditch."
- Eric Stickdorn, Cambridge City
According to the July 2007 data, all but 12 of Indiana's 92 counties have at least one CAFO operating in them. Monroe and Owen counties have zero; Greene has five; and Lawrence, Morgan and Brown each have one.
Most of the Randolph County CAFOs are operated by, or under contract with, a handful of companies, including the North Carolina-based Maxwell Farms, Petry said. As North Carolina has imposed a moratorium on new CAFOS, the giant agribusiness needed a place to go.
"It's because Gov. Daniels agreed with Maxwell Farms," she said. "Daniels agreed that they could come in here. And there's been people in the county who said, 'Hey come here.'"
Other major operations in Randolph County are owned by agribusiness concerns in Jay County and across the state line in Ohio where, Miller noted, citizens can sue CAFOs under nuisance laws. Hoosiers do not have that option, she said.
Cox said the explosion in CAFOs across the state notwithstanding, Daniels has not achieved his 200 percent pork production increase.
"No, I don't believe we have,"
Photograph by Steven Higgs
The January-February 1999 edition of the Indiana Environment & Materials Exchange announced new regulations for Confined Feeding Operations in Indiana. The IDEM newspaper said the agency was moving to protect Indiana water from CAFOs. Many rural Indiana residents say that mission has been a total failure.
she said. "I think there's been a little more controversy than he expected."
Largely due to citizen concern, Randolph County has had a moratorium on new CAFOs. But the Muncie Star-Press reported on March 3 that the County Commissioners voted 2-1 to overturn it.
"Maxwell Foods, one of the nation's largest pig producers, filed suit in Randolph County in early February, hoping to overturn the moratorium that would have blocked its local expansion," the paper reported.
Upon reporting the news, Cox said in her e-mail, "Now the hogs will really come to Randolph County."
Hutchison said a CAFO sprays manure on the field across the road from his home about six times a year. And because of the tile drainage systems used throughout Indiana, it is almost impossible to keep manure out of the water.
"Tile ditches were made to get rid of surface water," he said. "Well, that manure is liquid. It is going straight into them tiles, I don't care how you do it."
As evidence, Hutchinson noted that after new drainage tiles were buried in one nearby field, "the creek ended up full of manure" and had to be dammed as far as five miles downstream during the cleanup.
He added that some fields have installed valves, visible above the ground, to prevent contaminated drainage from entering the watershed.
Sometimes, manure finds its way directly into ditches, creeks, streams and rivers.
Eric and Lisa Stickdorn live next a dairy CFO near Cambridge City that Eric describes as, "by any standard, a small outfit." It's run by an Amish farmer with "about a hundred head of cattle."
He said the CFO drains onto the Stickdorns' 120-acre organic farm, where they have lived since 1994.
The couple have raised a variety of row crops and grasses, especially fescue, his favorite, Eric said. They have 37 cows that spend the majority of their lives in the pastures, in traditional Indiana agricultural style.
Since the CFO started operation in late 2003, Stickdorn said two of the four ditches that drain onto his property have had "reportable, enforceable spills."
"Basically, it looked like a root beer float as the foaming water traveled down the ditch," he said of one.
Like the Stickdorns and the others, Rex and Brenda Jones live on a family farm, surrounded by CAFOs. Theirs is near Lewisville in Henry County. A dairy CAFO about two miles up the way applies manure to the field just yards from their front door.
Brenda vividly recalls the first time the CAFO applied manure to the field in March 2006. Their children were visiting, and they heard this "horrible noise outside" and saw "big tankers spraying that stuff in the air."
Rex said manure was spouting "20 feet in the air."
- Barbara Sha Cox, Randolph County
The family had received no advance notice of the spraying. Rex said he was later told it was "a last-minute thing," that the CAFO lagoon was full and needed to be emptied.
Brenda snickers when Rex said he initially appealed to IDEM for help, complaining in part that the spraying took place over their drinking water well. It took two weeks for an IDEM inspector to come out, and he issued the dairy a warning, Rex said.
Henry County waterways, like the nearby Flatrock River, have high E. coli levels already, he added.
While Rex and Brenda Jones acknowledge they have not had their drinking water tested, they do not believe it has been contaminated by their CAFO neighbors.
Water pollution, in fact, isn't highest on theirs or any of the other' lists of concerns. It's the stench that millions of gallons of liquid manure generate on a daily basis, and the adverse health impacts it can have.
It wasn't the noise or the interruption that etched that first manure application into Brenda Jones's memory. She suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and within hours of hearing that horrible noise, she was rushed to hospital, unable to breathe.
"I about died," she said. "I was put on the ventilator."
Steven Higgs is editor of The Bloomington Alternative. From 1996-2000, he was editor of The Indiana Environment & Materials Exchange. He can be reached at editor@BloomingtonAlternative.com.