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Water Injustice

Introduction

Water justice encompasses both social and environmental justice and has implications in water governance and allocation. It examines the consequences of distribution and the justifications for water governance (management) decisions. Water justice is especially significant when changes in water governance occur as a result of altered distribution, policies or reforms, or changes in the underlying hydrological regime relating to climate change. The management of water justice is essential to sustain life but has proven challenging in the sense that performing an act to benefit one group may result in the harm of another. When water resources are believed to be scarce, the issue of water justice becomes more prevalent. Water in many parts of the world, is considered to be a communal resource, thus when one group believes that another group is getting more than their fair share it is considered to be water injustice. There is not always an amicable solution to water governance. Those that continue to get less than their fair share can experience harmful impacts on health and wellness, livelihoods and even the ecosystem, this may also result in conflicts between groups or between groups and state. More often than not, the disenfranchised groups belong to poorer and marginalized communities that regularly (traditionally) experience discrimination and even the natural environment. This all leads back to social and environmental injustices, especially if gone unchecked.

Water Injustice Cases in the Global Context

Groundwater resource depletion in India

India’s water exploited by foreign firms

Coca-Cola operates 58 water-intensive bottling plants in India. In some drought areas of the southern regions, persistent droughts have dried up groundwater and local wells, forcing many residents to rely on water supplies trucked in daily by the government. It takes 400 litres of water to make a 1 litre fizzy drink. “Drinking Coke is like drinking farmer’s blood in India,” said protest organizer Nandlal Master. Campaigners have claimed that foreign firms are exploiting the country’s water resources through unsustainable activities. In May 2003, the Indian state of Kerala revoked Coca-Cola’s license to operate last year following several large protests, and ordered the company to shut down its $25-million plant. The court also based the decision on the recognition that individuals’ right to life and right to livelihood are likely to be infringed by the over-extraction of groundwater by a person or a company. The allegation was based on the claim that the company’s activities resulted in drinking water scarcity and environmental problems. In addition to depleting water resources in several regions of India, another major issue was that sludge from Coca-Cola’s Uttar Pradesh factory was contaminated with high levels of cadmium, lead, and chromium.​​ The Central Pollution Control Board of ​India found in 2003 that in addition to polluting the environment, Coca-Cola was offloading cadmium-laden waste sludge as “free fertilizer” to tribal farmers who live near the plant. Additional claim brought by an Indian nonprofit group, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said that it tested 57 carbonated beverages made by Coca-Cola and Pepsi at 25 bottling plants and found a “cocktail of between three to five different pesticides in all samples.”

Three Gorges Dam: Human displacement and degradation of water quality

The Three Gorges Dam is one of the world’s largest power stations. Since its construction phase, the dam has flooded archaeological and cultural sites, displaced some 1.3 million people, and had caused significant ecological changes, including an increased risk of landslides. In China, there have been multiple cases of human rights violation as people have been jailed and beaten for protesting against poor resettlement conditions. The displacement of human livelihood as they are forced onto resettlement sites strip them of the land and natural resources. The compensation provided is typically inadequate and the impacts of dams leave the communities along the banks with disrupted water and sediment flow which reduces biodiversity. Communities also suffer from poor water quality, lower crop production and decreased fish populations. In addition, there has been growing evidence that reservoirs emit significant quantities of greenhouse gases as a recent study shows that dams contribute to 4% of the human-induced climate change. This also leads to another issue as dams compound pollution problems by reducing rivers’ ability to flush out pollutants as they accumulate upstream contaminants and submerges vegetation to rot leading to the overall degradation of water quality. The benefits of dams outweigh the negative impacts it has as dams destroy carbon sinks in wetlands and oceans, deprive ecosystems of nutrients, destroy habitats, increase sea levels, waste water and displace poor communities.

Water Injustice Cases in the United States

New York Watershed: Land grab to ‘protect’ water system

New York City’s water supply provides 5 billion liters/day to 9 million people from unfiltered surface sources. The remarkable system provides water from an unfiltered surface source which does not follow federal requirements mandated by the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments to filter its drinking water for public health purposes. Due to the aged infrastructures that support the water system, there have been regulatory and management schemes through its watershed protection program to maintain water quality. The comprehensive analysis of NYC’s watershed management has two strategies for water quality protection – structural strategies to mitigate pollution from extant sources and nonstructural strategies designed to prevent or reduce potential pollution discharges from future sources.The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) –an agreement that was reached in 1997 between the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, the federal government and area communities–emphasizes implementation of nonstructural approaches which include land acquisition, buffer zone designations, conservation easements, and zoning ordinances. This approach for “filtration avoidance” has a direct bearing on land use policy in the NYC’s watershed and the city will actively seek to increase its landholdings within the watershed by soliciting the purchase of undeveloped parcels deemed hydrologically sensitive. Since 1997, through its Land Acquisition Program (LAP), the city has spent $438 million to protect 135,149 acres of land in the Catskill/Delaware watershed, either through outright purchase or through conservation easement. The plan is to expand the initiative in the next few decades to support the growing NYC population. The impact of MOA’s inherent costs to the diverse stakeholders in the upstate local communities should entail the socio economic vitality of watershed communities. Upstate New York residents who are major stakeholders portray watershed protection proponents as aggressive conqueror insensitive to local lives. The critical water resource conflict narrative describes the nature of social relations between a powerful and “superior” place i.e., the city, and how it “dominates, disrupts and extracts resources from a subordinate place”. Historically, there have also been many scenarios where the residents were relocated to accommodate the city’s water needs. Ninety percent of the water comes from two watershed systems in the Catskill Mountain region. According to Diane Galusha, director of communications at the Catskills Watershed Corp., 26 communities and about 5,500 people were displaced.

Onondaga Lake Waterscape; Environmental Injustice

In the 1900s, the Onondaga lake was thought to be as the most polluted lake in the United States and EPA declared it as a superfund site initiating a hazardous waste remediation process. Historically, Onondaga lake and its watershed formed part of the territory of the Onondaga Nation. The City of Syracuse was intensively settled in the early 1800s by Euro-Americans and over the next century, the establishment of chemical factories and the decomposing sewage lead to the reduction and contamination of fish stocks, mammals, birds, riparian vegetation, and other organisms, combined with massive territorial loss as a consequence of Euro-American encroachment, have severely impacted the traditional fishing, hunting, gathering, and other resource use practices of the Onondaga people. The environmental injustice in the community highlights the ways in broader processes of environmental transformation and social exclusion as their rights to, and uses of, water and other resources have been severely reduced through historical processes of Euro-American settlement and industrial development.

Water Governance

Through Resolution 64/292, The United Nations General Assembly declared water and sanitation a human right and recognized that clean drinking water and sanitation are fundamental to all human rights. However, the global community has acknowledged that water the insecurity crisis is a top global risk. Water security – “the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water related risks to people, environments and economies.” Historically, the governance of water began when human beings started permanent settlements and needed reliable access to water for agriculture, livestock and drinking water. These early societies, more often than not, settled around a water source and needed to maintain order to ensure equitable distribution. The nature of this order depended on the geography, climatic conditions, socioeconomic circumstances, religious beliefs, philosophical frameworks and power relations. In the cases for early civilizations like Egypt, India, China and parts of Mesoamerica, the establishment of a social hierarchy was paramount to securing water to create irrigation infrastructures. Water governance was also integral to the industrial revolution. Water was used as the driving force behind machinery to generate electricity and waterways used as highways to transport goods. These goods made their way to growing cities and contributed to population growth as bulk goods could easily be transported to urban areas. It was essential for governments to secure fresh water sources and establish infrastructure to continue the growth of modern cities.

Water Inequality

Oxford dictionary defines inequality as, ‘the unfair difference between groups of people in society, when some have more money, power or opportunities than others’. The concepts of inequality heavily focuses on social inequality and economic inequality. However, water inequality cannot be easily categorized within a limited framework of inequality. Water plays a critical role in almost all aspects making it challenging to conceptualize through a singular lens. Water as a chemical component can be described as a substance composed of the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen and existing in gaseous, liquid, and solid states. Water is a building block of life on earth and it has unique physical and chemical properties.

Throughout human history, water has played a critical role in society, politics, and the environment. The quantity and quality of water impacts the region’s activities and potential to thrive. Another layer of issues can be framed around the distribution of the quantity of water resources in a region and access to the water resource that significantly impacts the activities of the region. The UN’s document on ‘Water as a Human Right’ states that ‘the human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses.’ Likewise, the geographical conditions of water present in the environment in the form of surface water, glaciers, or groundwater heavily impacts the quantity in various regions of the world.  Another critical component exacerbating the impacts of water quality and quantity is climate change–which impacts the world’s water in complex ways. In addition to witnessing the increasing impacts of climate change, the increasing demand for water in agricultural and industrial sectors has added contemporary issues to the already vulnerable water systems further elevating global water issues.

Water distribution: Access and Affordability

Water Accessibility implies that water should be available in sufficient and continuous amounts to meet everyday household needs like drinking, food preparation, bathing and other necessities. The physical vulnerability and institutional vulnerability like institutional constraints and managerial constraints are used as indicators to assess the accessibility. The physical vulnerability in most urban areas is high due to the impacts of  climate change and extreme at drought impacted systems. As for the institutional vulnerability, the amount of water made available to the community and the measures of infrastructure quality like age of water infrastructure system are critical components. Along with the deteriorating systems, the loss of federal support and unaffordable bills are exacerbating the water system conditions in poor communities leading to economic and racial disparities in access to safe and clean water. In addition, water affordability is linked to the direct and indirect cost of obtaining access to water to meet household needs. At the household level, individual water bills and income levels would be required to truly measure affordability. The affordability ratios for the different household income level should be analyzed to address disparity in water affordability. A study of Michigan examined a disparate access to environmental services and finds that racial minorities pay more for basic water and sewer services than white people. There is a critical need for strategies to promote equity and maintain affordability, mostly in communities that face challenges at the intersection of water accessibility, water affordability and water quality. In recent years, water contamination in many low-income neighborhoods across the United States have highlighted several physical and institutional vulnerabilities. While there are challenges to manage water sustainably and equitably differs from region to region, the common theme of the issues lie on the socio-legal dimensions of water management. The existing laws and administrative structures share water management which remains deeply rooted in capitalist, colonist, and imperialist structures.

Water Grabbing

Transnational Institute’s report on ‘The Global Water Grab’ describes water grabbing as situations where powerful actors are able to take control of or reallocate to their own benefit water resources at the expense of previous (un)registered local users or the ecosystems on which those users' livelihoods are based. Large-Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLAs) of agricultural land in developing countries have been rapidly increasing in the last 10 years. There is growing evidence that land grabbing for agriculture has a strong link and important water dimensions. Likewise, water can be a primary object of grab, the context of the grab, or it may serve both purposes. The global scale and scope of water grabbing is dominated by a set of intertwined complexities such as hydrological complexity, ecological complexity, legal and administrative complexity.

Virtual water

The rise of global economy models and industrialization has brought many consequences, adding another layer of complexity to the complex hydrological water systems, which has produced the concept of virtual water. Globalization has allowed for transfer of goods and trade of agricultural commodities maximizing the risk of water appropriations. Most of the human appropriation of freshwater resources is for agriculture (>80%) and not for drinking (<10%). The hydrological implications is an area which is understudied and under researched. The absence further adds risks on the phenomenon of water appropriations that negatively affects the local communities.

Ecological Debt

The world’s most affluent populations consume a disproportionate share of the planet’s resources. Roughly 80% of the planet’s resources is consumed by the affluent 20% of the world’s populations. The economic policies are skewed to favor the wealthier to gain more resulting in the ownership of approximately 95% of the planet’s wealth. The global North-South divide which are grounded in colonial and post-colonial political and economic relations have resulted in deadlocks in environmental treaty negotiations and agreements. The material benefits of the Great Acceleration helped global North to achieve economic expansion. The expansion had a disproportionate environmental consequences to the South leading to the discourse among scholars and activists as global North owes an ecological debt. As the arguments on the ways to reflect the discourse reaches the global platform, it is critical to understand the relations of the North-South through the lens of procedural injustice because the North dominates decision-making in the treaty negotiations marginalizing the views of the Southern countries.

The Great Acceleration was based on the importation of the South’s raw materials and the over-exploitation of the world’s ecosystems by appropriating the South’s natural resources. Colonialism converted self-reliant subsistence economies into outposts of Europe that exported agricultural products, minerals, and timber, and imported manufactured goods. The last few decades of industrialization and the global extraction activities through mining, logging, and petroleum extraction has further added pressure to the existing issues in the global south. The recent technological advancements have led to the demand for non-renewable, raw material products and is sustained by economic factors (both on the production and consumption ends) resulting in the exploitation of fossil fuels and industrial minerals and metals. All these processes heavily relies on the local water resources for multiple stages of production. The export-driven resource extraction produces irreversible environmental harm, and imposes enormous burdens on vulnerable communities, who bear the environmental costs.

Integrated systems

Water and Agriculture

Besides the daily use for household activities, the use of water is almost invisible in the urban setting. According to the UN report, global water demand is expected to continue increasing at a similar rate until 2050, accounting for an increase of 20% to 30% above the current level of water use, mainly due to rising demand in the industrial and domestic sectors. It is also important to understand the impact of water withdrawal and water consumption as they can have combined impact on the communities and the ecosystem. Water withdrawal means that the surface water or groundwater source is used in a process, and can be available again for the same or other purposes, whereas in water consumption water that is taken from surface water or groundwater source and not directly returned or available. The agricultural sector is responsible for 69% of the world’s freshwater withdrawals, the industrial sector accounts for 19%, while only 12% of water withdrawals are destined for households and municipal use. The water withdrawal may not largely impact water quantity of the area of agricultural production but the quality is heavily deteriorated as the agricultural activities or other forms of processing systems pollutes the water source. In agricultural communities, the effect of using pesticides and fertilizers is very distinct. In the United States, California state’s central valley is known as the farming region. However, the farming community’s source of water spews toxic water tainted by arsenic and fertilizer chemicals. There is a growing concern that the impact of water withdrawal and the degradation of the water quality by global agricultural sector on world’s freshwater puts many agricultural communities and ecosystems at risk. About 50% of the agricultural output from the production is used for feeding the livestock of which only 12% comes back as animal products. Likewise, the rise of biofuels uses 9% of the agricultural output and about 25% is used for producing snack foods and soft drinks, while over 10% is lost in food processing.

Water, Energy and Transportation

As for the energy sector, the industry heavily relies on the water withdrawal for transportation and electricity production. In the US, almost 90% of electricity is generated by thermoelectric power plants which uses a lot of virtual water to make electricity. In addition, the water withdrawal of thermoelectric plants use up to 133 billion gallons per day, most of which were from surface water sources and 72% of which were from freshwater sources like lakes and rivers. Water returned to the surface water has negative impacts on the ecosystem through thermal pollution. The change in the surface water’s temperature has devastating impact on the aquatic ecosystems in the rivers. Likewise, the water used to process transportation fuels like oil, natural gas and fuel is also water intensive. In the United States, coal mining and washing alone use between 70 and 260 million gallons (265 and 984 million liters, respectively) of water per day and a gallon of gasoline production can use between three to six gallons of water.

The import and export activities to support the growing global platform relies on the shipping and ports. The impact of the shipping sectors have an adverse environmental impact. Over the centuries, the growing impact of air pollution and water pollution along the harbors and the local community is evident. Most prominent environmental impact can be observed by industrial activities on the harbors of New York City which has destroyed the aquatic life. Recently there has been several projects along the city’s water bodies to improve the health of the water and ecosystem with an aim to restore the oyster reefs and marshes and wildlife, and building more natural, resilient shorelines. Additionally, the environmental impact on the neighboring community of the Port Newark has faced environmental injustice for generations. Environmental injustice is the overburdening amount of pollution and other environmental problems significantly impacting public health and quality of life in a low income community of color. Newark’s tightly packed Ironbound district and other East and South Ward neighborhoods that border the port, as well as parts of Elizabeth, have borne the brunt of the traffic and diesel pollution. With an aim to organize and advocate for the community, the grassroots organization Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC) works with the community on multiple issues to uplift the community. Additionally there have been support by coalitions like Coalition for Healthy Ports, which has emphasized to assure environmental justice and prevent harm in affected communities, and by joining larger coalitions like Moving Forward Network with an aim to reduce air pollution and promoting zero emissions technologies. In addition to the emissions issues on the heavily industrialized community, the diesel trucks take about 85 percent of the cargo out of the port. The transportation activity in the neighborhood impacts the community’s surface water and groundwater, especially when rainfall sweeps the contaminants off the road flowing into the creeks and eventually the groundwater.

Water as an element

Water Scarcity

According to the UN, water scarcity can be defined as a scarcity in the availability of water due to physical shortage or a scarcity due to the lack of infrastructure or because of the failure of institutions. Many countries, and regions, are experiencing water scarcity. The UN estimates that about 700 million people in 43 countries are experiencing water scarcity. The situation will only worsen as it is projected that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience complete water scarcity. The projected water scarcity will also displace about 700 million people. The expansion of large-scale industrial agriculture around the world has been facilitated by the irrigation of groundwater. Unfortunately, groundwater usage and loss are difficult to measure, across the United States, groundwater levels are infrequently monitored so the extent of ground water loss is unknown. Which makes it a more pressing issue than surface water loss.  However, it is widely believed that groundwater is being used faster than it can be replenished, which means that many sources will run out resulting water scarcity, stress. It has been estimated that more than 80% of freshwater that is consumed is used for agriculture. Accurate measures of agricultural water consumption are also difficult to measure given the return flows return flows are difficult to measure, if they are measured at all. Rising incomes also contribute to water scarcity as the demand for water increases along with population growth. An example of this can be found in Asia, where income rises leads to an increase in the demand for meat which requires water, which requires grain for feed, which requires water to  produce, twice as much for chicken, three times as much for pork and seven times as much as beef. A country’s meat consumption increases the demand for water.

Biofuels, an alternative to fossil fuels, have contributed to water scarcity. In the United States, 40% of corn grown are used for ethanol production. Despite its lower emissions, studies have revealed that biofuels produce far less energy than fossil fuels and uses around 1,000 to 4,000 liters of water to produce 1 liter of biofuel. Politically, water security has thus far not been taken seriously. Although water is considered a human right and a common resource, water scarcity is not regarded as other resources. The general consensus that water should be free has led to divestment, and water availability to the poor. A small portion of the freshwater supply is allocated to bottled water for many parts of the world experiencing water scarcity (unsafe water supply). A result, more often than not, of governmental institutions failing to provide a clean water supply. Water is not a smart investment as the price of water is too low to make a profit investing in its infrastructure. In some regions, those who can pay high prices for water from private providers use bottled water.

Global Impacts

Water governance has recently transformed from a local concern to a global concern as local water distribution in some places have been disrupted by foreign stakeholders in the form of land grabs and virtual water trading. This is evident when a drought occurs in a large-scale grain exporting nation, the drought affects the value of virtual water. Other impacts of water scarcity are displacements or forced migrations, environmental degradation, regional conflicts, economic degradation, increased risk of disease and rise in cost of water.

A global impact caused by groundwater overuse that gets little recognition is the rise in sea levels. Studies estimate that 25% of the observed sea level rise in recent years is a direct cause of runoff and evaporation of ground water over usage. Water scarcity has also caused political instability in some countries as well as expensive foreign aid demands. Compared to educational, water and water supply projects are far more expensive and are increasing in necessity as political instability and water scarcity increases. The large cities of India lacks sufficient water for a 24/7 supply, rather the average is around 3 hours/day. Many nations in regions of South America, Africa and the Middle East suffer from similar predicaments.

Energy

Water scarcity also threatens energy production, due to the fact that a large amounts of water are needed to produce energy. The World Energy Outlook 2012 reports that in 2010 global water withdrawals for energy production were estimated at 470 million acre-ft (15% of the world’s total water withdrawals) of which consumption (withdrawals les return flows) was about 50 million acre-ft. The report also predicts that water withdrawals by the energy sector will rise by 20% by 2035, while the amount consumed will increase by 85% (most likely as a result of the growing popularity of biofuel production).

The “Water-energy nexus” the two-way relationship of the large amounts of energy needed to collect, transport, treat and distribute water. In the case of the United States, 4% of consumed freshwater goes to the energy sector while 3% of all electricity contributes to water and wastewater pumping, treatment and distribution. 16% of all global electricity production comes from hydroelectric plants and are susceptible to the impacts of water scarcity. Other sources of energy such as fossil fuels, nuclear and thermal power plants also rely on water, mainly for cooling.

Water Pollution

The anthropogenic processes have deteriorated water quality at various levels making it unsafe for human, animals and the plant communities. Water pollution can be categorized into surface water pollution, marine pollution and groundwater pollution. In addition, they can also have a cumulative interaction and impact as water flows from one region to another. Water pollution is standardized to fall into two categories of pollution sources– point source and nonpoint sources of pollution. Water pollution can be a combination of many factors that result in degradation of the quality. The pollution is monitored at local, state and federal levels and requires certain levels of permit to pollute the water sources. In United States, environmental legislations like the creation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (1970), the Clean Water Act (1972), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), and the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) have streamlined the process to protect the quality of water. Likewise, the EPA sets the effluent guidelines which are the national regulatory standards for wastewater discharged to surface waters and municipal sewage treatment plants. The regulations are issued by the EPA for industrial categories, mostly based on the performance of treatment and control technologies. Globally, 80% of global wastewater goes untreated, containing everything from human waste to highly toxic industrial discharges. States and nations can have their own set of regulations in place to protect their water resources. However, due to the complexity and vastness of the watershed regions, there is a lack of regulations and laws on an international platform to address global issues. The international conventions and programs developed to address marine and shipping pollution is adopted for the reduction of wastewater, marine litter and nutrient loading. Transboundary issues are another set of challenges due to the hydrological complexity of water as an element. Unlike the global reach and impact of air pollution, water issues are more local than global. Therefore local activities directly impact the quality and quantity of water.

Agricultural Pollution

Runoff from Farmland

Agricultural pollution from farmland runoff is mostly categorized as a non-point source pollution because it does not originate at a single discharge point. Nonpoint-source pollution occurs due to the hydrological activity in the watershed as the water travels across the land or through the ground and picks up natural and human-made pollutants, which can then be deposited in lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even groundwater. The category makes it very challenging to enact restrictions on farm lands as they use multiple applications of chemicals to sustain their farm productivity levels. Land management practices is also a critical component which impacts water quality of the farm region. Soil has the capacity to restore water quality and prevent groundwater pollution. The rise in the use of fertilizers and pesticides are the main factors contributing to pollution from agricultural runoff. Due to the runoff from application of fertilizers on farmlands containing high content of nitrogen and phosphate contributes to the changes the chemical composition of water, leading to issues like algal blooms and eutrophication, ultimately leading to anoxic areas called ‘dead zones’.

Pesticides

Pesticides are intended to protect plants from weeds, fungi, or insects. Herbicides are commonly known as ‘weedkills’ and are used to control unwanted plants. In the US, more than 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides–which amounts to 23 percent of the nearly six billion pounds used worldwide–are applied annually to crops which accounts for approximately 80% of all pesticide use. In 1939, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, the insecticide DDT was introduced and vastly used until its negative effects on animals and humans were linked in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and led the US and 80 more countries to ban its use. Pesticides are a $14 billion industry in the US; two-thirds are for agricultural use with high emphasis on lobbying Congress spending nearly $33 million in 2016 by the agricultural inputs sector. In the US, for each pesticide EPA designates tolerance levels which are outdated and may not fully account for a range of health risks, such as hormone (or endocrine) disruption. Some studies have shown that long-term, intensive exposure does have adverse effects even if regarded as safe for humans or the environment. Farmworkers represent the backbone of the agricultural economy in the US but they are also among the least protected from hazards on the job and have one of the highest rates of chemical exposures among all U.S. workers. The farmworker community has 10,000–20,000 pesticide poisonings occur every year and faces long-term, chronic health effects such as cancer, Parkinsons’ Disease, asthma, birth defects, and neurological harms, including developmental delays and learning disabilities. Over the last few years, there have been changes to the farmworker rights and some state and federal protections like ‘The Agricultural Worker Protection Standard’ and ‘Certification of Pesticide Applicators Rule’.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO)

A CAFO is a specific type of large-scale industrial agricultural facility that raises animals, usually at high-density, for the consumption of meat, eggs, or milk. Corporate livestock facilities or CAFOs produce high levels of air and water pollution having detrimental impacts on the neighboring communities, risking the hydrological parameters and the physical environment. The confinement of large numbers of animals in close proximity requires high level of inputs like livestock feeds, routine antibiotic regimens and further exacerbates the water quality of the particular watershed. Manures from CAFOs contains more than 150 pathogens that have the potential to contaminate water supplies, pollute drinking water sources and contribute to the deterioration of aquatic habitats. In the US, a permit program entitled the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) under the Clean Water Act section 402, was created which set effluent limitation guidelines and standards (ELGs) for CAFOs. As a result of a court decision for ‘Water Keeper et al. vs. the EPA’, the CAFO rule was again updated. The current final CAFO rule, which was revised in 2008, requires that only CAFOs that discharge or propose to discharge waste apply for permits. By the mid-2000s CAFOs dominated livestock and poultry production in the United States, and the scope of their market share is steadily increasing and along with it the loopholes to escape the criterias to comply with the permits have contributed to water pollution. Another issue with the regulations is that there is no defining line between "family farms" (small farms) and CAFO farms, which allows for exploitation by big industries working through their contracts to pass the regulations or comply with the rules. CAFOs are set up as systems to produce vast quantities of meat, eggs and dairy that can be sold at very low prices made possible through the vast system of agricultural price supports and subsidies, the market prices does not account for the fact that the public heavily subsidizes CAFOs, including manure management and feed costs.