General Information
Livestock facilities, such as dairies, swine, and poultry farms, can be a source of water and air pollution unless waste is dealt with properly.
Animal waste contains disease-causing pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform, which can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in human waste. More than 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure.
Livestock manure can be spread on fields to increase crop yields. Is also used to make plaster for walls and floors, and can be used as a fuel for fires.
Animal manures are a valuable fertilizer and soil conditioner, if applied under proper conditions at crop nutrient requirements. Potential sources of manure pollution include open feedlots, pastures, treatment lagoons, manure stockpiles or storage, and land application fields. Oxygen-demanding substances, ammonia, nutrients (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus), solids, pathogens, and odorous compounds are the pollutants most commonly associated with manure.
The USDA estimates that more than 335 million tons of "dry matter" waste (the portion of waste remaining after water is removed) is produced annually on farms in the United States, representing almost a third of the total municipal and industrial waste produced every year.
What's more, animal feeding operations annually produce about 100 times more manure than the amount of human sewage sludge processed in US municipal wastewater plants.
In most cases the law does not require that livestock waste be treated.
Until recently, there has been very little regulation of animal waste. Federal law changed in 2002 to require virtually all confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to apply for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for their waste discharge.
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