Water Contamination Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Water Contamination - Assignment Example Farms do two things to chicken manure: dump it in any available water resource or use it on the fields. Pohlmann decided to 14.1 tons of land-applied manure to one acre. This was done despite the recommendation limiting manure to six tons per acre (Rish). According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Ohio has no Clean Water Act permits that specify control over livestock operations like Buckeye’s chicken farm. Also, Ohio’s Trade Secrecy act permits factories like the Buckeye farm to dump their manure in an off-site location without revealing the area. However, it is not the manure spill alone that affects the poison content of the water. The intensive confinement of thousands of chickens can result in manure that is far beyond the soil’s absorption rate. The runoff that results from this heavy manure can cause not only water pollution but also affect the land. In the water, it causes eutrophication which makes the soil so rich in organic and mineral content that the amount of oxygen in the water is depleted (HSUS 2005). The difference is that while the plants in the water thrive, the animal life in the water body suffers. This contamination is not a problem for the land and animals alone. The polluted water that drains into the rivers is a percentage of the drinking water for the humans in that area. Grant claims that 60% of the water dumped into these rivers is used as drinking water by the locals of Ohio (1998). Thus, Buckeye farm profited from a number of loopholes in Ohio’s state program. The farm was not forced to reveal the places it dumped the manure preventing the citizens from knowing if the manure is not being properly disposed of in streams or wells. Ohio’s environmental body also has the permission to ask for the management of livestock manure if any farm has more than 1000 livestock units: like the Buckeye Farm.