The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy is taking a stand to protect Michigan’s drinking water and overall water quality, particularly when it comes to large farms and animal waste protocols.
Environmentalists are praising them for strengthening permits for large farms in Michigan, based on the millions of tons of manure that the animals produce.
The permits are particularly strengthened around the winter months, and they restrict the amount of liquid waste that farmers can disperse onto fields to protect Michigan’s water quality from runoff pollution.
The permits also require grassy buffers to be assembled near rivers and creeks, and enforce stricter reporting and tighten up waste-management rules.
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The director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), Philip Roos, recently issued his "Opinion from the Director" clarifying issues around the general permit for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, as the Detroit Free Press reported:
Approximately 290 large farms house the majority of the state's dairy cows, hogs, chickens, and turkeys. These operations, often with thousands of animals, generate massive amounts of waste: 40 million to 60 million tons of solid animal waste, and 4 billion gallons of liquid waste per year — at least 20 times the waste generated by all people living in Michigan.
Farmers aren't too thrilled about these permits, as they reported that many of them feel this added stress and additional costs to them without the results contributing to any real environmental change. Regardless, this was a part of the 2020 Farm Pollution law that was passed and is being implemented.
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