84,000 Head FACTORY FARM coming to NY

[smalltownusa]

Originally Posted by itSmellsBAD

Crop farming around Factory Farms means plenty of pollution. They dump massive amounts of manure slurry on the corn fields. They're doing it right now, as we speak, on snow covered fields all over the Finger Lakes Region heading east towards Lake Erie. It stinks so bad near me that you can't shovel the snow out of your driveway without getting a severe headache from the hydrogen sulfide and methane fumes. When the snow melts, the ground is still frozen and it washes off into the creeks and rivers or sits in puddles in low areas until it saturates the ground to the point that it cant go anywhere. Thus the E Coil contaminated wells popping up all over rural NY. Have you ever tried to sell a house with an E Coli and Coliform contaminated well? You CAN'T! Of course the farm never has to pay for ruining your drinking water. Buying a house is Rural NY is a high risk venture. Do your homework.

The highlighted sentence is an example of the type comments smells makes which are generalizations......I live in rural NY and have never had to deal with manure slurry or E-Coli nor have I ever heard of a problem such as described. To the contraire, I live in the valley between two water-supplying lakes for the city of Rochester and more pristine an area there isn't.....

[smalltownusa]

Originally Posted by honeychrome

Here is a topical and timely piece by the ever level-headed and thoughtful Michael Pollan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/ma...in&oref=slogin

An article which re-enforces the need for more vegetarian eating habits.....

[itSmellsBAD]

Originally Posted by smalltownusa

The highlighted sentence is an example of the type comments smells makes which are generalizations......I live in rural NY and have never had to deal with manure slurry or E-Coli nor have I ever heard of a problem such as described. To the contraire, I live in the valley between two water-supplying lakes for the city of Rochester and more pristine an area there isn't.....

Really? Never heard of E Coli in well water? Try reading the newspapers or check out this link: http://www.prebleny.com/index.php?cat=15

Lots of rural NY manure stories listed on the link along with some horrific photos of NY spills and manure lagoons.

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/otherwny/story/154197.html (broken link)

BATAVIA, NY — More than 130 homeowners in three Genesee County towns will soon have safer and more dependable water supplies because of projects under way or in the planning stages.
The largest project — funded through $1.3 million in federal grants and loans — will benefit 60 families in two water districts serving parts of the Ellicott Street Road (Route 63) area of the Town of Batavia and Sweetland, Roanoke and East Bethany-Le Roy roads in Stafford.
Residents of both districts, who will pay part of the cost through user fees, have approved the proposal. Construction could begin next month and be completed by the end of the year, Batavia Supervisor Gregory H. Post said. Wells in the area were contaminated earlier this year by manure spread by a local dairy farmer. In progress in the Town of Batavia are improvements to a third water district impacting 75 families on Wilkinson, Putnam- Spenhard and Pearl Street roads. The project was approved earlier this summer by the Town Board. Officials are anticipating that federal grants and loans will pay for the project’s $1.5 million price tag.
Also, Pembroke will receive a $65,000 grant and $405,000 loan from the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Program for a water district along Route 5 that will bring water lines to 58 residents and 17 businesses. The estimated cost of the work, west of East Pembroke, is $1.27 million, according to Town Supervisor Edward J. Beideck.

http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard...210.xml&coll=1

Liquid manure spills in Skaneateles
Thursday, July 12, 2007
By Delen Goldberg Staff writer
A burst pipe at a Skaneateles farm caused 25,000 gallons of liquid manure to leak into a small creek, killing about 100 fish, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials said Wednesday. The manure collected in a pond on a nearby golf course before it could flow into Dutch Hollow Brook, a tributary of Owasco Lake. Owasco Lake supplies drinking water to about 44,000 people in Cayuga County, including residents in Auburn and several smaller municipalities. Cayuga County health officials said the leaking manure posed no threat to the drinking water. “It’s certainly not a good thing that this happened, but it can always be worse,” said Jeff Carmichael, executive director of the Onondaga County Soil and Water Conservation District. The spill happened Monday night at Twin Birch Dairy Farm, 1001 Lacy Road, near the Cayuga County border. Ken Lynch, the DEC’s regional director in Syracuse, said an underground pipe pumping manure from a storage tank to a lagoon burst. A 20-foot section of pipe became fractured, farm owner Dirk Young said. The manure had already passed through a methane digester, so many pathogens and contaminants had been filtered out.