Nick drives photographer, Julie Russell- Steuart, and Food & Water Watch Senior Iowa Organizer, Michaelyn Mankel, through five miles of condensed factory farms that surround his home and his family's farm.
When Nick asked his family if he could share their stories, they responded, “Share the story, please, share the story, ” he told us. “My family’s scared. My neighbors are scared. We gotta get something going.” Nick is pictured here standing in front of one of the dozens of factory farms that have been built within a few miles of his home. Photo by Julie Russell-Steuart.
Nick and Michaelyn visit a local waterway and talk about the damage factory farms have done to Nick's family and community. Photo by Julie Russell-Steuart.
Manure mis- management Factory farms in Iowa produce 109 billion pounds of waste yearly, 25 times that of the state’s human population. Here’s how the industry current- ly “manages” all this manure: Manure collects in huge pits beneath barns. 1
packed with millions of animals and acre upon acre of chemical- drenched cornfields. This rise in factory farming has taken a toll on people’s water. The toxic fertilizers and pesticides used to grow corn and soy, which factory farms depend on for cheap feed, leach into waterways. Fertil- izer and animal waste runoff have led to dangerous nitrate contamination. The harm to Iowa’s water is widespread. In 2024, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources designated more than half of Iowa’s rivers and streams as “impaired.” Not-So-Fun Fact #1 Bayer’s notorious weedkiller, Roundup, is widely used in Iowa. In any given year, more than half the state is covered in the pesticide.
It’s applied, untreated, onto nearby fields, often at volumes too great for the soil to absorb. It runs off, contaminating the soil, rivers, streams, and even aquifers deep underground with danger- ous levels of nitrates.
2
At a clean water forum Food & Water Watch hosted in West Des Moines, Iowa, last October, Nick told the gathering, My family has had a front- row seat to the
3
industrialization of Iowa’s agricultural landscape. We’ve paid for it with our health.
Not-So-Fun Fact #2 To meet federal water qual- ity standards, Des Moines Water Works runs one of the largest nitrate removal systems in the world .
Factory Farm Pollution - continue on Page 3 >
FOOD & WATER WATCH / ACTION — LIVABLE FUTURE NOW | 2
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease