Manure is the urine and feces excreted from animals, and in some operations, includes plant-based bedding materials which have absorbed animal waste products.[1-3]
EPA Terminology Services – Terms and Acronyms [“The fecal and urinary excretions of livestock and poultry.]
Pagliari, P. et al., (2019) Animal Manure Production and Utilization: Impact of Modern Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, In Animal Manure: Production, Characteristics, Environmental Concerns and Management, Waldrip, H.M. et al (eds.) American Society of Agronomy, Special Publication 67, Madison, WI, p. 1. [“By the traditional definition animal manure is animal excreta (urine and feces) and bedding materials, usually applied to soils as a fertilizer for agricultural production.”]
Eurostat official website of the European Union [“Manure (also known as livestock manure) is organic matter, mostly derived from animal faeces and urine, but normally also containing plant material (often straw), which has been used as bedding for animals and has absorbed the faeces and urine.”]
The central environmental problem is that enormous numbers of confined animals create vast amounts of manure – far too much to be used as fertilizer.[1-3]
Compounding the issue, manure has lost its value compared to chemical fertilizer.[4] Therefore, economic incentives encourage dispersal into air and water, thereby degrading the natural world.[5,6]
We estimate that about 10% of factory farm manure nutrients are effectively incorporated into crops.[7,8]
Glibert, P. M. (2020). From hogs to HABs: impacts of industrial farming in the US on nitrogen and phosphorus and greenhouse gas pollution. Biogeochemistry, 150(2), 139-180, p. 143. [“… the waste production far outpaces that which can be safely recycled back on the land.”]
U.S. EPA (2004) Risk Assessment Evaluation for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. EPA/600/R-04/042, p. 2. [As the EPA explained twenty years ago: “Underlying all of the environmental problems associated with CAFOs is the fact that too much manure accumulates in restricted areas. Traditional means of using manure are not adequate to contend with the large volumes present at CAFOs.”]
Berry, W. (2004). The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. Counterpoint, Berkeley ISBN 978-0871568779. [“Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of America farm experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and divide it neatly into two problems.”]
Lim, T. et. al., (2023) Increasing the Value of Animal Manure for Farmers, UDA Economic Research Service, AP-109, pp. 2-12. [“The low quantity of nutrients per ton, relative to commercial fertilizers, results in time-intensive and costly transportation. Depending on the weather, in any year, farmers may have a few days with suitable conditions that allow them to prepare fields, spread fertilizer, and plant. Crop planting takes priority, so to save time, farmers may choose commercial fertilizers rather than manure.”]
See, Economics of Manure
Swaney, D. P., et al., (2018). Nitrogen use efficiency and crop production: Patterns of regional variation in the United States, 1987–2012. Science of the Total Environment, 635, 498-511, Abstract [“…in the US, manure is still treated largely as a waste to be managed rather than a nutrient resource.”]
See, Total Manure Nutrient Pollution
Note that the huge volumes of concentrated manure also poison animal living quarters, adding to the degraded living conditions of intensely confined animals who are sensitive to smells and are highly motivated to keep their manure outside of their living quarters.
Yes. Nutrient pollution – excess nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) – is considered the primary threat from concentrated manure on factory farms.[1-5] The ultimate disposal of manure nutrients pollutes water, air, and soil.
Manure is one of two major drivers of nutrient pollution from animal agriculture. Chemical fertilizers on feed crops are the other major source. Accounting for both sources, animal agriculture is the primary driver of nutrient pollution.[6]
Burkholder, J., et al., (2007). Impacts of waste from concentrated animal feeding operations on water quality. Environmental health perspectives, 115(2), 308-312. [“Waste from agricultural livestock operations has been a long-standing concern with respect to contamination of water resources, particularly in terms of nutrient pollution.”]
Rotz, C. A. (2020). Environmental sustainability of livestock production. Meat and Muscle Biology, 4(2), Abstract. [“Livestock production contributes to global warming, but the importance of its contribution may be overstated… Other effects of meat production may be of more concern for long-term sustainability… An important environmental concern is reactive nitrogen losses, among which ammonia emission from manure is of most concern.”]
Marc Ribaudo, et al., (2003) Manure Management for Water Quality: Costs to Animal Feeding Operations of Applying Manure Nutrients to Land. USDA ERS, Report 824, Abstract. [“Nutrients from livestock and poultry manure are key sources of water pollution.”]
Kleinman, P. J., et al., (2020). Managing animal manure to minimize phosphorus losses from land to water. In Animal manure: Production, characteristics, environmental concerns, and management, 67, 201-228. [“No sector in agriculture has been more closely tied to the accelerated eutrophication of aquatic systems than animal agriculture, principally as a result of the generation and management of manure.” Nutrient pollution leads to eutrophication.]
Szogi, A. A., et al., (2015). Methods for treatment of animal manures to reduce nutrient pollution prior to soil application. Current Pollution Reports, 1(1), 47-56. [“Therefore, distribution and disposal of animal manure has become a problem. The application of excessive amounts of manure to soil can lead to accumulation of nutrients in soils with potential for surface and groundwater pollution.”]
See, Animal Ag’s Contributions to Water Pollution
Nutrient pollution is one of the largest environmental problems in the U.S. and globally.[1,2] It is considered one of the 9 planetary boundaries, and it is the boundary most clearly transgressed, threatening future human health and survival.[3-5]
Agriculture is the central driver.[6] Animal agriculture is by far the majority of agriculture’s impacts.[7] The poor conditions of the nation’s waterways, in large part due to nutrient pollution, reflect the failure to address the problem.[8-10]
Sutton, M. A., et al., (2021). The nitrogen decade: mobilizing global action on nitrogen to 2030 and beyond. One Earth, 4(1), 10-14, p. 10. [“By massively increasing the supply of nitrogen compounds, humans are worsening air and water quality, contributing to climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion, and thereby threatening health, biodiversity, and livelihoods.”]
Radhika Fox (EPA Assistant Administrator) to State Environmental Secretaries, Commissioners, and Directors State Agriculture Secretaries, Commissioners, and Directors Tribal Environmental and Natural Resource Director (April 5, 2022) Memorandum: Accelerating Nutrient Pollution Reductions in the Nation’s Waters, Washington, D.C., p. 1. [“Nutrient pollution is a continuing and growing challenge with profound implications for public health, water quality, and the economy.”]
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-04/accelerating-nutrient-reductions-4-2022.pdfRichardson, K., et al., (2023). Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Sci. Adv. 9, eadh2458, p. 5, Table 1. [Nutrient pollution has exceeded boundaries for planetary health by a factor of 2 or 3. The P boundary is proposed at 11 Tg with current use at 22.6 Tg. The N boundary is proposed at 62 Tg, with current use at 190 Tg.]
Metson, G. S., et al., (2020). The US consumer phosphorus footprint: where do nitrogen and phosphorus diverge?. Environmental research letters, 15(10), 105022, p. 8. [“The U.S. has one of the highest P planetary boundary ‘exceedance’ footprints as a nation…”]
For further info on the impacts of nutrient pollution, see, Size of Nutrient Pollution Problem. And for manure’s role in ammonia emissions and PM2.5, see, Nitrogen and Air Quality and Animal Ag Ammonia & PM2.5
Kanter, D. R., & Brownlie, W. J. (2019). Joint nitrogen and phosphorus management for sustainable development and climate goals. Environmental Science & Policy, 92, 1-8. p. 2. [“Agriculture is the dominant source of nutrient pollution, as the inefficient management of manure and synthetic fertilizer leads to significant losses of N and P.” See Figure 1. N = 155/232.5 = 66.7%. P = 18/23.8 = 72.6%.]
Metson, G. S., et al., (2020), p. 7. [“Animal products comprise 78% of the average per capita P footprint and 72% for N.”]
U.S. EPA (2024) National Lakes Assessment: [For lakes, “Nutrient pollution was the most widespread stressor measured.”]
U.S. EPA (2023) National Rivers and Streams Assessment: The Third Collaborative Survey. EPA 841-R-22-004. [For rivers and streams, “Nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) were the most widespread stressors.”]
For more information on conditions of the nation’s waterways, see, Lakes, Rivers & Streams Pollution
Vast number of operations – There are about 150,000 AFOs (animal feeding operations) across the country, with many locations unknown and their practices undocumented.[1,2] Along with several hundred thousand grazing operations and additional crop farmers applying manure, this array of mostly “non-point sources” is impossible to monitor.[3,4]
Complex implementation – The science is complex and the circumstances highly variable for both manure storage infrastructure design and for manure land applications.[5,6]
Unworkable economics – There is an awareness that raising the regulatory bar will create economic stress for producers along with higher prices for consumers.[7,8]
Lag time for results – Once nitrogen and phosphorus build up in soils and water, so-called legacy nutrients, there is a long lag time from nutrient input reductions to improving results.[9]
Agricultural exceptionalism – An ingrained culture that views “family farmers” as good stewards of the land has acted as a barrier to political or economic solutions.[10,11]
See, Total Number of AFOs and CAFOs
Muenich, R. L., et al., (2025). Gaps in US livestock data are a barrier to effective environmental and disease management. Environmental Research Letters, 20(3), 031001, Abstract. [“…there are significant data gaps in where livestock are raised, how many livestock are on site at a given time, and how these livestock and, importantly, their waste emissions, are managed.”]
Innes, R. (2000). The economics of livestock waste and its regulation. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 82(1), 97-117, p. 112. [“A realistic premise of the analysis is that environmental outcomes cannot be directly monitored… This premise has particular force with respect to manure applications, which are assumed to be unobservable to regulators.”]
Shortle, J. S., et al., (2020). Nutrient control in water bodies: A systems approach. Journal of Environmental Quality, 49(3), 517-533, p. 523. [“The diffuse and complex pathways that nonpoint-source pollution follows from sources to receptors make routine metering of individual discharges infeasible.”]
Varma, V. S., et al., (2021). Dairy and swine manure management–Challenges and perspectives for sustainable treatment technology. Science of The Total Environment, 778, 146319, p. 13. [“Finally, this study’s essential findings are that farm practices and strategies differ greatly, and so the resultant waste characterization and treatment methods also vary.”]
Kleinman, P. J., et al., (2020). Managing animal manure to minimize phosphorus losses from land to water. In Animal manure: Production, characteristics, environmental concerns, and management, 67, 201-228, p. 212. [“While easily stated, crop P use efficiency and environmental protection can be extremely difficult to achieve, largely due to the complex, site-specific interactions of management and environmental factors, but also because P management is but one component of farming and therefore must accommodate other priorities that impinge on the availability of finances, time, technology and land.”]
Marc Ribaudo, et al., (2003) Manure Management for Water Quality: Costs to Animal Feeding Operations of Applying Manure Nutrients to Land. USDA ERS, Report 824, p. iii. [“If all CAFOs meet the nutrient standards outlined in the new regulations, increases in production costs could be felt throughout the food and agricultural system.”]
Kleinman, P. J., et al., (2020), p. 211. [“A variety of systems have been developed, but their economic viability is still in question.”]
Sharpley, A., et al., (2013). Phosphorus legacy: overcoming the effects of past management practices to mitigate future water quality impairment. Journal of environmental quality, 42(5), 1308-1326, p. 1308. [“Accumulated P can be remobilized or recycled, acting as a continuing source to downstream water bodies for years, decades, or even centuries.”]
Glibert, P. M. (2020). From hogs to HABs: impacts of industrial farming in the US on nitrogen and phosphorus and greenhouse gas pollution. Biogeochemistry, 150(2), 139-180, p. 160-161. [“Farmers have long been considered inherently good stewards of the land. The historical balance that small farmers sustained between animal waste production and crops that fed both animals and people is still the notion that many have with respect to farming (Fig. 17a). This ingrained belief has resulted in agricultural operations having the privilege of exemptions of many provisions of environmental laws. This notion of good stewardship contrasts with current reality…”]
Note: We believe that the strategic decisions of the major U.S. meatpacking corporations and integrators to limit the extent of their vertical integration by not directly owning factory farms is to some degree a function of their need to maintain distance from the manure pollution emanating from those farms. These smaller “family farm” operations tend to be protected by the umbrella of agricultural exceptionalism, and thereby not challenged by government or society to reduce their manure pollution.
Limited regulations – A patchwork of regulations combined with a lack of enforcement has been insufficient to tackle the problem.[1,2] Even the EPA has acknowledged the barriers.[3]
Lack of data – Government agencies have the resources to document the impacts on a national scale but have mostly failed to monitor the problem and the associated costs.[4-6]
Government inertia – After decades of failed policies and a system resisting change, there is limited appetite for policymakers to try to address a seemingly unsolvable problem.[7,8]
Ignoring root causes – Federal agencies have tried to impact the behavior of operators rather than change the structural causes, i.e, the massive numbers of animals creating huge amounts of concentrated manure.[9,10]
Rosov, K., et al. (2020). Waste nutrients from U.S. animal feeding operations: Regulations are inconsistent across states and inadequately assess nutrient export risk. Journal of Environmental Management, 269, 110738.
Spiegal, S. et al.,(2020). Manuresheds: Advancing nutrient recycling in US agriculture. Agricultural
Systems, 182, 102813, p. 2. [“Nutrient recycling is fundamental to sustainable agricultural systems, but few mechanisms exist to ensure that surplus manure nutrients from animal feeding operations are transported for use on nutrient-deficient croplands.”]U.S. EPA (2022) EPA Legal Tools to Advance Environmental Justice, Pub. No. 360R22001, p. 75. [“Many CAFOs are not regulated and continue to discharge without NPDES permits because successive court decisions have severely limited EPA’s ability to require CAFOs to obtain an NPDES permit.”]
Rosov, K., et al. (2020), p. 9. [“Finally, while scientific evidence clearly demonstrates damaging water quality consequences from CAFO waste disposal practices, there are few, if any, quantitative, empirical federal or state sponsored analyses of manure nutrient exports.”]
Rotz, A., et al., (2021). Environmental assessment of United States dairy farms. Journal of Cleaner Production, 315, 128153, p. 6. [Per USDA scientists, “For total reactive N loss, national estimates were not available for comparison.”]
Del Rossi, G., et al., (2023). The economics of nutrient pollution from agriculture. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 15(1), 105-130, p. 124. [“The many examples of understudied damage estimates fall under the general category of the need to produce estimates of the social cost of nutrient pollution, analogous to the social cost of carbon.”]
Ribaudo, M. (2015). The limits of voluntary conservation programs. Choices, 30(2), 1-5. [From a highly cited USDA researcher: “Despite billions of dollars of investment in conservation measures over the past several decades agricultural NPS (non-point source) policies do not appear to be enough to address landscape scale water quality problems… The voluntary approach has generally not led to an aggregation of conservation effort in impaired watersheds sufficient to produce measurable improvements in water quality.”]
Kleinman, P. J., et al., (2020). Managing animal manure to minimize phosphorus losses from land to water. In Animal manure: Production, characteristics, environmental concerns, and management, 67, 201-228, p. 209. [“Efforts to mitigate manure P losses to the environment due to farm infrastructure are regularly hindered by historical inertia, supported by cultural factors that resist change, as well as the cost of most infrastructure projects. Around the world, past standards (or a lack there-of) and traditional development practices often did not consider water quality implications, and even relied on periodic flooding or direct discharge to waterways as a form of manure management.”]
Ribaudo, M., & Shortle, J. (2019). Reflections on 40 years of applied economics research on agriculture and water quality. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 48(3), 519-530. [“The underlying belief was that moral suasion combined with technical and financial assistance to encourage and facilitate the adoption of Best Management Practices (BMPs) was the best way forward.”]
Innes, R. (2000). The economics of livestock waste and its regulation. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 82(1), 97-117, p. 112. [In this report from the year 2000, the author explores the infeasibility of current incentives and monitoring, while suggesting changes that are “observable,” like requiring better manure infrastructure, limiting the number of animals per farm, and requiring a minimum distance from other factory farms in order to encourage land application on more acreage.]
Yes, unlike human waste, almost all factory farm manure is stored, transported, and land applied without meaningful treatment.[1-5]
However, the word “treatment” is broad, incorporating a variety of simple practices.[6] Therefore, this is a difficult claim to make definitively. The small share of manure that currently enters so-called biogas structures can also be viewed as “treatment,” further clouding this issue.[7]
U.S. EPA (2004) Risk Assessment Evaluation for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. EPA/600/R-04/042, p. 9. [“The important difference lies in the fact that human waste is treated before discharge into the environment, but animal waste is either not treated at all or minimally treated by virtue of the storage methods used before disposal.”]
Glibert, P. M. (2020). From hogs to HABs: impacts of industrial farming in the US on nitrogen and phosphorus and greenhouse gas pollution. Biogeochemistry, 150(2), 139-180, p. 143. [“There is no wastewater treatment for these animal wastes—other than holding it for periods of time.”]
Macedo, G., et al., (2021). Targeted metagenomics reveals inferior resilience of farm soil resistome compared to soil microbiome after manure application. Science of The Total Environment, 770, 145399, p. 10. [From European researchers: “Nevertheless, because of the costs of implementing and maintaining treatment structures, the majority of the farms applies manure directly in soils, without any treatment.”]
U.S. EPA (2013) Literature Review of Contaminants in Livestock and Poultry Manure and Implications for Water Quality, EPA 820-R-13-002, p. 73. [“To manage surplus manure, technologies have been developed to treat manure nutrients such that additional options for disposition of nutrients become viable… Although many of these technologies have been proven from an engineering perspective, the costs are generally prohibitive for most producers.”]
Szogi, A. A., et al., (2015). Methods for Treatment of Animal Manures to Reduce Nutrient Pollution Prior to Soil Application. Curr. Pollut. Reports 1, 47–56, p. 48. [From USDA researchers: “The technologies reviewed in this section are alternative in the sense that they do more to reduce environmental pollution than the traditional land application of untreated manure.”]
Zhang, H., & Schroder, J. (2014). Animal manure production and utilization in the US. In Applied manure and nutrient chemistry for sustainable agriculture and environment, pp. 3-4. [“Treatment is any process designed to reduce pollution potential of the waste, including physical, biological, and chemical treatment. It includes activities that are sometimes called pretreatments, such as the separation of solids and liquids, or adding alum to poultry houses.”]
U.S. EPA (November 13, 2025) AgSTAR Data and Trends – Anaerobic Digester Facts and Trends. https://www.epa.gov/agstar/agstar-data-and-trends#adfacts [“AgSTAR estimates that biogas recovery systems are technically feasible for over 8,000 large dairy and hog operations.” There are currently about 400 to 500 facilities operational.]
Losses begin at the moment of excretion and continue long after land-application, cycling through air, water, land, and back again.[1,2]
Nitrogen volatilization – Large portions of the nitrogen in manure are dispersed into the air as soon as it is excreted and continue to be lost during every stage of “manure management” regardless of management systems.[3,4]
Nutrient loss from storage sites – Manure can leach or overflow from storage piles, enclosed manure pits, and open manure lagoons and ponds. This can be due to regular expected occurrences (like leaching), intentional releases, structural failures, or severe weather events.[5] Large amounts of nitrogen are lost throughout the storage process.[6] Phosphorus tends to sink to the bottom of storage systems where it can remain for years, eventually reaching soil or water.[7]
Manure land-applications – When manure is over-applied on surrounding farmland, the plants and soil cannot absorb the excess nutrients which are then carried into surface waterbodies. Manure is regularly over-applied, presumably as a method for dispersing a waste product.[8,9]
Atmospheric deposition from manure – Ammonia escaping into the atmosphere (NH3) comes primarily from manure on factory farms (both livestock and poultry) and is eventually deposited back onto the soil or into waterways.[10,11]
Accumulation In soils and groundwater – Phosphorus and nitrogen accumulate in soils and water as legacy pollutants that can take decades or even centuries to diminish.[12,13]
Grazing pollution – That portion of manure nutrients excreted on pasture or rangeland is also a major source of nutrient pollution.[14]
Mallin, M. A., & Cahoon, L. B. (2003). Industrialized animal production—a major source of nutrient and microbial pollution to aquatic ecosystems. Population and Environment, 24(5), 369-385. [See, “Fate of Excreted Nutrients” pp. 377-388 for a good summary of all the routes by which the nutrients in manure enter air and water.]
Ribaudo, M., et al., (2011). Nitrogen in agricultural systems: Implications for conservation policy. USDA ERS Report 127. [See “Pathways for Nitrogen Losses, p. 3]
U.S. EPA (2002) Non-Water Quality Impact Estimates for Animal Feeding Operations, pp. 1-2. [“Nitrogen losses from animal manure as ammonia can easily exceed 50 percent.”]
Rotz, C. A. (2004). Management to reduce nitrogen losses in animal production. Journal of animal science, 82 (suppl_13), E119-E137, Table 2. [“Volatile loss begins soon after excretion, and it continues through all manure handling processes until the manure nutrients are incorporated into soil.”]
Burkholder, J., et al., (2007) Impacts of Waste from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations on Water Quality. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115(2), 308–312, p. 308. [“Contaminants from animal wastes can enter the environment through pathways such as through leakage from poorly constructed manure lagoons, or during major precipitation events resulting in either overflow of lagoons and runoff from recent applications of waste to farm fields, or atmospheric deposition followed by dry or wet fallout.”]
Aillery, M. P., et al., (2005). Managing manure to improve air and water quality. USDA ERS Report 9, Table 2-1, “Manure management systems and nitrogen losses” p. 12.
Lim, T., et al., (2023) Increasing the Value of Animal Manure for Farmers, USDA ERS, AP-109, p. 13. [“…phosphorus can settle to the bottom of lagoons where it may remain for years.”]
Lim, T., et al., (2023), Table 2, Figure 4. [The great majority of manure was applied to corn crops; more than half of corn producers that land-applied manure did not reduce their normal usage of chemical fertilizer.]
Ribaudo, M., et al., (2017). The potential role for a nitrogen compliance policy in mitigating Gulf hypoxia. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 39(3), 458-478, p. 12. [Per USDA scientists, “Farms with confined animals generally have inadequate cropland to assimilate nutrients produced, and are characterized by excess nutrient applications on cropland they control.”]
U.S. EPA (2024) 2020 NEI Supporting Data and Summaries – Data Queries for Sector Summaries. [Query: National/Ammonia NH3/Livestock Waste (49.2%), fertilizer application (33.5%), agricultural field burning (2.7%)]
Robertson, D. M. & Saad, D. A. (2021). Nitrogen and phosphorus sources and delivery from the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River basin: An update using 2012 SPARROW models. JAWRA, 57(3), 406-429, Figure 5, p. 18. [Atmospheric manure nutrients are the source of ~13% of nitrogen in waterways.]
Van Meter, K. J., et al., (2016). The nitrogen legacy: emerging evidence of nitrogen accumulation in anthropogenic landscapes. Environmental Research Letters, 11(3), 035014, Abstract. [“…observed accumulation of soil organic N… would lead to a biogeochemical lag time of 35 years for 99% of legacy N, even with complete cessation of fertilizer application.”]
Sharpley, A., et al., (2013). Phosphorus legacy: overcoming the effects of past management practices to mitigate future water quality impairment. Journal of environmental quality, 42(5), 1308-1326, p. 1308. [“Accumulated P can be remobilized or recycled, acting as a continuing source to downstream water bodies for years, decades, or even centuries.”]
Rotz, C. A. (2004), p. E-132. [“Substantial N losses from volatilization, leaching, and denitrification occur from manure deposited by grazing animals, and the loss processes are somewhat different from those of slurry or solid manure application.”]
There are so many types of pollution from manure that the subject can become overwhelming. Along with nutrient pollution, the range of pollutants includes pathogens, antibiotics, hormones, heavy metals, and GHG emissions.[1-4]
We focus here on nutrient pollution because it is widely recognized as one of the central environmental problems in the U.S. and globally, while we cover some of these other contaminants on other pages on the site.
U.S. EPA (2013) Literature Review of Contaminants in Livestock and Poultry Manure and Implications for Water Quality, EPA 820-R-13-002, p.1 and Table 1-1 Key pollutants from livestock operations and animal manure. [“Manure often contains pathogens (many of which can be infectious to humans), heavy metals, antimicrobials, and hormones that can enter surface water and ground water through runoff and infiltration potentially impacting aquatic life, recreational waters, and drinking water systems.”]
Animal Manure: Production, Characteristics, Environmental Concerns and Management, (2019) Waldrip, H.M. et al. (eds.) American Society of Agronomy, Special Publication 67, Madison, WI, p. vii. [“…inappropriately managed animal manure may present significant environmental risks, including eutrophication/contamination of surface and subsurface water sources, emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants, contamination of ecosystems with antibiotic residues, antibiotic-resistant microbial genes and pathogens, as well as other health and quality-of-life-related issues.”]
Rogers, S., & Haines, J. (2005). Detecting and mitigating the environmental impact of fecal pathogens originating from confined animal feeding operations, U.S. EPA, EPA/600/R-06/021, p. 1. [“Animal wastes contain zoonotic pathogens, which are viruses, bacteria, and parasites of animal origin that cause disease in humans. Diseases that can be caused by zoonotic pathogens include Salmonellosis, Tuberculosis, Leptospirosis, infantile diarrheal disease, Q-Fever, Trichinosis, Cryptosporidiosis, and Giardiasis to name a few.”]
Hubbard, L. E., et al., (2020). Poultry litter as potential source of pathogens and other contaminants in groundwater and surface water proximal to large-scale confined poultry feeding operations. Science of The Total Environment, 735, 139459, p. 6. [These USGS scientists report: “Our results are consistent with previous studies that have demonstrated that surface water is susceptible to a wide variety of contaminants from confined animal feeding operations…”]