Washington Post, Aug 1 '99, poultry and pollution

[Guest guest]

This http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/aug99/chicken1.htm is an

excellent article on the devastating environmental effects of

factory-poultry-farming. It's the first article in a series of three. Also check

out:

 

" Permitting a Pattern of Pollution "

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/aug99/chicken2.htm

 

" A Look Inside the Modern Poultry Plant "

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/aug99/process2.htm

 

" Who Pays for What's Thrown Away? "

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/aug99/chicken3.htm

 

" From Farm to Slaughterhouse "

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/aug99/chicks3.htm

 

There are also graphics, a map, a poultry industry photo gallery, and lots of

links.

 

I highly recommend checking it out.

 

 

 

--- The impact of all that waste – more than produced by a city of 4 million

people – is subtle but potent, as it washes off fields and seeps into

groundwater. Decades of relentless growth have propelled the poultry industry

into the primary source of pollution reaching key portions of the Chesapeake and

coastal bays of Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.---

 

---Thousands of pages of academic and government studies detail the

environmental impacts of growing millions of chickens in confined areas.---

 

---USGS has also found trace amounts of arsenic in the Pocomoke, the likely

residue of the arsenic added to chicken feed to kill harmful parasites and

promote growth.---

 

---Every working day, a dozen slaughterhouses slice the necks of more than 2

million birds, using more than 12 million gallons of water to flush away more

than 1,600 tons of guts, chicken heads, fat globules, feathers and blood. The

slaughterhouses treat the water before they release it to creeks, but it still

contains some pollution.---

 

--- " I'm not running a stone pit. I'm not running a whorehouse. I'm running a

farming operation, " said Bob Winkler, who raises 168,000 chickens at a time for

Townsends Inc. inside six 500-foot-long houses in Felton, Del. " We're doing a

hell of a service for humanity: feeding them. If you shut down this chicken

industry, where are the people going to get their food? " ---

A SERVICE TO HUMANITY??? Ya right, " save the world - open more factory farms! "

Oh my, where *would* people get their food? Is this guy on crack??!! No, he's on

contaminated chicken corpse.

 

--- " The good Lord only gave us three ways to deal with our problem, " said

Perdue's manager for environmental services, John K. Chlada, in a speech before

the Maryland Coastal Bays Program Citizen Advisory Committee. " We can put it out

in the air, put it out in the water or put it out on the land. Where do you want

me to put it? " ---

I'll tell him where to damn well put it! Jerk.

 

---Sussex County, Del., home to more than one-third of Delmarva's chickens, has

only enough cropland to digest manure generated by about 64 million birds a

year, according to a study released last fall by a University of Delaware team

of researchers. The county produced more than 232 million birds last year.---

 

---A 1997 Maryland Environment Department survey of the St. Martin's River, the

largest tributary to the state's coastal bays, found " many large piles " of

chicken litter, " ranging into the hundreds of tons, " near ditches and creeks

that feed the main stem.---

 

---Phosphorus concentrations in Pocomoke Sound have increased by more than 25

percent since 1985, according to EPA data, suffocating sea grasses that are

vital habitat for fish and crabs. " If it keeps going like this, we're going to

lose all the [sea grasses] there in about five years, " said Robert Magnien, a

water quality expert with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.---

 

---Another company, Allen Family Foods, has contaminated its own wells with its

waste at its slaughterhouse in Cordova, Md., according to Maryland files. For

years, Allen has disposed of waste water by spraying it around the plant at a

rate of more than 670,000 gallons a day, as recently as March 1998.---

 

etc etc

 

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