Groundwater in the Great Lakes Basin

INTRODUCTION
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In 2003 there were an estimated 1.3 million livestock
farms in the U.S. Of these approximately 257,000 were
animal feeding operations (AFOs), which produced
more than 500 million tons of manure annually (U.S.
EPA, 2003b). AFOs are locations where animals have
been, are or will be confined, and fed or maintained for
a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period, and
where vegetation is not sustained in the confinement
area during the normal growing season (U.S. EPA,
2003b). The largest AFOs are known as Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) or Intensive
Farming. CAFOs are defined by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) as AFOs that are of a
given size. The number and type(s) of animal(s) the
operation houses and the extent to which waste from
the operation may pollute surface water and groundwater
determine whether the U.S. EPA considers a
feeding operation to be a CAFO (CDC, 2004). The
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural
Affairs defines a CAFO as an AFO having the capacity
to accommodate more than 10,000 pigs or 1,500 dairy
cows (Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO),
2000). AFOs also can be designated as CAFOs on a
case-by-case basis if the facility is determined to be
a significant contributor of pollutants to water (U.S.
EPA, 2003b). In the U.S. there are an estimated 15,500
CAFOs, responsible for producing more than 300
million tons of manure annually (U.S. EPA, 2003a).
CONTAMINANTS
CAFOs are a pressing environmental concern due to the
large volume of manure produced, small storage space
for the manure and disposal of manure through land
application (U.S. EPA, 2004). Common pollutants that
affect watersheds as a result of CAFOs include
Figure 1.
Road killed animals are a common
sight in Great Lakes Basin jurisdictions
Photo provided by: Cornell Waste
Management Institute, 2007
nutrients, pathogens (including parasites, bacteria
and viruses), sediments, solids, endocrine disrupting
chemicals (EDCs), antibiotics, hormones, pesticides,
trace elements and mineral salts (CDC, 2004; U.S.
EPA, 2004). Contaminants enter waterways directly
due to poor storm water management or failure of
containment facilities and indirectly through runoff and
percolation. Currently, the array of effects which these
pollutants may have on humans and the watershed are
unknown (U.S. EPA, 2004).
Improper management of manure from CAFOs is
a threat to surface and groundwater quality and
has caused serious acute and chronic water quality
problems (U.S. EPA, 2003a). Substandard construction,
aging storage facilities and illegal disposal methods
can lead to large amounts of waste being released into
surrounding areas. In Manitowoc County, a farm
agreed to pay a $59,000 state fine for spilling liquid
animal waste into a Lake Michigan tributary and killing
thousands of fish (Egan, 2007).
Another potential source of groundwater contamination
is wild and domestic animal carcass disposal. With
high CAFO animal density, especially where fowl are
raised, there are proportionally high numbers of animal
deaths. On-site burial is a common method of carcass
disposal (Spellman and Whiting, 2007). Burial site
selection is therefore crucial to avoid contamination of
water supplies. Disposal in local landfill sites is often
not an option (Rennie and Hill, 2007).
Road kill carcass disposal poses even greater problems.
It is a pressing issue in all Great Lakes basin jurisdictions
due to the huge number of wild and domestic
animal carcasses which must be disposed each year. In a
month-long survey of road kill in just five states, 15,000
reptiles and amphibians, 48,000 mammals and 77,000
birds were counted (Havlick, 2004). About 1.5 million
deer-vehicle crashes occur each year in the U.S. (Kolb,
2006). In Pennsylvania contractors remove approximately
45,000 deer carcasses per year from highways at
a cost of $30 to $40 each (Maryland Survey) in addition
to 30,000 in Ohio and 65,000 annually in Michigan
(Havlick, 2004). A wide variety of practices are utilized
to dispose of road kill carcasses. These include burial
on the highway right of way or in adjacent wooded
areas and disposal in local landfills, where permitted
(Maryland Survey; Rennie and Hill, 2007). However,
there are currently no uniform practices across the
provinces or states, and groundwater protection is
rarely considered (Maryland Survey; Rusk, 2007;
Carlson, 2009). Some jurisdictions are considering
the potential of composting road-killed animals as an
environmentally friendly and cost effective alterna-