Factory farms in Iowa generate 110 billion pounds of manure per year. No one tracks where it's going.
...Ninety-nine percent of farm animals in the U.S. are raised in CAFOs, which are typically characterized by shed-like structures that house hundreds to thousands of animals. Iowa alone is home to approximately 23 million hogs, nearly all of which are raised in confinement, and which produce an estimated 110 billion pounds of manure each year.
Iowa’s Animal Agriculture Compliance Act, first codified in 2002, requires facilities with more than 500 animal units — roughly 500 cattle, 1,250 hogs or 100,000 broiler chickens — to submit a lengthy document every four years detailing their plans for disposing of the waste produced by the livestock.
Manure management plans require Iowa livestock producers to specify the exact fields for manure spreading and demonstrate that the nutrients in the manure won’t exceed the needs of crops and pollute waterways.
Yet tracking the disposal of the 110 billion pounds of manure produced each year across millions of acres of Iowa’s cropland is no small task. Tinker insists that the state could do more to improve the process.
Iowa’s six regional DNR field offices are responsible for collecting and filing the plans submitted by CAFOs in their region.
All manure management plans undergo an administrative review to ensure that all supporting information is present and the appropriate fee has been paid, says Jeremy Klatt, an environmental specialist in Iowa DNR’s field office in Mason City.
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....https://www.thegazette.com/agriculture/factory-farms-in-iowa-generate-110-billion-pounds-of-manure-per-year-no-one-tracks-where-its-going/
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