In the last 12 years, 12 livestock factories, most of them dairies, have been built near the town of Hudson, Michigan.  Large livestock operations that confine animals year-round are called Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan (ECCSCM) is a 501(c)3 non-profit, organized to educate the public on the health risks and the environmental damage Confined Animal Feeding Operations have brought to our community and its watersheds. We developed this website to provide documentation on the pollution and to promote Sustainable Alternatives (buy local food & pasture-based meat--see sources). We support vanguard, responsible agriculture, farming that looks ahead to the next generations, preserves biodiversity, raises animals in a healthy environment, does no harm to its neighbors, enhances the natural assets of living communities, and protects our natural resources -- air, soils, groundwater, streams, and lakes.

As family farmers and neighbors, we believe agriculture must take responsibility for its actions in rural communities. CAFOs have failed us. They have damaged our farming communities, degraded our natural resources, and polluted our watersheds.

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS (for full News details, 2000-2012, click here)

STENCH/EMISSION ALERTS (details, observations, documentation from neighbors on local CAFO air pollution, health concerns)

SPRING 2012 NEWSLETTER, with articles on 3 Hudson-area CAFOs - SHUT DOWN! All cows are gone from all Southern Michigan Dairies facilities. Front gates are padlocked. Out back, out of sight, millions of gallons of liquid manure...Also, spring manure spraying in gear once again, and neighbors suffer...Michigan ag contributes $71.3 billion to economy? - NONSENSE! You hear the number - $71.3 billion! - touted by Farm Bureau over and over, you hear it at every ag meeting, in press releases, picked up by politicians in bombast about Michigan agriculture. A gigantic number! And, as it turns out, an imaginary number. The real number? $2.73 billion. Thanks to Bridge Magazine for some serious scrutiny and honest analysis of federal GDP data... and more.

BULLETIN! – May 12 - SMD cited for 2 discharges of liquid manure to surface waters. See Violations page for details.
May 3 - SMD dragline has been moved from Bean and its tributary on Medina Rd around the corner to the same tributary on Acker Hwy, where it's in the water, a fold in the line. Draglining application is along Munson Hwy. Along the way, the line is not only in the tributary but also on the Acker roadway itself and in the stormwater culvert at the US-127 facility.

5-3-12 - Dragline in water of tributary to Bean Creek, Acker Hwy (west side culvert; east side with fold)


5-3-12 - SMD's dragline on the road surface of Acker Hwy (left); and in the water at the stormwater culvert, US-127 (right)

May 2 - In spite of the dragline breaking and spewing liquid manure, SMD is STILL at it. In spite of the irresponsible practice of draglines in streams, the dragline is STILL IN THE WATER. DEQ did not say, no, it's too risky. Why not? The Dept of Ag did not say, no; but at least it is looking at the risks of this practice.

May 1, 7:00pm - SMD dragline breaks! Liquid manure flows down ditch. See video of dam-construction to halt flow.

5-1-12 - break in dragline along Donnelly Rd and "fix" that wasn't, with straps. See black water (below).


May 1, 2012 - SMD is draglining again, the dragline placed across Bean Creek. The manure-inflated dragline is lying in the water of a tributary of Bean Creek, see photo below, and somewhere out of sight, also crossing Bean Creek itself, a natural stream, with the Michigan Nature Association Powell Sanctuary just 1 1/2 mi. downstream. In 12 years here, we have NEVER seen draglines in streams. DEQ says this is not their "jurisdiction." Think of the risks – to fish, freshwater mussels (several threatened species), drinking water sources downstream. How can this be legal? Could you stretch a pipe with septic waste across a stream, even temporarily? Given the extreme risk, should this be an "acceptable" agricultural practice?

5-1-12 - At the tributary culvert, the drag line hose has a kink (left). Some liquid must be getting through or the hose would blow up; on the other side of the culvert (middle) the line is fully inflated, lying in the water, and pumping on towards Bean Creek. (On right) applicator pumps liquid manure on the field through those tentacles.

weekend of April 28-29 -Southern Michigan Dairies is draglining along Ridgeville Rd, with black water flowing through County Drains to Toad Creek. DEQ has not responded. See more details, photos of manure-filled draglines along US-127, across several fields.

4-29-12 - scum on Toad Creek, downstream from SMD draglining; manure-filled SMD dragline stretched across field paralleling Ridgeville Rd.

January, 2012 - Southern Michigan Dairies is fined $24,500 by the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality for violating its deadline for closure of a failed concrete manure lagoon at SMD 1 near Hudson. The lagoon was properly closed on Dec 27, 2011, 56 days past the deadline. The fine must be paid within 30 days of receipt of the DEQ Letter sent to Mark Fischels, Pres., Southern Michigan Dairies, Rabo Agrifinance, Ames, Iowa, on Jan 5, 2012.

Click here for Factory Farm map – from Food & Water Watch, a fantastic interactive map of factory farms. Zoom to your region, your county, sort by animals, etc. Is there a Factory Farm near you?

Living a Nightmare: Animal Factories in Michigan
click for more information and order form

WHAT ARE CAFOS?
Dairy CAFOs confine 700 or more cows, often several thousand cows, in long steel barns, year-round. CAFO cows never graze. CAFOs look like factories, and they are -- animal factories.

Untreated CAFO waste is liquified with clean groundwater -- instantly polluted -- then pumped to cesspits or holding "lagoons" until it is pumped again and injected or sprayed onto fields around Hudson (pop. 2500). Some manure makes good fertilizer. But too much manure, especially the liquid manure from CAFOs, is a major pollutant of soils and waterways. Animal manure and and animal carcasses contain many pathogens (disease-causing organisms such as Cryptosporidium, E. coli bacteria, Listeria -- see a comprehensive list of pathogens and symptoms posted by the Environmental Protection Agency.). These pathogens can threaten human health, other livestock, aquatic life, and wildlife when introduced into the environment.

When liquid manure enters streams or lakes, it is called a discharge. Discharges that violate Michigan's water quality standards are illegal.

CAFOs in this area, all of them, have discharged illegally. Since 2000, there have been 1,091 violations and discharges, many of them multiple-day violations, confirmed by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in the Hudson area (see violations list). A 100% failure rate in pollution prevention.

On the Local Pollution pages, look at what we see around here every day -- waste-polluted water, silage leachate runoff, drainage tile discharges, the destruction of vegetation along streams, violations of manure management practices. Too bad the photos aren't Scratch & Sniff!

MANURE EMISSIONS INCIDENT REPORT -- ONLINE FORM
ONLINE FORM: If manure emissions are making you sick, changing your daily activities, report your distress to ECCSCM on this form. We'll keep a log of health impacts from CAFO emissions and let agencies and legislators know where the health Hotspots are.

OR ORDER the print version, our MANURE EMISSIONS LOG BOOK, which you can mail back to us. Send us your name and address, and we'll mail you a copy:
ECCSCM, P.O.Box 254, Hudson, MI 49247 or contact-us@eccscm.org

 ECCSCM, P.O.Box 254, Hudson, MI 49247
 contact-us@eccscm.org
To become a member of ECCSCM
click here