In the last decade, 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.

STENCH/EMISSION ALERTS

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS (for full News details, click here) Just posted: WINTER NEWSLETTER

January - 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.

Jan 17 - Heavy rains overnight has led to ponding in many manure fields - Bleich manure fields north of Hudson, Bakerlads manure fields along Plank Rd west of Skiinner, where manure runoff is flowing down a road to a ditch in the South Branch of the River Raisin watershed.

Jan 5 - DEQ announces Public Hearing for Southern Michigan Dairies CAFO permits for Feb 1 in Hudson. See links below to the DEQ draft permits and SMD applications. Also see article with general information and details on the permits in our Winter Newsletter.

Please attend this hearing and comment. Let DEQ know your concerns. Or email your comments to Mike Bitondo, DEQ: bitondom@michigan.gov

PUBLIC HEARING - SMD 1 & 2 PERMITS
Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Hudson Middle/High School Cafeteria
771 North Maple Grove Avenue
Hudson, Michigan 49247

SMD 1 draft permit and application form.
SMD 2 draft permit and application form.

Jan 3 - Bakerlads CAFO field sprayed black with liquid manure, immediately upslope from the South Branch of the River Raisin (banks visible lower right). Thaw is predicted for later this week.

1-3-12 – Black manure field sloping to South Branch River Raisin, east of Morey Hwy between Beecher and Cadmus Rds.

See New Year's Eve video of bulldozed houses, closed SMD barns.
Dec 28 - Is Southern Michigan Dairies closing down its facilities? SMD 1 and 3 were emptied of animals last fall. SMD 2 along US-127 has emptied one barn. A cow hauler is sitting at the north end of the facility. The house across US-127 has been bulldozed down. The house and barns across from the SMD 1 facility on Dillon have also been dozed into a heap.

December 14 - Groups Call on State of Michigan to Shake Up Agriculture Practices (see full text of press release)
ECCSCM and sixteen other faith, farm, conservation and community organizations called for a broad-based reassessment of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Generally Accepted Agriculture Management Practices, or GAAMPs regarding use of liquid livestock wastes and concentration of facilities.
Janet Kauffman, Vice-Pres of Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan, presented a letter from the organizations to the Commission at their meeting today. Kauffman said "the big picture shows big impact and real harm -- to neighbors, to watersheds, and to the Great Lakes. To stop pollution downwind and downstream, agricultural practices can't just be for one farm anymore. We need to add it all up and find practices that protect whole communities, and whole watersheds."

Nov 28 - Lagoons at SMD 2 along US-127 appear very full.

Fall Newsletter - articles on SMD manure discharge to Medina Drain; toxic algae bloom this summer in Lake Erie and agriculture's contribution; research shows buffers aren't enough to stop phosphorus pollution from tiled fields; and USDA admits: cows on pasture – a good thing! Studies by scientists at USDA determined that dairy cows on pasture leave a very small “ecological hoofprint” compared to confined operations. And MORE!

Aug 17 - Manure spill on M-34 east of Marvin's Dairy – a passerby emailed ECCSCM this evening: "Very strong manure odor coming from what looked like a manure spill on roadway, had to close open vehicle windows." This spill happened earlier in the day – the Road Commission was notified, but manure appeared to be scraped to the side of the road, not removed.

Aug 15 - SMD manure discharge into Medina Drain, tributary of Bean Creek. Details from DEQ email 8/15/11: "Friday afternoon there was a break at the pivot of the irrigation sprayer in the corn field west of Ingall Hwy. An unknown amount of liquid [manure] reached the beginning of the N Medina Drain. They immediately dammed up the drain at three separate points downstream, including at the field, downstream of Ingall Hwy and at the farthest point where any of the liquid reached downstream of Ingall. They called us late Fri morning and we were down there to observe that afternoon. They contained and pumped liquid throughout Friday and Saturday and either applied the liquid to approved fields or placed it back in lagoons. By Saturday night most of the work was done. Sunday they did some final flushing of the drain using clean water with contracted trucks from Leas Farms. The trucks were triple rinsed and filled with clean water for the flushing. Downstream of the flushing the water was again pumped out and field applied. Once the flushing was complete we approved the removal of the temporary dams and all is complete to our satisfaction at this point."

weekend of Aug 12-14 - Southern Michigan Dairies incident: A neighbor reported to ECCSCM that SMD tankers were hauling and discharging liquid into the North Medina Drain, Ingalll Hwy, beginning on Fri Aug 12, and continuing all weekend. North Medina Drain is a tributary of Bean Creek. ECCSCM photos on Sunday Aug 14 show a tanker dumping water directly into the Drain. A tractor with pump and another semi are in the field near a center-pivot irrigation system near the head of Medina Drain. Did manure discharge to Medina Drain? No report from DEQ yet on that.

Superbugs –Eastern Michigan University researchers published their findings, “Antibiotic Resistance, Gene Transfer, and Water Quality Patterns Observed in Waterways near CAFO Farms and Wastewater Treatment Facilities,” which used data from water tests in our watersheds. The study found multi-drug resistant bacteria in water near CAFOs here: “Our results indicate that CAFO farms not only impair traditional measures of water quality but may also increase the prevalence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria in natural waters.” See full EMU study. Antibiotic resistance is an important national public health issue, gaining wide attention through major media, including "The High Cost of Cheap Meat," editorial in the New York Times, June 2, 2011.

March 2, 2011 - DEQ and Michigan Attorney General's Office files an Administrative Consent Order with Southern Michigan Dairies, the subsidiary of Rabo Agrifinance which took over the 3 Vreba-Hoff CAFOs in November, 2010. The ACO requires SMD to pay $100,000 as partial payment of Vreba-Hoff fines owed, requires SMD to empty and close the satellite lagoon on Packard Rd by Sept. 30, 2011, as well as close the failed concrete lagoon at SMD 1 (formerly V-H 1). The ACO also requires notification if any potential buyer is "involved with Wilhemus van Bakel personally or any of his business entities, including but not limited to: Vreba-Hoff Dairy, LLC; Vreba-Hoff Holding, LLC; Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development; the Van Bakel Group, or Nova Lait, LLC. The DEQ reserves the right to leave whole the Judgment Liens...should SMD transfer Dairies I, II, or III ...to a van Bakel or Vreba-Hoff affiliated entity." See the full ACO document.

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 1,086 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