This little piggie went to market
Iowa has gone
Hog Wild with the proliferation of thousands of pig factory farms.
Factory Farms are Poisoning Iowa's Drinking Water. Millions of pigs are crammed into overcrowded barns all across the state, being fattened for slaughter while breeding superbugs—all to feed China's growing appetite for Spam.
Between May and July 2013, as downpours sheeted off drought-hardened fields, scientists at the Des Moines Water Works watched manure contamination spike to staggering levels at intake sites on the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. These two major tributaries of the Mississippi are also the usual sources of drinking water for roughly one out of every six Iowans. But at one point last summer, nitrate in the Raccoon reached 240 percent of the level allowed under the Clean Water Act, and the DMWW warned parents not to let children drink from the tap, reminding them of the risk of blue baby syndrome. (Nitrate impairs the oxygen capacity of the bloodstream; in babies and toddlers the syndrome can effectively cut off their air supply, rendering them a deathly blue.)
Nitrate levels from farm runoff and from agricultural manure runoff has caused the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers in Iowa to reach historical levels of nitrate pollution causing the Des Moines Water Works to have to take expensive, last ditch measures to try to protect the areas drinking water.
Nitrate levels in September, October and November were the highest ever experienced in those months and "have required extraordinary efforts," the agency said. "Use of the nitrate removal facility is the last step available to maintain safe drinking water."
[...]
Higher concentrations of nitrates are more common in the spring, when excessive rain washes unused fertilizer from farm fields into streams. The agency used the nitrate removal facility for 74 days in 2013, an effort that cost consumers about $900,000 in treatment costs and lost revenues.
Moo Shu Pork anyone?