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When LEA began in March 2016 our sole concern was the health of Lake Erie.

 

Since then we’ve learned how much factory "farms" contribute to toxic algal blooms and we believe we can’t keep adding to the problem.     

 

Feces, urine, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, viruses and wastewater from 25 million pigs, cows and poultry are dumped, untreated, on fields that drain into our lake.

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Whatever CAFO operators don’t pay for we have to, with higher bills to detoxify our water, with an impaired economy and with our very health.

 

And the thing is, we don't need factory "farms!"  When we went to the store just 20 years ago, we didn't wait in line for eggs, milk coolers weren't empty and meat counters had plenty of hamburgers and pork chops.  Then, with big subsidies and lax regulation, factory "farms" drove traditional farm families off the land. 

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25 million animals on over 800 factory "farms" in our watershed excrete more lake-poisoning Phosphorus than the combined human populations of Ohio, Indiana, Chicago and Atlanta!  Just one dairy factory "farm" in Williams County equals the Phosphorus output of 19 Cities of Maumee.