Illinois residents are hearing about the Clean Water Funding Fairness Act that passed the Illinois House and Senate on May 22. This bill makes factory farms, or CAFOs, pay an annual fee for their permits to discharge pollution; these permits are required by the federal Clean Water Act. Until now, factory farms were the only industrial […]
Factory Farms
Illinois Livestock Industry Subject to Pollution Permit Fees
An end to unfair fee exemption for “CAFOs” (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) Today the Illinois Senate passed the Clean Water Funding Fairness Act (HB 5642), ending the livestock industry’s unique exemption from paying fees for their Clean Water Act permits. We are grateful to Representative Tryon (Crystal Lake) and Senator Frerichs (Champaign), who became the bill’s […]
Good News from Springfield on Factory Farms
By Stacy James Our work to hold the livestock industry to higher environmental performance standards is paying off! This legislative session, a bill (HB5642) was re-introduced to end the industry’s unique exemption from paying fees for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) pollution discharge permits. We initially introduced the bill in 2011 with our environmental […]
Factory Farms: 2 steps in the right direction!
BY STACY JAMES Prairie Rivers Network works with partners across the state to reduce water pollution from factory farms. Livestock waste pollutes Illinois’ water with disease-causing bacteria, antibiotics, ammonia, nitrates and algae blooms. In the most egregious cases, streams turn brown with raw sewage that kills all wildlife inhabitants. Pollution happens when waste storage structures […]
Illinois Hog Facility Fined for Fish Kill
Justice has finally been served in Iroquois County! In 2009, over 110,000 fish were killed after the R3E hog operation illegally discharged some 200,000 gallons of waste into a tributary of Spring Creek. The waste had been stored in holding ponds, but got into an underground pipe system that flows into the tributary. Earlier this week, the […]
