Food & Water Watch and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed an opening brief in the Colorado Court of Appeals. The groups are suing Gov. Jared Polis’ administration over its failure to protect Colorado waters and public health from factory farm pollution. Groups are seeking to improve Colorado’s statewide general water-pollution permit for these operations, also called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) by adding essential pollution monitoring provisions as state and federal laws require.

Food & Water Watch Senior Attorney Tyler Lobdell said:

“Factory farms pose an active and serious threat to water quality in Colorado. The state’s decision to ignore the problem won’t make it go away. Indeed, the state’s failure to issue an enforceable water pollution permit is in clear violation of state and federal law. Colorado must implement comprehensive water pollution monitoring at factory farms to protect state waters.”

Center for Biological Diversity Senior Attorney Hannah Connor said: “Looking the other way while factory farms turn Colorado rivers into open sewers is not just a permitting problem, but an ongoing attack on public health and wildlife. It doesn’t matter whether it’s discharges from coal mines, slaughterhouses, or factory farms, the Clean Water Act requires regulators to make sure industrial polluters aren’t fouling waterways. And Colorado officials are refusing to do that.”

Background

The Clean Water Act requires polluters such as factory farms to follow strict discharge permits to limit dangerous pollution. But Colorado’s permitting process contains significant loopholes that conceal the timing and amounts of factory farm pollution released into waterways. The permit in question is intended to regulate pollution discharges from approximately 100 of the state’s largest CAFOs.

A Food & Water Watch analysis found that Colorado factory farms produce 34 billion pounds of manure each year — more than four times the amount produced by the state’s human population. The facilities operate as sewer-less cities, often storing waste laden with pathogens, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and pesticides in open-air pits or lagoons before spreading or spraying it onto cropland. 

As CAFOs have become larger and more concentrated, their pollution burden has grown. Food & Water Watch analysis finds that the average Colorado feedlot today confines nearly 13,000 beef cattle — an increase of nearly 80% in the past 20 years. The average Colorado mega-dairy herd size has more than doubled over this time to 3,000 cows.

The case is the latest in a series of lawsuits seeking to strengthen factory farm water pollution monitoring in the United States, including recent victories in Idaho, Washington and Michigan.