Denver – Today, attorneys from Food & Water Watch and the Center for Biological Diversity appeared in the Denver based Colorado Court of Appeals to deliver oral arguments in their case against the state over its failure to protect Colorado waters and public health from factory farm pollution. The lawsuit, filed in May 2024 but stemming from advocacy dating back to 2021, demands that the state finally bring its permit for factory farms, also called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), into compliance with the federal Clean Water Act by including pollution monitoring, improving water pollution regulation at the state’s one hundred largest CAFOs. 

“State regulators have the responsibility to ensure Coloradans have access to safe, clean water. But by refusing to require that factory farms monitor for pollution discharges, not only are regulators making it impossible to hold polluters accountable when they contaminate our water, they’re also breaking the law,” said Food & Water Watch Staff Attorney Emily Miller. “The court must compel the State to stop shielding the industry and regulate factory farms’ water pollution as the Clean Water Act requires.”

“Factory farms shouldn’t get a free pass to pollute and we hope the court recognizes that clean water is a right for all Coloradans,” said Julie Teel Simmonds, Senior Attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Colorado regulators have been turning a blind eye to the water pollution from billions of pounds of animal waste being dumped in the state every year. It’s horrifying and illegal.” 

Present at oral argument were Appellants Center for Biological Diversity and Food & Water Watch, as well as attorneys for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and attorneys for the Colorado Livestock Association, which intervened alongside the State in defense of the lax factory farm permit. Appellants argued that Colorado’s CAFO permit conceals the timing and amounts of factory farm pollution released into waterways and is essentially unenforceable.  Food & Water Watch has already established in federal court that this violates the Clean Water Act, but Colorado still refuses to hold factory farms accountable.

BACKGROUND

The Clean Water Act and federal regulations require polluters such as factory farms to comply with discharge permits that limit dangerous pollution. But Colorado’s permit lacks monitoring to ensure that massive factory farm cesspools where manure and other waste are collected, known by the industry as “lagoons,” are not polluting Colorado’s water resources. The CAFO permit is intended to regulate pollution discharges from approximately 100 of the state’s largest CAFOs, but without this basic accountability it cannot do so.

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 their 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 is massive, confining 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.

Argument in this case is the latest development in a series of lawsuits seeking to strengthen factory farm water pollution monitoring in the United States, including victories in Idaho and Washington and an early win in Colorado when an administrative law judge sided with the environmental groups.