It's A Literal Shit Show. Manure Is Triggering Drinking Water Issues.

And More Than 122 Million Americans Are At Risk.

Photo by Jorge Maya on Unsplash

Water contamination comes from many sources, including industrial discharges, agricultural runoff, and inadequate sewage treatment.

Now a new analysis shows troubling levels of cancer-causing disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in the drinking water of more than 122 million people living in the U.S.

One of the biggest sources of this problem? Organic material, such as manure runoff from livestock factory farming operations, is reacting with the disinfectants used to treat public drinking water systems and creating these dangerous byproducts.

U.S. factory farms produce 941 billion pounds of manure each year—double the weight in human sewage produced by the entire U.S. population, according to a 2024 report.

We’ve covered DBPs before, but the news here is that organic material, and specifically manure, has become a big problem for our drinking water.

Let’s talk about how this happens and how you can protect yourself.

How DBPs are Made

Drinking water comes from many natural water sources, such as lakes, rivers, and streams, and it generally contains organic matter—­leaves, dirt, fish excrement, and so on. Adding chlorine (a disinfectant) to water is one of the primary water treatment methods we’ve used because it’s highly effective at killing most potentially harmful organisms such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites.

It’s done a really good job of preventing disease. In fact, before chlorination, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhea outbreaks were common in cities across the world. Treating the water helped reduce these health problems, but with treatment advances also came potential side effects.

In 1974, scientists discovered that chlorine itself could react with naturally occurring materials in the water to create what are called disinfection byproducts (DBPs). These are substances that form when the disinfectant reacts with natural compounds in the water.

Sadly, many of these DBPs have been shown to cause cancer, including trihalomethanes (THMs) also referred to as total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), which are a group of chemical compounds. In the last 40 years, we have discovered more than 600 other DBPs in chlorinated tap water including haloacetic acids (HAAs).

If you look at your water quality report or look up your water system at EWG’s Tap Water Database (it’s free; just enter your zip code), you might see THMs or HAAs listed. Or you might see one of the four chemicals in the total trihalomethanes group: chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, and bromoform.

What The Analysis Uncovered

Nationwide water test results from 2019 to 2023 found that nearly 6,000 community water systems across 49 states and Washington, D.C., had at least one instance of unsafe levels of THMs.

These toxic chemicals, linked to increased risks of bladder and colorectal cancer, as well as birth defects, are a direct result of the interaction between disinfectants and organic pollutants flowing into drinking water.

“This is a wake-up call,” said Anne Schechinger, Environmental Working Group’s Midwest director and author of the report. “Manure from factory farms is polluting our water supplies, and when utilities try to make that water safe to drink, they unintentionally create another public health hazard that increases the risk of cancer and birth defects.”

How manure leads to DBPs in our water.

Source: EWG.org

While many types of organic matter can trigger the formation of DBPs, like plant debris and human waste, this new assessment found that manure runoff from farm fields is a major source. Soil erosion, crop plant material, and other fertilizers are additional sources of agricultural organic matter that can contribute DBPs in water during the disinfection process.

Wondering if we regulate these byproducts?

We do! The EPA has worked to regulate DBPs with the adoption of the EPA Stage 1 and Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules (DBPRs). These rules require water treatment systems to monitor and reduce DBPs.

They apply to both community water systems (public water systems that supply water to the same population year-­round) and non-­transient non-community systems (public water systems that supply water to at least 25 of the same people at least 6 months per year, such as schools, office buildings, and hospitals).

They require these systems to add a disinfectant to the drinking water during any part of the treatment process. These laws strengthen protection against microbial contaminants and aim to reduce dangerous DBPs like TTHMs and HAAs. Under the Stage 2 DBPR, systems need to conduct an evaluation of their distribution systems to identify the areas with high disinfection byproduct concentrations. These locations are then used as the sampling sites for Stage 2 DBPR compliance monitoring.

Water systems must keep TTHM levels at or below the EPA’s maximum contaminant level, or MCL, of 80 parts per billion, or ppb. But many drinking water sources throughout the U.S. exceed this limit.

This is what I’m always saying! We can have good laws in the books, but we also need resources to enforce regulations. Otherwise, you have a mess!

MCLs are designed to protect public health and to factor in the cost and feasibility of water treatment. If a community water system tests at or above 80 ppb for TTHMs, the EPA requires the system to reduce the contamination.

Plus, research shows that exposure to TTHMs even below the MCL can harm human health. Several studies have reported that consumption of TTHMs in drinking water increases the risk of bladder cancer, as well as colorectal cancer in men.

Yikes!

Now the other interesting part about this analysis is what areas had issues.

Although DBPs are a problem throughout the country, more than half of the systems with issues were located in just 10 states, many of which are the biggest states in the U.S.

Texas came out on top with the most water systems testing at or above 80 ppb for TTHMs at least once between 2019 and 2023. It’s also the state with the third most farm acres where manure was applied.

Right behind the Lone Star State was New York, then Oklahoma, California, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Kentucky.

And here’s the kicker: the analysis found an overlap between the states with the most systems with high levels of TTHMs and states with the most livestock. These are the Top Ten cattle-, poultry- or hog-producing states.

Imagine that!!

It’s important to note that smaller water systems and residents living on private wells are especially vulnerable to agricultural pollution as well.

What Can We Do?

I know learning about DBPs and MCLs is not always top of mind, but it’s so important to stay educated on what’s happening with our water. Water emergencies turn into health emergencies.

If manure is contributing to this issue, then it seems like the next step is to reduce the amount of livestock manure in large-scale animal operations that gets into drinking water sources. Right?!

Research shows that the ways farms manage animal waste do not protect water sources from the waste’s pollution. Current regulations that require the largest animal facilities to discharge and manage manure in certain ways do not adequately protect water.

Particularly in rural areas, we need to turn up efforts to prevent manure from getting into sources of drinking water to help reduce the amount of disinfection byproduct levels.

Currently, the EPA requires manure management plans only from the largest farms, which make up just 2 percent of all animal feeding operations.

Minnesota has a Buffer Law, which requires grasses or shrubs to be grown in a permanent buffer up to 50 feet wide between a farm field and body of water, which helps reduce runoff. Sounds like a great strategy that more states could learn from.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act began to send more money to farmers for conservation practices, until the current administration started to freeze a lot of that IRA conservation funding. Billions of dollars have been cut off—funds for farmers to implement conservation practices, some of which could help reduce manure runoff.

Water treatment systems can also help. Using treatments like enhanced coagulation, granular activated carbon, or nanofiltration to remove organic matter from water before it is disinfected, can also help reduce the formation of disinfection byproducts, including TTHMs. The issue there is also about $$$$.

At home, using activated carbon or reverse osmosis filtration systems tend to be the best defense against DBPs.

To see a map of all community water systems in the U.S. that provide drinking water for more than 3,300 people where at least one test between 2019 and 2023 contained TTHMs at or above the MCL of 80 ppb, go here.

You can also look at this interactive map, created by the national environmental group Food & Water Watch, that shows a comprehensive picture of factory farm domination in America. The resource, based on the USDA Census of Agriculture, includes density rankings that reveal the extreme concentration of factory farms—and their waste—in communities across the country.

If we want clean water, we must look at all the ways that our water systems are challenged—and be willing to course correct with proper resources.

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Also In The News…

The U.S. Department of Justice has officially ended a 2023 settlement agreement with the Alabama Department of Public Health regarding longstanding sanitation issues in Lowndes County, Alabama, a rural, predominantly Black area in the state’s Black Belt region.

The move reflects a broader shift under the Trump administration, which has sought to dismantle federal programs associated with “environmental justice” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Catherine Coleman Flowers, a native of Lowndes County and founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, responded with concern but also hope. “The people of Lowndes County exposed this issue to the American public,” she said. “I pray that today’s action means that this administration will make sanitation a priority for all who are affected throughout rural America.”

Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell said in a statement that the DOJ’s reason for abandoning the deal was weak.

“This agreement had nothing to do with DEI,” Sewell said. “It was about addressing a public health crisis that has forced generations of children and families to endure the health hazards of living in proximity to raw sewage, as the DOJ itself documented. By terminating it, the Trump Administration has put its blatant disregard for the health of my constituents on full display.”

Read more here and here.

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