By Claire Carlson for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Eric Tegethoff for Washington News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration
The Lower Yakima Valley in Washington state has been home to large-scale animal agriculture for decades, but in 2008 when one dairy operation tried moving onto the Yakama Indian Reservation, the community balked at the proposition.
“The dairies at that time were very bad neighbors,” said Jean Mendoza, a resident of the Yakama Reservation. The community wanted to avoid the issues they’d heard about in Sunnyside, a small town about 50 miles east of the Yakama Reservation. “There was one [Sunnyside] family that had built an outdoor swimming pool for their grandchildren to enjoy, and one of the dairies came in and built a manure lagoon right next to the swimming pool,” she said. The smell from the lagoon made it impossible to enjoy their backyard.
The lagoons, huge pits of animal waste mixed with water, were one of the reasons Mendoza started organizing against the establishment of concentrated animal feedlots (CAFOs) near her home. She later became the executive director of the nonprofit Friends of Toppenish Creek, which advocates for improved oversight of industrial agriculture.
Discharge from these lagoons into groundwater caused nitrate levels to skyrocket in the drinking water of small towns in the Lower Yakima Valley, where many residents get their water from private wells. Serious health effects like cancer and blue baby syndrome – a life-threatening condition that causes low oxygen levels in infants’ blood – can occur when nitrate levels exceed 10 milligrams per liter, the maximum contaminant level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Despite the health risks, regulating this pollution isn’t easy. Loopholes within drinking water laws and the agriculture lobby’s influence in Congress have prevented substantive policy reform to address the issue, according to food safety experts.
“That lobby has consistently asked for and gotten policies that favor the large and the higher tech and the consolidation – and therefore corporate control – of agriculture,” said Amy van Saun, a senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety. A 2024 report from the Union for Concerned Scientists showed big agribusiness and other food interest groups spent $523 million on farm bill lobbying between 2019 and 2023 – more than what the lobbies for the oil and gas industry and defense sector spent during that time.
Agriculture has become one of the most consolidated industries in the country. Across the board, farms have been merged into just a few big companies that control most food sectors.
The dairy industry is no stranger to this: Between 2002 and 2019 the number of licensed dairy herds in the U.S. dropped by half, but milk production increased, according to USDA data. This suggests that small farms are disappearing in place of concentrated animal feedlots operated by large corporations like Land o’ Lakes and Dairy Farmers of America.
As the number of animals stuffed onto corporate farms increases, so has the amount of waste. And that waste is kept in manure lagoons that are built to leak, according to Adam Voskuil, a staff attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates.
“Regardless of whether a manure lagoon is earthen-lined or clay-lined or concrete-lined, there is some acceptable amount of discharge directly to the groundwater, to the aquifer,” Voskuil said.
As dairy operations have become more consolidated in the Lower Yakima Valley, it’s made it harder for grassroots organizers like Mendoza to advocate for drinking water regulation. “It removes decision-making from the ground level and sends it up the corporate ladder and makes it harder for neighbors, makes it harder for Friends of Toppenish Creek [to demand change],” she said.
While Mendoza’s organization successfully stopped the 2008 dairy operation from moving onto the Yakama Reservation, they’ve had their work cut out for them because of seepage from other manure lagoons. In June of 2024, the EPA sued three of the area’s dairy operations for failing to comply with a 2013 legal agreement that they reduce nitrate leakage and protect the drinking water of nearby residents.
But it’s difficult to implement effective regulation because water pollution is technically legal under two major laws: the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The Clean Water Act is the main apparatus used to protect the United States’ surface water. While its purpose is to prohibit the discharge of pollutants, the EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System issues permits that allow exceptions to this rule. Most activities associated with farming, ranching, and forestry can be exempted from the Clean Water Act if the operator obtains a permit to pollute.
The law directly regulates “point sources” of pollution, which is when there is a clear source of waste discharge like from a pipe, well, or even a manure lagoon from a concentrated animal feeding operation.
But for “nonpoint sources” of pollution, the law relies on voluntary efforts to control pollutants from various sources that accumulate through runoff. A primary cause of these nonpoint sources is runoff from nitrogen fertilizer on cropland.
This voluntary approach means the EPA and states don’t have the authority to require that landowners reduce runoff, according to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project. This leaves the work to advocacy organizations.
“It seems like it has fallen to environmental and clean water and agricultural advocacy organizations to raise awareness and make sure people are protected,” said Leigh Currie, the chief legal officer for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
The Well Issue
In eastern Oregon’s Morrow and Umatilla counties, more than 400 households have nitrate levels higher than 10 milligrams per liter, the maximum amount deemed safe by the EPA. All of these houses rely on well water, which is one of the least regulated sources of drinking water in the country.
The counties’ pollution comes from food processing companies in the Port of Morrow. The companies produce nitrate-rich wastewater and funnel it into open-air irrigation ditches that water the area’s farmland. The water is overapplied on these farms and the excess leaches into the groundwater, which is what many local residents rely on for drinking.
Over the 30 years the state of Oregon has known about this problem, very little has been done to address it. That’s because no one wants to “own the issue,” according to Nella Mae Parks, a farmer and organizer for the nonprofit Oregon Rural Action.
“The state doesn’t want it, the [Port of Morrow] doesn’t want it, and the county doesn’t want it, because it’s gonna be really expensive,” she said in a 2023 interview with the Daily Yonder.
The Clean Drinking Water Act regulates “navigable waters,” which does not include groundwater. This leaves groundwater regulation to the Safe Drinking Water Act, which guarantees protections for municipalities that are on public drinking water systems.
But the law leaves out protections for private wells that support fewer than 25 individuals. About 15% of the U.S. population relies on well water, and the vast majority of them live in rural areas.
This means the well owner has to take on the cost of monitoring and treating their water if they find it’s being polluted, a cost that many people can’t afford. A nitrate test costs between $35 and $60, and treating the water requires a reverse osmosis system, which is a filtration device that forces water through a membrane that removes nitrate. Depending on the system, the price can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand.
Some counties will pay for these tests and filters, but this isn’t the case in every affected community.
For example, in Wisconsin – the dairy capital of the U.S. – rural well owners often choose not to test their wells for nitrate. “That’s because if it comes back that it’s testing high for nitrates, it may not be financially feasible for them to rehabilitate or remediate or dig a new well,” said Voskuil from Midwest Environmental Advocates.
The state’s well compensation grant program will only provide financial assistance to well owners whose water tests at or more than 40 parts per million of nitrate. That’s four times the amount the EPA says is safe to drink.
A Need for Stronger Regulation
Food safety experts say solving America’s nitrate pollution problem will require stronger regulation of the biggest players in the agriculture industry.
“This industry has been able to externalize so much of their costs… so that it’s an artificially cheap product for the consumer,” van Saun from the Center for Food Safety said.
The federal government provides farmers subsidies to protect them from fluctuating revenue year-by-year, but data from the nonpartisan Environmental Working Group shows that 78% of subsidies were given to the largest 10% of farm operations between 1995 and 2021. This means small and mid-size farmers received the fewest benefits, making it harder to stay afloat.
Some bills have been proposed to address the squeeze of big agriculture, but there hasn’t been substantial progress made on the issue. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker’s Farm System Reform Act of 2023 proposed a moratorium on CAFOs, expanded country-of-origin labeling, and increased competition and transparency in livestock, poultry, and meat markets. The bill was first introduced in 2019 and reintroduced in 2021 and 2023, but all three times, it languished in committee.
Most of the current reform is coming from more local efforts, like the community organizing in the Lower Yakima Valley that led to the 2024 lawsuit against three dairy farms.
While these local efforts are important, van Saun said they have to occur in combination with federal regulations to effectively address drinking water contamination. “It’s the people who are the least well off in rural areas, and especially communities of color in rural areas, who are the ones paying the biggest price for this [pollution],” van Saun said.
Claire Carlson wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.
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By Grace Hussain for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Terri Dee for Illinois News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration
Every five years or so Congress is tasked with renewing the Farm Bill, including subsidies, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and major farm conservation programs. The Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 - the current iteration of the Farm Bill - expired last year. Yet thanks to Congressional extensions, the policy continues limping along.
Some food systems experts believe that there won't be a new Farm Bill this year with a presidential election looming. There's a chance the existing legislation could be extended far longer too, all depending on whether Trump or Harris wins in November.
One of those experts is Jonathan Coppess. Born into a family of corn and soybean farmers, Coppess has spent much of his career working on various Farm Bills - both as Chief Counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee and as head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Services Agency in 2009. Today, Coppess teaches agricultural policy at the University of Illinois, where he leads the university's agricultural policy program.
Sentient's Grace Hussain interviewed Coppess about the Farm Bill, agriculture policy and how a Trump or Harris will impact the future of food policy.
Grace Hussain
Why should the average consumer care about the Farm Bill?
Jonathan Coppess, JD
Well, the average consumer should care about the Farm Bill for a lot of reasons. Firstly, the bill provides assistance to low income families and households and individuals to buy food when times are tough. Certainly with the cost of groceries that we've all been living through, that's very relevant to, frankly, and unfortunately, over 40 million Americans on average, every month are getting assistance through that program. I think that's probably the first and foremost thing. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - which is reauthorized in a Farm Bill - is the biggest program helping put food on the table of households that are struggling. So that's one reason.
On the other side is the food system is farming, and this bill provides direct assistance to farmers, particularly when prices are low. This year, we're seeing crop prices take a nosedive because we expected a record harvest this year. The Farm Bill helps farmers manage risks like this through crop insurance.
Then what I like to think of as kind of the bridge policy is conservation - helping farmers do a better job on their land to avoid soil erosion or help clean up water and those sorts of things. Those policies all have varying degrees of direct impact on consumers and food prices and food availability. And of course, research and rural economic development. It's more indirect, but investing in research for food and agriculture is going to pay dividends down the road.
You know, often there's a bit of a misconception that Farm Bills have direct price impacts at the grocery store, and they don't. I mean, everything's much more indirect through the entire food system. But clearly, as we saw during the height of the pandemic, agricultural policy impacts things that, in turn, impacts different stages of the food system, and these can really influence what the consumer gets. We are in a constant state of trying to keep the wheels on the Farm Bill.
Hussain
The Farm Bill was up for renewal last year, but it still hasn't been renewed. Why do you think that is?
Coppess
That's not an easy question to answer. There's a variety of reasons that include the dysfunction in Congress and the partisan gridlock that we see in everything. One of the things that concerns people like me who spend far too much of their time on the Farm Bill is that it's long been bipartisan, and has long relied on this sort of strong coalition that moves it through Congress - even when Congress doesn't function on other policy areas. To see the Farm Bill stall is kind of a troubling indication of just how difficult things have become in Congress.
I would say that probably the single biggest barrier is that there's a really expensive demand being made by some in the sector. Some of the farm groups want to increase subsidy payments. The Congressional Budget Office scored that this summer, finding that would cost anywhere from 30 to $40 billion more over 10 years. The proponents of that policy don't have an offset for that cost. So that makes it really tough to move the legislation forward.
The partisan fight over the Food Assistance Program, coupled with this demand to increase subsidy payments to farmers, really just makes it impossible to keep the coalition together to approve the bill.
So the House bill came out of the committee, but it has no chance. The support for it is very narrow, and the votes aren't there, so we're not going to see it move. On the other side, the Senate, frankly, hasn't even started. They haven't even done the first critical steps of producing a bill to consider.
Hussain
So from your perspective, is either presidential candidate better on the Farm Bill and food systems?
Coppess
Well, I would say there are some important differences, but I think all of that has to be taken with a large grain of salt, in that farm policy doesn't rise to the level of the presidential campaign. If it even gets an offhand mentioned somewhere during the campaign, that would be a surprise. It's a big congressional effort, so the presidential campaigns, typically, they're not too wrapped up in it.
That said, it's also fascinating because, for example, Governor Walz - he's on the Harris Walz ticket, the Democratic ticket - was in the House of Representatives for the last three Farm Bills, so he's actually worked on the 2008, 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills. It's pretty rare to have somebody at that level with this much in-depth knowledge. I think that campaign certainly has more Farm Bill experience.
I have to tread lightly here, knowing all of the sensitivities that are in these discussions. I would expect a Harris-Walz administration to probably continue the Biden administration's policies in the agricultural space. Many of the priorities that we've seen in the Biden Harris administration - things like helping farmers manage the risks from climate change and manage the conservation challenges they face, in addition to some of the other risk management tools. I think their administration, particularly given the focus of Governor Walz and Vice President Harris, will be very supportive of continuing and maybe even improving the food assistance that working and low income families need. I would expect kind of a more traditional type operation of these policies without any major disruptions, and probably emphasizing some things more than others - like conservation and climate - which is what we've seen in the last four years.
We also have experience with the Trump campaign as an administration. When he was president, Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill into law. What's probably most notable there was the trade conflict that the Trump administration started with China that resulted in retaliation. Then the Trump administration's USDA took a very unusual step, to create its own direct payment program to farmers, and over the course of two years, paid well over $20 billion in ad hoc payments to farmers.
That's an indicator of two things. First, a higher likelihood of more trade disputes and conflicts and challenges arising in a second Trump administration. Second, more payments to farmers, which can seem like a really important policy, but can have long term consequences in that this could turn out to be more bad medicine over the long run.
There's also been a lot of tension on Project 2025. If there's anything that could be rather uniquely concerning about a second Trump administration, I think it's in that mindset. He's disavowed parts of the document, but I think what it signals is a willingness to really shake up the executive administrative operations. That includes everything from clearing out civil service employees to making creative use of statutory authorities. The concern there is that we've gotten very used to having a largely functioning federal government. For example, the USDA does a myriad of things - everything from food inspection to farm subsidies and SNAP. It is entirely possible that - whether intended or not - the sort of disruptive efforts that seem to be outlined in Project 2025, and in the campaign rhetoric, would completely upend operations.
Without some of the agency expertise, how do you run some of these programs? For example, crop insurance is extraordinarily complex. If you get mad and fire everybody that runs crop insurance, it's gonna be hard to make the program function. I think bigger concerns are around any of the ideas around the Food Safety and Inspection Service and having inspectors on the meat lines. A Trump administration causing disruptions in that area would be, frankly, probably really problematic for many consumers. I would also expect them to go after the SNAP program, which further complicates the coalition, and really makes it hard to get Farm Bills done.
This is somewhat over-generalized, but what we have is one side that represents the standard in terms of Farm Bills and farm policy, while the other option has the potential to be extraordinarily disruptive, chaotic and, frankly, destructive. I don't want to make an overstatement, but let's be honest. The Trump administration is cause for that kind of concern across the board, so it wouldn't just be USDA. And I wouldn't expect them to go after USDA first - other than maybe SNAP, school lunch programs and other hunger assistance programs.
I also think that one of the things that maybe doesn't get talked about enough is just how that kind of disruptive and chaotic mindset ripples through all of government and how it functions, potentially creating a lot of consequences that may or may not have been intended, but certainly aren't going to be well received by the public.
Hussain
So you started touching upon this a little bit in your answer, but could you talk a little bit more about what the outcome of the election could mean, if, for example, we have a Democrat-majority Congress, but a Republican for President or vice versa?
Coppess
Which party controls which house of Congress and the gavels at the committee level - that's the biggest component for a Farm Bill. So, I mean, it's fairly clear, right? The Republicans in the House from 2012 through 2014 struggled to get a Farm Bill done. In fact, it was in 2013 that the Farm Bill was defeated on the House floor for the first time since 1962 - frankly, it has been all tied up with this fight over the food assistance programs. So I would say there are concerns with Republican control of the House.
In the Senate, typically, that's tempered quite a bit. We don't see even conservative members of the Senate go after SNAP the same way - certainly not at the committee level. Whoever has the majority is going to have a pretty tight majority, and so I wouldn't expect the Senate to be too radical in terms of the SNAP program. The caveat is, if you had both chambers in Republican hands, I would expect a budget reconciliation effort that would probably cut a lot of things. It could really upend the way the system operates.
The biggest challenge I would expect if there are Democratic majorities is that you will have new agricultural committee chairs in both the House and the Senate. I worked for Chairwoman Stabenow when she took over the gavel in 2011, and it was a lot of work getting the pieces moving in the right direction, let alone put together. The next Congress will really need some time, regardless of whether it's both houses or one house in the Democratic hands.
I think there's also a lot of potential policy differences between the two parties in either chamber. So again, the House has really emphasized paying farmers more - increasing payments to farmers. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has been more balanced between keeping farm programs running, crop insurance up and functioning, but also investing in conservation and supporting the food assistance policy.
Hussain
Have you been keeping your eye on any Congressional races that you think could have an impact on this legislation?
Coppess
I'm an amateur political consumer, but I don't know that I have any great insights on races. One big issue is going to be leadership changes. Who's going to have the gavel? Who's the chair of each committee?
I'm in Illinois, so I've got to watch the Illinois congressional races. My Congresswoman is Nikki Budzinski (D-IL), and she has been very active on the Farm Bill and actually voted against it for a lot of reasons. I think she's done a really good job working on this. Any race I'm going to watch closely is going to be the one I'm going to vote in or vote on.
Outside of that, there's some big changes happening, particularly that Chairwoman Stabenow (D-MI) is retiring, so she's not up for reelection. Her seat in the Senate will be open. That'll be an important one to watch.
I think another really important race is in Ohio. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has been in the Senate since 2006, and he's been a key member of the Senate Ag Committee. I'm a little biased, but I think he's an incredible legislator and has a really great handle on these things. He brings a lot of good ideas, knowledge, experience and expertise. If he were not coming back, that's another kind of institutional experience loss.
Hussain
Is there a world in which we don't get a Farm Bill passed at all?
Coppess
I mean, we're not going to get one passed this year. I think we're heading for an extension, and I actually think the biggest question is whether you extend it for a couple years to allow the next Congress a little breathing room as everything gets settled. If you're asking whether it goes away, that's highly unlikely. It's more likely we just keep extending.
I think the bigger risk in terms of how these policies could or would or should develop, is what we've seen with appropriations bills, in which they're just constantly extended and kicked down the road, because they can't get together on it. I think there's a scenario in which extending this just gets easier and easier to do rather than actually reauthorize things. I think there is some real risk that we don't see improvements in the policy, because it just gets into this extension habit.
I don't foresee anything just going away again unless there's a major change. A second Trump administration may be the exception - if they had both houses of Congress - where you'd see some really drastic changes pushed through under budget rules.
Hussain
What do you think the chances of the PLANT and EATS Act making it into law via the Farm Bill?
Coppess
I'm not as familiar with those acts specifically. I don't have a good read on their chances. I would want to know some of the political dynamics around them, but I don't think either of them are difference maker type legislation. They're not going to prevent a Farm Bill from passing. It really, at this point, boils down to the farm subsidies and the food assistance.
Hussain
So you've talked a bit about this coalition between conservation, food assistance and subsidies. Can you speak at all to the tension within the Farm Bill between farming and conservation, specifically, given the environmental impact of food production and the livestock that much of the subsidized grain and corn is fed to?
Coppess
The conflict isn't necessarily about conservation policy so much. The conservation policies are helping to reduce some of the environmental challenges and problems that we see with modern agriculture. The challenge is really around funding. In my personal opinion, Congress doesn't put enough money into conservation for the demand by farmers and the need that we have out there. Finding those additional funds seems really difficult.
Now the other side of that question is just the pressure coming down across the food system, whether that be for less of a climate impact or better efforts to address climate change. You mentioned livestock. Certainly, the livestock issues have been huge for a while, and they appear to be continuing to increase. Part of that is the consolidation issue. We just have a few large meat packers, for example, and the consequences of consolidated animal feeding operations with large amounts of manure and animals housed in very tight, confined facilities. You have everything from the challenges of antibiotic use to keep those animals healthy to the welfare of the animals living in those conditions.
California pushed for changes to the way we raise hogs for pork, which is very controversial with farmers. They don't like to be told how to farm, but they also don't like the idea that people think they're mistreating the animals. You will hear many talk about their care for the animals, and how this is the best system for them. It certainly hits pretty close to those producers.
The next piece was that there's a similar kind of tension and conflict, or issues around row crop production and the concerns that things like herbicide drift or soil erosion or overuse of water or nutrient pollution and waters. Again, those conservation policies are there to help with the practices that should help with those issues. But there's a struggle for farmers who are in a tight, tough and competitive market. Again, they don't want to be told how to farm, and they also don't like the idea that consumers think they're not doing a good job as stewards of land and resources. That's a real conflict. That's tough to work out. It's where we do find value in these policy discussions about what are the priorities for farmers and how best to help farmers during tough times and with things like natural resource challenges, but we're not really having that discussion at this point in time. That's one of the things lost when the Farm Bill is not reauthorized.
Hussain
Is there anything else that you think readers should be paying attention to?
Coppess
I think probably what I would end on is just reemphasizing, across the board, the importance of this effort, not just the policies specific to the Farm Bill, but of the ability of Congress to do these big, difficult, complex bills and work through coalitions. It's a basic function when it comes to the policy.
I also want to reemphasize that one of the things that we're really not doing a good job of is prioritizing and emphasizing the conservation needs and the demand by farmers for funding.
We too often allow prices and economic challenges to be such a driver and such an emphasis, because it seems more immediate. But we've seen over the history of this how not doing a good job with conservation policy - with helping farmers manage those risks and challenges at the natural resource level - really can have huge costs and cause problems later on. They may have more immediate problems, but ignoring conservation certainly can come back to bite us as a nation. In an ideal world, we'd not only have a functional debate and reauthorization process, but we'd also be having a real and intense conversation about the priorities for helping farmers and how those priorities impact things like soil and water.
Grace Hussain wrote this article for Sentient.
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