Recently, Fresh Water News published an article entitled “Briefly: Manure runoff is polluting drinking water supplies across the Mountain West, report finds.”
The article references an NPR affiliate story that was aired on April 14, 2025. The story is baseless and cites as its source the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit that routinely spreads false information about animal feeding operations.
The story references a link to an EWG webpage, which makes an unsupported leap from trihalomethanes in drinking water to “factory farms” aka animal feeding operations. The EWG webpage provides as its source a link to an article in Science Direct entitled “Disinfection Byproducts and Their Precursors in Drinking Water Sources: Origins, Influencing Factors, and Environmental Insights.” The Science Direct article mentions farms in the introduction along with several other potential sources, and there is only one reference in the whole article to animal manure and animal feeding operations – shown in bold in the section below – and the referenced pollutant is not manure but feed additives in the manure.
Contrary to the EWG claims, animal feeding operations in Colorado and all other “Mountain West” states are highly regulated – both by individual state regulations and EPA regulations. Check the Colorado Department of Health and Environment’s Environmental Agriculture Program webpage for details on the regulations governing animal feeding operations in Colorado.
I’ve been helping animal feeding operations of all sizes throughout Colorado and surrounding states with regulatory compliance for 25 years. Animal feeding operations use a variety of best management practices when storing and applying liquid and solid waste. Manure contains valuable nutrients that growers want to keep on their fields to grow crops and forage. They calibrate their equipment before applying, test soils to make sure the rate of manure application matches the nutrient needs of the growing crops, and use conservation practices such as residue management and edge of field buffer strips. They do all this and more to maximize the value of the nutrients in the manure and minimize losses from fields.
It is unfortunate that the NPR affiliate didn’t bother to do any real research and instead allowed its significant voice to push a demonstrably false and misleading EWG propaganda piece. And it is quite disappointing that Fresh Water News promoted the NPR story.
Regarding the source of trihalomethanes in drinking water, as a CPDHE staff person put it: “having worked in water quality for several years, the TTHMs that are found in drinking water systems are derived from the treatment of the water with chlorine and the chemical interaction that takes place with organic material within the distribution system. The longer the water sits in the distribution system the higher the TTHMs can get. High TTHMs typically result from water that has been stagnant in portions of the distribution system that are not routinely flushed. TTHMs in drinking water is not affected by runoff from AFOs.”
Phil Brink is a conservation scientist and owner of Brink, Inc., which provides compliance and conservation assistance to the livestock industry.
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