America’s water supply is attacked – not foreign opponents or ruined infrastructure, but giant factory farms that produce billions of cheap meat pounds for companies obsessed with profits.
A guard dog provides that producers, including Tyson Foods, JBS, Smithfield Foods, are the source of scary levels of rivers, aquifers and nitrate pollution reservoirs that provide drinking water to millions of houses.
Watch Food & WaterA research and plea group, says that excessive nitrates in drinking water have been linked to cancers, false layers, congenital malformations and a rare but dangerous condition known as “blue baby syndrome”.
Nitrates infiltrate rural wells and municipal systems. However, federal officials and states are accused of having closed their eyes while business leaders border their pockets while storing supermarkets with hamburgers and low -budget sausages.
Tyson CEO Donnie King is $ 23 million a year, reports. Smithfield boss Shane Smith earns $ 15 million, while Wesley Batista Filho of JBS presides over a personal fortune estimated at $ 4.9 billion.
An epicenter of the crisis is currently monks, where the center Iowa Water Works indicates that its production is sure to drink – despite the inhabitants of the results of nitrate at home on social networks that suggest the opposite.
Residents of Iowa, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota and Wisconsin have asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enforce safe drinking water standards. Their deposits indicate a range of agricultural practices as a problem.
But Tyler Lobdell, lawyer for Food & Water Watch and co-author of a report on the role of Big AG in the crisis, the problem was far beyond these five states.
The influencer of the outdoor iowa Joy Van Wyngarden says that his neighbors should not drink nitrates
Nitrates in water can lead to a frightening condition known as the “Bébé Bleu” syndrome ”
The father of two children based in Idaho described the situation as a “emerging crisis, from current decades, which does not draw the attention it deserves”.
“We know the culprits and certain remedies, but we are fighting against a lack of political will to regulate the industry,” said Lobdell.
The Daily Mail contacted Tyson, the poultry giant based in Arkansas, the Brazilian JBS and the Smithfield in China to comment but received no response.
Some experts blame the enormous volumes of manure produced by pigs of pigs, poultry and livestock on an industrial scale – often thrown on the neighboring fields, where nitrates infiltrate the ground and flow into the sailors.
These Mega-Ferms discharge not only toxic nitrates but also heavy metals, pathogens, fertilizers and pesticides. Some produce more waste than whole cities.
Long -term exposure in nitrate in water -Men below the maximum security limit of the EPA of 10 mg / L – was linked to thyroid, renal, ovaries, bladder and colon cancer, DNA damage, unfavorable results of pregnancy and increasing colorectal cancer rate in young people.
A shocking report from the Public Library of Sciences examined this week the data of 357,000 births in Iowa between 1970 and 1988 and found that pregnant women exposed to nitrates in drinking water were more likely to have babies in the long term or sub-poids.
Jason Semprini, assistant professor at the University of Monks, said that even relatively low levels of nitrates have led to “ unfavorable birth results, in particular at prior birth and low birth weight ”.
Long -term exposure to nitrate in water – even below the limit of 10 mg / l of the EPA – is linked to thyroid, renal, ovaries, bladder and colorectal cancers
Industrial farms read nitrates and other toxins in the soil, and it ends in tap water
About 60 million Americans Consume without knowing it of the tap water eager for nitratesAbove all In states and rural areas where agriculture is at the heart of the economy, such as Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Center of California, Texas, Oklahoma and Delaware.
Those who depend on well water are particularly vulnerable.
But large cities are also affected. An analysis of the environmental working group, a research and defense organization, underlined the problem in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Miami and the suburbs of New York.
When the security limit was established for the first time in the 1950s, scientists discovered that levels as low as 11 mg / L could cause methemoglobinemia or blue syndrome.
The condition occurs when the blood of an infant cannot transport enough oxygen, causing bluish skin, especially around the lips, fingers and toes. Without treaty, it can cause respiratory distress and even death.
The best known cause is contamination by nitrate in drinking water, which is sometimes mixed with baby formulas. Less than 100 cases have been reported in the United States.
“Baby baby syndrome receives a lot of attention because it is such a shocking condition,” said Lobdell. “Equally worrying is a chronic daily exposure and lower than time.”
Iowa has become a flash point. Central Iowa Water Works is currently trying to eliminate nitrates in water from the rivers of monks and connections, where the levels culminated.
Iowa residents have turned to home tests in doubts that water leaders tell the truth
Tyson Foods, the largest American meat processor, would have paid 371 million pounds of nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide in the navigable channels between 2018 and 2022
The CEO of 23 million dollars of Tyson, Donnie King, is accused of having made profits on public security
The authority prohibited 600,000 residential and commercial customers from watering their lawns earlier this month, because nitrate levels were so close to missing the EPA limit.
The residents have published videos on social networks of home tests showing nitrate levels exceeding the security thresholds.
Worse still, standard filters and drinking water do not remove nitrates. Only expensive reverse osmosis systems are effective.
The resident of the center of Iowa, Joy Van Wyngarden, publishes on the configuration of the filtration of water in seven stages under her kitchen sink, urging the neighbors to “take matters in hand”.
“Do not wait and do not expect the municipalities to do it for you,” said Tiktok’s influencer. “Defend for yourself and the health of your family”.
Lobdell said that the nitrate crisis had lasted the entire meat industry, with Tyson and other agro-industry giants at the top of a pyramid that slowly poisons the population.
A study by the union of scientists concerned, a research and defense group 41 Tyson slaughterhouses Poured 371 million pounds of nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide in the rivers between 2018 and 2022.
A leak of millions of sludge gallons in a JBS beef plant in Nebraska in January 2024, fears delighted polluted drinking water.
In southern Dakota, the residents endured high nitrate levels after the release of a Smithfield factory in Sioux Falls.
None of the three companies responded to the request for comments from the Daily Mail at the time of publication.
Large AG companies said they worked hard to maintain nitrate levels within safety limits while producing affordable food for consumers.
Shane Smith, President and CEO of $ 15 million a year at Smithfield Foods, says he is heading a responsible operation
Wesley Batista Filho has directed JBS operations to the family in the United States since 2023. His Brazilian family has been worth billions
They sometimes blamed other factors, including fleeing infrastructure and third -party suppliers, and have minimized the health risks of nitrates.
Environmental surveillance dogs have declared that industry uses lobbying muscles and legal shortcomings to escape a meticulous examination, even if water contamination is getting worse.
Lobdell said Tyson, JBS, Smithfield, are among the worst offenders because they control the industrial agriculture market so much, but that the problem is much wider.
He accused the EPA of not defending the affected communities. Federal and state officials had to intervene, suppress offenders and increase security limits.
“We have to change the rules so that we focus on clean water, that healthy drinking water and does not leave these sacrificed resources so that Big AG can use the most expensive factory farms as possible,” he said.
An EPA spokesperson told Daily Mail that the agency had examined its nitrate security limit last year.
