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Emerging Water Issues in Indiana

            Animal manure disposal  -  Indiana has approximately 2000 industrial scale livestock farms, often referred to as concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs.  Manure from them is stored in lagoons and spread on agricultural land.  Indiana regulation requires manure management plans, but the system is imperfect.  When it rains, the manure is often carried from fields and sometimes overflows from lagoons into local surface waters contributing significantly to their loads of nitrogen, phosphorus, antibiotics, growth promoters  and bacteria some of which may be antibiotic resistant.  Application of manure to fields can also result in contamination of groundwater.  In many rural areas groundwater (wells) is the major source of drinking water. 

The amount of waste generated by a medium size CAFO is equal to that produced by a small city but there is no requirement that it be treated, as sewage from a town would be.  Links on CAFOs:

EPA regulations on animal feeding operations

Indiana regulations on animal feeding operations

Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production

Indiana's CAFO-watch - updates on CAFOs, CAFO permits, legislation

Hoosier Environmental Council on industrial scale animal production

            Year round disinfection of wastewater  -  In Indiana disinfection of effluent from wastewater treatment plants is required only during the "recreational season", April to October.  The months without disinfection have an impact on drinking water treatment plants downstream from the wastewater plant.  Also, in many cases the actual recreational use of a river is not necessarily confined to the recreational season as defined by the state which may result in people being exposed to infectious agents from sewage.  Some states require year round disinfection.  Bacteria counts in the White River month by month.

            Engineered wetlands for wastewater treatment  - In some parts of Indiana wastewater can be treated in a constructed wetland.  Click here for an introduction to engineered wetlands from the National Environmental Services Center.  Indiana policy on constructed wetlands.

Engineered wetlands for wastewater treatment (National Environmental Services Center)

Indiana policy on constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment

Constructed wetlands for treatment of animal waste (Purdue Extension)

Recirculating vertical flow wetlands for residential wastewater treatment (Purdue Extension).

            Endocrine disruption  -  Combined sewer overflows, wastewater plant effluent, and waste from animal operations can contain pharmaceuticals, their metabolites, antibacterial agents, pesticides and cleaning agents.  Some of these compounds mimic hormones or interfere with hormone action and are called 'endocrine disruptors'.  Drinking water treatment plants usually do not have the technology to remove these compounds.

        Endocrine Disruption and Indiana's Children - issue paper from 2007 Environmental Health Summit

        Pharmaceuticals in wastewater - article in Chemical & Engineering News

  posted February 2009