When Terry and Ernest Bateson hear rumbling, they know the trucks are coming.
Every year, semi-trucks filled to the brim with liquid manure drive by the retired farmers home in Wood County s Portage Township. The semi-trucks are carrying waste from the CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations – in layman s terms, factory farms. The road turns brown from the spillage, Ernest Bateson said.
The number of animals in the Maumee watershed has doubled from 9 to 20 million from 2005 to 2018, a study by environmental advocates found. More animals mean more poop – and the poop has to go somewhere.
Some of the poop is ending up in Lake Erie. Farmers spread manure on the fields as fertilizer, and it runs into the Maumee watershed, which flows into the lake.