Editor’s Note: Tom Philpott’s April 28 piece on the swine flu pandemic, which raised the question of whether there is a link between the virus’ emergence in Mexico and the presence nearby of factory-scale pork farms, sparked a vigorous debate on the Society for Environmental Journalists listserv. Merritt Clifton was one of several writers to take issue with Tom’s piece. At Grist’s invitation, he put his critique into an essay form, which is posted below:
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Thirty years ago this month I knelt beside the Yamaska River in southern Quebec with a test kit — downstream from several of the then-largest, factory-type pig farms in North America (which happened to lie upstream from the water intakes for the cities of Farnham and St. Hyacinthe) — and found that the Yamaska literally contained more extraneous chemicals from pig excrement than H2O.
The predictable happened as the weather warmed. By midsummer thousands of people were ill. My exposés helped to bring the construction of new water filtration and treatment plants–but did not slow the growth of factory farming. Three out of every five Quebec farme... Read more
