How Chicken Litter Becomes a Water Pollutant

The vast majority of chickens we eat in America now come from CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations. CAFOs confine as many animals as possible -- such as chickens -- in as small a space as possible to boost production to new levels. However, the manure produced by the hundreds of thousands of chickens within a single CAFO carries serious negative consequences for water quality in and around these CAFO-dense regions.