Nearly 9000 square-miles of ocean along the Gulf Coast is uninhabitable by marine life. Loaded with agricultural toxins and devoid of oxygen, it’s the largest “dead zone” in US history, and last summer it got even bigger.
We’ve known the cause of the ecological “dead zone” for decades — fertilizer run-off from Big Agriculture via the Mississippi River — but a new investigative report identifies the number one polluter by name, Tyson Foods.
The Washington DC-based environmental organization Mighty Earth set out to determine which specific companies were most responsible for “the widespread manure and fertilizer pollution contaminating water from the Heartland to the Gulf.”
“America’s largest meat company, Tyson Foods, stood out for its expansive footprint in all the regions suffering the worst pollution impacts from industrial meat and feed production,” a press release about the August report says.
Smithfield was second to Tyson for the highest levels of nitrate contamination in areas where runoff ends up in the Gulf, followed by Cargill, Hormel, and JBS.
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