Wastesheds of Missouri
Learn how waste from industrial animal agriculture impacts the watersheds in which you live, work, and play.
We are a river state. Missouri has more than 258,000 miles of rivers and streams (see DNR Draft Environmental Assessment for Missouri Bat Habitat , 2021)!
We are also an agriculture state. Of Missouri’s total 44.6 million acres, 63% are land in farms.
According to the USDA, Missouri has 15.6 million acres of cropland, 6 million acres of pastureland, and more than 4 million acres of woodland on farms. The areas in white on the map represent non-crop land such as forestland, pastureland, and developed areas.
According to the USDA 2017 Census of Agriculture, 60% of all cropland is dedicated to growing corn and soybeans with only 18,487 acres growing vegetables harvested for sale or 0.1% of Missouri’s total cropland.
You can see that the map has a lot of corn and soybean production along the Missouri River, most of Northern Missouri, and much of Western Missouri. The map also illustrates that we have concentrations of cotton and rice cropland in Missouri’s boot heel.
All land is broken up into watersheds. A watershed is “a contained land area that channels rainfall and snowmelt downward from the highest ridge top to the lowest creeks, streams, rivers and lakes. The U.S. Geological Survey classifies watersheds by a number called the hydrologic unit code, or HUC” (Moniteau County Neighbors Alliance).
There are sixty-six 8-digit HUCs in Missouri. Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) frequently uses this scale of watershed to monitor water quality and identify locations of impaired waters.
What happens on Missouri’s land impacts Missouri’s water, air, public health, and wildlife and especially for those who live in the given watershed where an activity is occurring.
Depending on the scale and type of practices used on all of this farmland, pollutants can run off the land into nearby and downstream waterbodies as well as leach through the soil into groundwater. This is important because Missouri’s ground and surface water bodies supply our state’s 6 million residents with water.
Unfortunately, many of our watersheds contain impaired rivers and streams, meaning they are degraded. A waterbody is deemed impaired when it contains too much of a given pollutant to be deemed safe for the waterbody's government-designated use. For example, if a lake is used for fishing and recreation, the lake will be deemed impaired if the lake contains more E. coli than is safe for fishing and recreation.
Sadly, Missouri has over 300 waterbodies that are deemed impaired.
In 2018, of the 11,416 miles of streams that were assessed, 50% of them were impaired!
You can learn more about impaired waterbodies, water quality standards, and designated uses on the Moniteau County Neighbors Alliance website and the DNR Water Quality Standards and Impaired Waters Map .
More than 85% of Missouri's impaired rivers and streams and more than 50% of Missouri's impaired lakes are impaired due to nonpoint sources of pollution (Missouri DNR). Nonpoint sources are any source that is not a single point, such as a pipe. Nonpoint source pollution (NPS) occurs when precipitation, like rain or snow, or irrigation water runs off land into surface waters or seeps through soil into groundwater, carrying pollutants with it into those waterbodies. As you can see from this visual, industrial animal agriculture is a form of nonpoint source pollution.
You can learn more about how to help your watershed be protected from NPS through the development of watershed management plans on DNR’s website .
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, are an industrial form of animal agriculture that cause a variety of health and environmental concerns, in large part because of their waste. CAFOs are a nonpoint source of pollution and their waste threatens the health and safety of communities in the watersheds in which they are located and communities downstream.
Missouri has roughly 500 CAFOs, which the state calls “Class I CAFOs.” We also have smaller versions of CAFOs, often referred to as Class II CAFOs or sometimes “AFOs.” The size of the facilities impacts the amount of waste they generate. While Class II CAFOs are smaller in size compared to Class Is and are no longer regulated, how they handle their waste can still be a concern. Waste management at CAFOs is a serious concern and poses threats to the watersheds they are in - including the health, safety, and welfare of the people who live, work, and recreate there as well as our natural habitats in the watershed.
Based on USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service calculations and the estimated number of animals and type of animals in each Class I CAFO in Missouri, below is a map of estimated tons of waste generated in each watershed. Note that because DNR does not regulate Class II CAFOs, we were unable to add their waste contributions to this map, meaning many watersheds have even more animal waste generated within them than the map illustrates.
Missouri Wasteshed Examinations For Dashboard
In more than half of Missouri’s watersheds, more waste is generated by CAFOs than by the human population in those watersheds.
Below compares the state's total annual waste generated by humans to the state's total annual waste generated by CAFOs. CAFOs significantly generate more waste, their waste is not treated, and is applied onto our fields running into our waterways and polluting our air.
For example, in the Lamine Watershed, there are 49,128 residents. This human population generates roughly 23,311 tons of human waste per year. At the same time, the 61 Class I CAFOs in the watershed generate roughly 428,333 tons of untreated animal waste per year! What’s more, this tonnage of excrement from CAFOs exceeds the amount of treated waste generated by the human population of San Francisco, California!
"People are large animals, and as such our bodies produce a lot of waste. That being said, we produce much less waste than the animals that we eat" ( Chris Jones, University of Iowa ). This map shows the human waste equivalent of CAFO animals in each watershed compared to the waste generation of a particular city's human population. Only populations within city limits are accounted for here, not the population of metropolitan areas.
Missouri watersheds without city comparisons do not have any CAFOs in the watershed within our state. However, some of the watersheds in Northern Missouri are also in Iowa and these human waste equivalent calculations do not take into account the waste generated in Iowa. Additionally, this map only factors in waste generated by Class I CAFOs; watersheds with Class II CAFOs have even more waste that could be contributing to water quality concerns.
CAFO waste does not go to wastewater treatment facilities but rather is applied on farm fields. Unfortunately, this waste is often mismanaged which leads to risking the waste running off farm fields into our streams or leaching through the soil into our groundwater.
Moreover, conservation areas and state parks are threatened by this waste. Missourians have approved a 0.1% sales tax for the last several decades that go to protecting natural areas and to supporting farmers using conservation practices. As more CAFOs have come into Missouri's watersheds, our state parks and conservation areas have been threatened with the pollution from CAFO waste.
The Missouri Department of Conservation’s Comprehensive Conservation Strategy outlines priority areas for implementing practices to protect our waters and other natural areas with the communities in each watershed. To learn more, click here .
What we need to protect our waterways and drinking water sources (both surface and ground):
- Registration of all Class II CAFOs
- Registration of third party recipients of CAFO waste and where the waste is applied.
- Groundwater monitoring at all CAFOs
- Greater setbacks from homes, schools, waterways, and natural areas - both for the location of where CAFOs can be located and the fields on which CAFO waste is applied.
How you can get involved
View maps based on your legislative districts and your watershed here on MCE's website.
