Governor John Engler's Administration actively weakened regulations to encourage a rapid growth in factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Under the Granholm Administration there have been some significant changes in policies toward CAFOs, but farm families and others exposed to the horrific public health and environmental impact of these operations are seeing little change in the horrible pollution these facilities cause on the ground. And more CAFOs are being proposed in Michigan all the time, with no expectation that the state will either assure proper siting and regulation, or slow down the tide.

In 2002, the state agreed to comply with the Clean Water Act by issuing a general permit under the Clean Water Act for CAFOs, after environmental groups and the EPA forced the Engler Administration's hand. A revised permit issued in 2004 in keeping with Bush Administration rules requires all new and expanding large CAFOs to obtain permit coverage. The Sierra Club has brought a contested case action against the state, contending that the DEQ's CAFO permit program falls far short of legal requirements, shutting the public out and effectively rubberstamping flawed designs that will inevitably cause severe water pollution problems.

The Red Arrow Dairy CAFO in Van Buren County, whose permit is being contested by the Sierra Club, within three months of beginning operations this summer was found to be discharging contaminated water onto neighboring property at a level 47 times the state's maximum discharge level for E. coli bacteria, even though the permit is for zero discharge. There is strong evidence the DEQ staff in many areas with CAFOs have neither the time nor the training to adequately investigate and enforce the law, leaving neighbors downstream to try to document pollution and then convince the state to take action.

In the Hudson area, 16 CAFOs have been cited 116 times collectively for violations of the Clean Water Act since February 2000, almost entirely as the result of the volunteer water monitoring of the local group Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan (ECCSCM). Since September 2003, the state has filed lawsuits against three of those CAFOs for gross pollution problems originally documented by ECCSCM; however, these CAFOs continue to operate and have had additional water quality violations.

Air quality concerns from CAFOs are even less well regulated in Michigan, despite growing evidence of potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide and other emissions from the buildings, lagoons and land application activities. In Lenawee County, severe air pollution from CAFOs has sent neighbors to the emergency room and has been blamed for causing both lost lung function and neurological damage in some residents. But the state has yet to take enforcement action against any CAFO for air pollution, in part because of severe delays in referrals from MDA and in part because documentation has been a challenge.

The Bush Administration is proposing a "safe harbor" agreement which would allow all CAFOs to sign up supposedly for "research" into air quality problems, pay a few thousand dollars in fees, and then be exempt from air pollution enforcement. The Michigan Farm Bureau at its meeting in early December endorsed the safe harbor proposal.