Intensive agricultural practices can lead to tradeoffs between economic benefits and environmental and human health costs. For example, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) support local economies but are associated with air, surface and groundwater pollution. Community-level management of pollution-related health risks requires (i) identifying neighborhoods that are vulnerable to contaminants and (ii) understanding how community investments into physical capital and natural capital relate to one another in their capacity to reduce human exposure to contaminants. This type of management approach recognizes that command-and-control style upstream regulation may be less cost effective and potentially more harmful to downstream communities when livelihoods depend critically on local industries. Community-led mitigation of human health risks must make targeted investments into public infrastructure (i.e., public services) and natural capital (i.e., ecosystem services) to at-risk households. The objectives of this work are to (i) identify and measure the effect of swine production operations on local human health, (ii) examine if land cover, soil types, hydrographic relationships and public institutions mediate health outcomes and (iii) construct neighborhood-specific recommendations to inform community-level management of human health risks.
Results/Conclusions
We constructed a database of over 12,000 private well samples tested for inorganic chemical and biological contaminants centered in the nation’s two most pork-producing counties. These data, spanning 2008 to 2018, are linked with over 90,000 identifiable birth outcomes. Groundwater results and human health outcomes are related to upstream CAFOs. We examined the relationship between water quality and human health outcomes by tracing pollution from source, through groundwater and to a measurable human health impact. We also gauged the “value” of riparian buffers, soils and wetlands in their ability to filter waterborne contaminants and generate a health-savings buffer to downstream populations. Our results locate “hotspots” of natural capital that buffer against environmental exposures that might otherwise increase presence of biological contamination in private wells. We document an “avoidance” response of homeowners who drill deeper wells in closer proximity to animal agriculture. Together, the natural protections of the landscape and the responses of at-risk households mediate adverse impacts to birth outcomes. Natural and built capital “deserts” are evaluated using the EPA’s EnviroAtlas indicator for potentially-restorable wetlands. Combining our findings with such a tool offers a blueprint for communities to prioritize conservation and public infrastructure investments that improve rural human health.