Maybe lawmakers should consider the ‘pig mills’

It is pretty ironic that Iowa legislators equate 'animal cruelty” in Iowa with puppy mills when there are 23 million pigs every day in Iowa who live in enclosed steel and concrete buildings with slated floors where their waste falls through into the pit below the floor. Those pigs live their whole lives knowing only a steel floor with sewer gas fumes coming up through the slats so toxic that fans need to constantly blow those gasses outside so the pigs don't die from hydrogen-sulfide gas asphyxiation.

Of course, the legislators are not too worried about the people who live in proximity to these hog confinements either as they have not regulated those toxic sewer gasses blown into the neighborhood. They have regulated the liquid waste which is spread only once every six months on fields. But they have not regulated the toxic gasses hydrogen-sulfide and ammonia, the greenhouse and explosive gas methane, the antibiotic resistant organisms, particulates, and many other toxins that are blown out of these confinements 24/7/365 affecting the health and well-being of neighbors.

A few puppy mills get the legislators up in arms; 23 million pigs living in a sewer environment their whole short life with sewer toxins blown into neighborhoods affecting the health of thousands of neighbors gets nary a nod.

Bob Watson

Decorah