photo by davilla

Our fresh water supplies are running out quickly, folks. In some areas, they are already gone. According to an article in VegNews “the WorldBank estimates that more than 1 billion people have no access to clean water and 3 million people die from waterborne diseases every year.”

How can we help? For starters, we can take quicker showers, be more careful about what we dump down the drain, and buy less bottled water. But there’s one issue that puts vegans light years ahead of the rest as far as water conservation: our refusal to support factory farms. Raising livestock is hugely detrimental to the earth’s fresh water supplies.

Much of the 500 million tons of waste generated by billions of chickens, pigs, cows, and other animals confined in US factory farms every year is stored in huge manure “lagoons.” These holding pools can leak or spill and pipelines can rupture, tainting surface and groundwater. Just last year, a lagoon pipe at a Maryland dairy burst, spewing 560,000 gallons of liquid manure–nearly enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool–into a nearby creek contaminating the town’s water supply with E.coli. -Mark Hawthorne, VegNews

Accidental spills are just one way in which factory farms are affecting water supplies. Don’t forget about the massive amounts of water needed to feed these animals, as well as the large amounts of water used in the slaughterhouses. “It can take five times more water to supply 10 grams of protein from beef than from rice, and nearly 20 times more water to supply 500 calories from beef than from rice.” -Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Supply Project in South Hadley, Mass. The water we use to shower is small potatoes compared to the wasted water resulting from factory farming. Facts such as these make it blatantly clear why the vegan lifestyle is so wonderfully selfless, and environmentally friendly.

So, how quickly is it estimated our water supplies will run out? A lot sooner than you might think. According to the EPA, if current water use continues unchecked, 36 states will suffer water shortages within the next 5 years http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21494919/. Needless to say, this issue must be addressed immediately. And convincing others to eat less meat could be the best thing you’ve ever done for the planet.