Leaving beef and heading to chicken (I guess this is confusing to the reader, since you're reading the chicken story first -- I posted the beef story first. Whatever.), we get this environmental catastrophe:


"For weeks last spring, water flowing from faucets in Calhoun tasted and smelled foul.

"Every day, hundreds of residents of the town 70 miles northwest of Atlanta called its utilities director to complain. Water and sewer lines must have been crossed, many told Kelly Cornwell.

"Cornwell's investigation led him to Carters Lake, where he found the worst algae bloom ever had turned the reservoir into something that looked like pea soup... The algae in Carters Lake were fed by manure from Georgia's giant -- and largely unregulated -- broiler chicken industry.

"And the incident, though temporary, represents a growing threat throughout North Georgia: Farmers spread chicken manure on land as fertilizer, and rain washes it into lakes and streams, contaminating water and creating health risks."