rationallong-term use ofour finite resources, itmakes no
sense at all.
Animal production also compares poorly with crop
productionasfaraswateruseisconcerned.Apoundofmeat
requiresfiftytimesasmuchwaterasanequivalentquantityof
wheat.^9 Newsweekgraphicallydescribedthisvolumeofwater
whenitsaid, “Thewaterthatgoesintoa 1000 poundsteer
would float a destroyer.”^10 The demands of animal
productionaredryingupthevastundergroundpoolsofwater
onwhichsomanyofthedrierregionsofAmerica,Australia,
andothercountriesrely.Inthecattlecountrythatstretches
from western Texas to Nebraska, for
example,watertablesarefallingandwellsaregoingdryas
the huge underground lake known as the Ogalalla
Aquifer—another resource which, like oil and coal, took
millions of years to create—continues to be used up to
produce meat.^11
Norshouldweneglectwhatanimalproductiondoesto the
waterthatitdoesnotuse.StatisticsfromtheBritishWater
AuthoritiesAssociationshowthatthereweremorethan3,500
incidentsofwaterpollutionfromfarmsin1985.Hereisjust
oneexamplefromthatyear:atankatapigunitburst,sending
aquarter-millionlitersofpigexcrementintotheRiverPerry
andkilling110,000fish.Morethanhalfoftheprosecutions
bywaterauthoritiesforseriouspollutionof riversarenow
against farmers.^12 This is not surprising, for a modest
60,000-birdeggfactoryproduceseighty-twotonsofmanure
everyweek, andinthesameperiodtwothousandpigswill
excretetwenty-seventonsofmanureand thirty-twotonsof
urine.Dutchfarmsproduce 94 milliontonsofmanureayear,
butonly 50 millioncansafelybeabsorbedbytheland.The