Everyone is. The contamination of water not only affects the environment itself but it affects our daily usage of it, and the risks of using fresh water increase with every discharge of overly contaminated water. In fact, according to Environment America (2020), "more than 60 percent of the waterways receiving discharges from the largest slaughterhouses are already too polluted" for swimming or fishing. Attempts to contain pollution with lagoons and artificial bodies of water seldom work, with sewage water still being able to leak through to waterways. These are waterways that are interlinked with the daily lives of the people that reside in this country.

There are thousands of local residents affected daily by the contamination of water across the US, petitioning their local and state governments for stricter regulations on how water is discharged in their areas. In addition, several Clean Water Organizations have been advocating for new laws on slaughterhouses and their disposal practices. As stated from Brian Zabcik, a spokesperson of the CWA of Environment Texas, “Texans love barbecue – but nobody ordered a side of water pollution along with our meat. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality needs to issue stronger water pollution control permits for the slaughterhouses in East Texas and elsewhere – and then enforce them, so they stop contaminating our waterways” (Environmental Integrity Three Quarters of Large U.S. Slaughterhouses Violate Water Pollution Permits, 2018).