
Animal Law Podcast #79: The Case of the Filth in the Water
12/29/21 • 56 min
On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak with Tyler Lobdell about Food and Water Watch v Environmental Protection Agency, in which the 9th Circuit recently held that the EPA, in setting forth permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act for the way Idaho factory farms dispose of the staggering amount of manure that they are producing, was not, in very significant ways, requiring them to monitor themselves. Since there is no monitoring other than self-monitoring, this failure obviously defeats the purpose of having the requirements in the first place and undoubtedly accounts for the dreadful condition of many Idaho waterways. Tyler also discusses the overall lax enforcement of environmental regulations as they apply to factory farms, and the important implications for this case nationwide.
Tyler Lobdell is a staff attorney with Food & Water Watch where he focuses on combating factory farms through legal advocacy. Prior to joining Food & Water Watch, Tyler spent two years as the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Food Law Fellow. He is particularly interested in the intersections between animal law and environmental law. Tyler graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School, where he served as Co-Editor in Chief of the Animal Law Review. A long-time environmentalist, Tyler spent almost 10 years leading conservation programs across the U.S. before attending law school. Aside from legal work, he currently spends his time raising two sons, caring for a flock of rescue chickens, and enjoying the outdoors.
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The Animal Law Podcast is proud to partner with The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc., a US-based national independent think tank pursuing a paradigm shift in human responsibility towards, and value of, non-human animals by advancing animal law, animal policy, and related interdisciplinary studies.
As the Animal Law Podcast 2021 Exclusive Sponsor, the The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc is dedicated to producing and disseminating outstanding, independent, academic, and public policy research and programming; and pursuing projects and initiatives focused on advancing law and policy pertaining to animals.
The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy is excited to share a new FREE resource: The Brooks Animal Law Digest – CANADA EDITION! This premier online publication offers in-depth and up-to-date coverage on Canada’s most important animal law and policy issues. It is published twice monthly as a collaborative effort with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s research support.
Like the Brooks Animal Law Digest – US Edition, the Canadian Digest serves as a resource for anyone interested in learning more about the field of animal law – either as a high-level overview of developments, or as a jumping off point for digging into a specific current issue in the field. All content will be accessible on the Brooks Institute website and spotlights via email twice monthly.
Click here to subscribe to the free Brooks Animal Law Digest – CANADA EDITION.
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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation, or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!
Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning, weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its eleventh glorious year!
On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak with Tyler Lobdell about Food and Water Watch v Environmental Protection Agency, in which the 9th Circuit recently held that the EPA, in setting forth permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act for the way Idaho factory farms dispose of the staggering amount of manure that they are producing, was not, in very significant ways, requiring them to monitor themselves. Since there is no monitoring other than self-monitoring, this failure obviously defeats the purpose of having the requirements in the first place and undoubtedly accounts for the dreadful condition of many Idaho waterways. Tyler also discusses the overall lax enforcement of environmental regulations as they apply to factory farms, and the important implications for this case nationwide.
Tyler Lobdell is a staff attorney with Food & Water Watch where he focuses on combating factory farms through legal advocacy. Prior to joining Food & Water Watch, Tyler spent two years as the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Food Law Fellow. He is particularly interested in the intersections between animal law and environmental law. Tyler graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School, where he served as Co-Editor in Chief of the Animal Law Review. A long-time environmentalist, Tyler spent almost 10 years leading conservation programs across the U.S. before attending law school. Aside from legal work, he currently spends his time raising two sons, caring for a flock of rescue chickens, and enjoying the outdoors.
**********
The Animal Law Podcast is proud to partner with The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc., a US-based national independent think tank pursuing a paradigm shift in human responsibility towards, and value of, non-human animals by advancing animal law, animal policy, and related interdisciplinary studies.
As the Animal Law Podcast 2021 Exclusive Sponsor, the The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc is dedicated to producing and disseminating outstanding, independent, academic, and public policy research and programming; and pursuing projects and initiatives focused on advancing law and policy pertaining to animals.
The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy is excited to share a new FREE resource: The Brooks Animal Law Digest – CANADA EDITION! This premier online publication offers in-depth and up-to-date coverage on Canada’s most important animal law and policy issues. It is published twice monthly as a collaborative effort with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s research support.
Like the Brooks Animal Law Digest – US Edition, the Canadian Digest serves as a resource for anyone interested in learning more about the field of animal law – either as a high-level overview of developments, or as a jumping off point for digging into a specific current issue in the field. All content will be accessible on the Brooks Institute website and spotlights via email twice monthly.
Click here to subscribe to the free Brooks Animal Law Digest – CANADA EDITION.
**********
You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation, or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!
Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning, weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its eleventh glorious year!
Previous Episode

Animal Law Podcast #78: The Case of Happy, an Elephant
On this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, I speak, once again, with Steven Wise, founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP). He joins me to talk about a truly extraordinary, potentially groundbreaking, case now pending in the highest court in New York State. As in the other cases Steve has joined us to discuss in the past, the issue here is a matter of whether a particular nonhuman animal, one who can be shown to demonstrate a high level of cognition and autonomy, is entitled to fundamental rights under the common law. More specifically, can an imprisoned elephant named Happy be entitled to a writ of habeas corpus?
Steven M. Wise has practiced animal protection law for 30 years throughout the US and is the author of four books: Rattling the Cage – Toward Legal Rights for Animals; Drawing the Line – Science and the Case for Animal Rights; Though the Heavens May Fall – The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery; and An American Trilogy – Death, Slavery, and Dominion Along the Banks of the Cape Fear River. Watch Steve’s TED Talk on nonhuman animal rights here.
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The Animal Law Podcast is proud to partner with The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc., a US-based national independent think tank pursuing a paradigm shift in human responsibility towards, and value of, non-human animals by advancing animal law, animal policy, and related interdisciplinary studies.
As the Animal Law Podcast 2021 Exclusive Sponsor, the The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc is dedicated to producing and disseminating outstanding, independent, academic, and public policy research and programming; and pursuing projects and initiatives focused on advancing law and policy pertaining to animals.
The Brooks Institute is excited to share a new FREE resource, Animal Law Fundamentals! Animal Law Fundamentals is a documentary-style series of video presentations and scholarly papers on the fundamentals of animal law by some of North America’s notable animal law scholars. The goal of this series is to make the fundamentals of animal law accessible to the public from premier subject matter experts. It is an orientation for anyone interested in gaining a substantive overview on an animal law subject matter quickly and effectively by listening to an academic or practicing scholar, as well as, having a companion paper into which there can be a ‘deep dive’. View the trailer, full presentation and accompanying paper here.
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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation, or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Any amount is hugely appreciated and Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!
Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning, weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its eleventh glorious year!
Next Episode

Animal Law Podcast #80: Teaching Animal Rights
Welcome to the Animal Law Podcast. This is Mariann Sullivan, and this week we will be doing something a little bit different. Sherry Colb is a professor at Cornell Law School where, among many other things, she teaches an animal centric course that, to my knowledge, is quite different from most of the courses relating to animals taught at law schools. Unlike the course that I teach, which is all about the all-too-fragile law purporting to protect animals, she focuses on the reasons people should attend to animals and, specifically, the reasons they shouldn’t be eating them, or using them for other purposes. Since I had never run across a course quite like this in any law school, I invited Sherry to come on and talk about it, in the hopes that other law schools might adopt this approach, in addition to the more traditional animal law courses. After our conversation, I was so glad I did and I think you will feel the same way.
Sherry F. Colb earned an A.B. from Columbia College (Valedictorian) and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Before joining the Rutgers University faculty, she clerked for Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. She is currently the C.S. Wong Professor of Law at Cornell University. She has co-authored a book about the connection between animal rights and zygote rights, Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal Rights, and a book about animal rights, Mind If I Order the Cheeseburger? And Other Questions People Ask Vegans. She composes a bi-weekly column on Justia’s Verdict as well as regular posts on the blog, Dorf on Law.
**********
The Animal Law Podcast is proud to partner with The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc., a US-based national independent think tank pursuing a paradigm shift in human responsibility towards, and value of, non-human animals by advancing animal law, animal policy, and related interdisciplinary studies.
As the Animal Law Podcast 2021 Exclusive Sponsor, the The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, Inc is dedicated to producing and disseminating outstanding, independent, academic, and public policy research and programming; and pursuing projects and initiatives focused on advancing law and policy pertaining to animals.
The Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy is excited to share a new FREE resource: The Brooks Animal Law Digest – CANADA EDITION! This premier online publication offers in-depth and up-to-date coverage on Canada’s most important animal law and policy issues. It is published twice monthly as a collaborative effort with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s research support.
Like the Brooks Animal Law Digest – US Edition, the Canadian Digest serves as a resource for anyone interested in learning more about the field of animal law – either as a high-level overview of developments, or as a jumping off point for digging into a specific current issue in the field. All content will be accessible on the Brooks Institute website and spotlights via email twice monthly.
Click here to subscribe to the free Brooks Animal Law Digest – CANADA EDITION.
**********
You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a do...
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