“Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment,” a new book being released next week, features in part the Yakima Valley.

Author David Kirby, a freelance writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y., recounts the mid- to late 1990s lawsuits against four dairy owners by the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment, or CARE. The dairies were sued for violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

Animal Factory has a definite point of view. Liner notes say the American food system has “gone terribly wrong.”

While three of the dairies settled, one did not: Hank Bosma of Zillah. After trial, Judge Edward Shea ruled that Bosma committed 16 violations of the act. He was fined more than $500,000, not including his own legal fees.

Kirby interviewed the key players, including Helen Reddout, the Granger orchardist and retired teacher who took on the industry, and Charlie Tebbutt, the Eugene, Ore., lawyer who represented CARE.

Kirby draws on court records and newspaper articles for his 452-page, heavily footnoted account. There are some interesting anecdotes, like Reddout’s unintentionally surreptitious recording of Bosma.

Bosma had come to Reddout’s home in an attempt to talk her out of filing the suit. (Reddout thought it was a threat.) Tensions were high in the Lower Valley because of the lawsuits.

Reddout had taped a note on her door announcing the household’s right to tape conversations but didn’t tell Bosma for the record that she was taping him or request his permission, a violation of state law.

The defense agreed not to prosecute Reddout if they could have a copy of the tape. The tape was played in court and actually benefited both sides. Bosma recounted how some of his fellow dairymen discharged manure into drains that empty into the Yakima River.

But he also committed to following the regulations on manure management and talked about costly improvements he had made at his two dairies.

The book recounts similar grass-roots movements against large-scale animal farming elsewhere in the country — hogs in North Carolina and chickens in the South and Midwest.

Kirby is also author of “Evidence of Harm,” which explores the controversy over a possible link between vaccines and autism.

The timing of “Animal Factory” is interesting. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is beginning to test a number of Lower Valley wells this week in an effort to trace the source of high nitrates in residential wells.

One likely culprit: dairy manure.

— Leah Beth Ward