US EPA to unveil factory farm manure restrictions
Date: 17-Dec-02
Country: USA
Author: Charles Abbott
Details remained sketchy, but the rules were expected to force farmers to do more to prevent leaks and spills from man-made lagoons commonly used to catch animal wastes at mammoth livestock feeding operations.
The Environmental Protection Agency and Agriculture Department scheduled a news conference on Monday afternoon to announce the new rules.
Farm groups have complained that it might cost $1 billion a year to comply with stricter water pollution requirements. The EPA was required to issue the regulation by a federal court order as part of a 1989 lawsuit filed by an activist seeking to protect the environment.
Some 13,000 CAFOs - concentrated animal feeding operations - would be required to obtain permits under the rules. A CAFO has at least 1,000 head of feeder cattle, 2,500 hogs or 30,000 broilers under one EPA definition.
"We believe the final rule will contain some significant cost factors for hog producers," Kara Flynn of the National Pork Producers Council said. "Some (producers) are going to be forced out, there's no doubt."
The rules would cover manure handling and require nutrient management plans and additional record-keeping by producers.
Flynn said EPA was likely to alter a proposal for "zero discharge" of pollutants from CAFOs to apply to new facilities, but not existing barns, feedlots and broiler houses.
'STEP BACKWARD'?
Environmental groups said the Bush administration did not go far enough to protect water and air.
The new rules still allow rudimentary open-air lagoons and the land application of animal waste, even though North Carolina and some other states have banned such systems on new farms, according to Environmental Defense.
"Factory farms discharge a staggering amount of contaminants into the atmosphere, and the EPA regulations fail to seriously address air emissions and their well-documented impacts on public health and water quality," said Dan Whittle, senior attorney with Environmental Defense. "The new rules are a major step backward."
During the past decade, factory farms have come to dominate U.S. production of beef, pork and poultry.
The National Academy of Sciences called last week for the EPA to adopt better ways to estimate air pollution and greenhouse gases from factory farms. Local residents often complain about odor, particulate matter and hydrogen sulfide gas emitted from animal manure on large farms.
Melanie Shepherdson of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued EPA in 1989 to force action on water pollution by livestock feeders, said the new rules would be weaker than a version proposed by the Clinton administration.
"This rule puts polluters first," Shepherdson said. "It's a raw deal for the environment."
MEATPACKERS NOT AFFECTED
The rules were not expected to require large meatpackers to be listed with farmers who are co-holders of CAFO permits. Without a co-permittee approach, meatpackers do not face liability for problems on the farm, activists said.
Although producers will be required to write plans for manure management, the rules would allow growers to keep the documents on the farm and make it difficult to know if producers were following their plans.
Environmentalists also were concerned the rule would allow states to create a general permit for all CAFOs, rather than a public process for crafting a permit for each operation. They also were watching for EPA's decision on storage capacity for lagoons in cases of heavy rain. Spills can contaminate streams unless the catchments hold large amounts of rain water.
With the impending CAFO rule in mind, Congress boosted funding for the USDA land stewardship programs by 80 percent in the new farm policy law enacted in May. Funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which shares with producers the cost for controlling manure run-off, was set at $900 million a year. It had been $200 million a year.