from washington post:
U.S. Plans Rules to Curb Livestock Waste
Pollution
By Peter S. Goodman and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 14, 1998; Page A1
The Clinton administration plans to announce this week a move to crack
down on a major source of pollution in rivers and streams by requiring the
nation's largest livestock farms to develop plans to store animal waste as a
condition of remaining in business, administration officials said.
The long-awaited "national strategy" for managing livestock waste will call
for tougher oversight of the nation's increasing number of factory-like
animal feedlots, from Eastern Maryland's pervasive poultry farms to
warehouse-size hog barns in North Carolina.
The plan, to be released on Thursday, would require the largest facilities
to obtain permits to operate and to develop detailed waste-management
plans by 2003, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post.
Farms that fail to control pollution would face fines and a revocation of
their permits.
Tens of thousands of smaller farms would be encouraged to adopt similar
guidelines voluntarily by 2008 - in many cases with technical and financial
assistance from federal and state agencies.
The strategy, developed jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency
and the Department of Agriculture, was promised by President Clinton in
February as part of a major offensive aimed at reducing polluted runoff -
the primary threat to water quality in rivers and streams. A key source of
the pollution, the EPA says, is large livestock farms that produce many of
the 7.6 billion broiler chickens and 161 million cows and hogs raised in the
United States each year. Farm animals annually generate 1.4 billion tons of
manure which, if improperly managed, can contaminate water supplies and
trigger algae blooms that choke waterways and kill fish.
While declining to comment on specific details of the plan, administration
officials confirmed last week that the final plan will not differ markedly
from the draft, which they described as a balanced approach. "We believe
the final document will accomplish the goal of protecting the nation's water
from agricultural runoff without burdening America's farms," said Charles
Fox, EPA's assistant administrator for water.
Under current federal laws, large livestock farms are prohibited from
discharging waste directly into rivers and streams, but the rules do not
prevent waste from being washed off farmland by rain.
Reaction to the new rules was mixed, with farmers fearing financial
hardship from tighter regulations and some politicians and environmental
groups suggesting the strategy did not go far enough.
Particularly controversial are the threshold numbers that define which
farms would be forced to obtain permits. Under the draft version of the
guidelines, mandatory requirements apply only to farms with more than
1,000 "animal units," which translates to 1,000 beef cattle, 2,500 hogs or
100,000 broilers. Smaller farms could be brought into a mandatory
regimen in areas where there are significant water quality problems or an
excessive numbers of farms.
"It isn't as strict as I would like," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who
has drafted legislation to limit farm pollution. Harkin said he hoped to
persuade the two federal agencies to bring smaller farms under the new
regulatory umbrella.
Environmentalists worried that the new permits would generally be granted
as a matter of right, without local inspections, and without provisions for
local communities to challenge the amount of pollution allowed.
"When a huge factory farm comes to town, all they have to do is notify the
authorities and they're permitted to operate," said Robbin Marks, a senior
policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.
"If you're talking about a facility of hundreds of thousands of animals and
the potential for huge amounts of pollution, you'd want to get out and see
it before the facility begins operations."
In Maryland, where livestock waste has been linked by some scientists to
outbreaks by the fish-killing microbe Pfiesteria piscicida, state regulators
embraced the plan. This year, Maryland adopted the nation's strictest set
of regulations on agricultural pollution in the hopes of starving pfiesteria,
which last summer sickened people and killed fish on several Chesapeake
Bay tributaries. Scientists believe manure washing off farms is a major
source of fuel for the microbe.
Maryland Secretary of the Environment Jane Nishida said the federal
strategy should establish "a level playing field for Maryland farmers,"
ensuring that all other states are also regulating against agricultural
pollution.
But on the Eastern Shore, where the poultry industry has become a focus
of efforts to clean up the bay, the plan appears likely to reignite debate
about who should pay for new pollution-limiting programs: brand-name
poultry companies such as Perdue Farms, which own the birds, or
growers who raise them under contract.
At a town meeting last week in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore,
several poultry growers complained they cannot afford the costs of a
cleanup effort. They called on federal authorities to force the big
companies to pay.
"Chicken litter is a byproduct of a chicken that we don't own," said one
grower, David Barnes. "Somehow, the responsibility of that litter gets
transferred to the poultry grower."
According to several people with knowledge of internal agency
discussions, the EPA tried but failed to insert language into the plan calling
on the companies to provide funds for pollution programs, but the USDA
resisted and won the argument.
W. Michael McCabe, EPA regional administrator for the mid-Atlantic,
has frequently expressed frustration with the big companies, asserting that
they have failed to advance a credible means of limiting pollution. "Every
time we have gotten close to talking about any of the tough issues - who
pays - they have backed off," McCabe said at the Salisbury meeting. "My
great fear is this whole environmental problem is going to land on the
backs of the growers."
The permits required of larger farms will commit an owner to follow
certain practices to reduce the risk of pollution. A key requirement is that
each farm have a professionally prepared "conservation nutrient
management plan" that spells out precisely how the owner will collect and
store manure, as well as how the waste might be applied to fields as
fertilizer. Owners would be obliged to keep detailed records and to test
their soil regularly to ensure that there is no excess buildup of nutrients that
could potentially cause trouble for nearby waterways.
Once guidelines are announced, the largest farms - those with more than
10,000 animal units - would be required to obtain general permits by
2003, with other large farms falling under the rules by 2005. Smaller farms
that would be brought into the regulatory program would have another
three years to comply.
c Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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