EPA factory farm proposals anger activists

MSNBC.com | Environment

Count me in among the angry.

Thanks to a lawsuit lodged against the Environmental Protection Agency by Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Waterkeeper Alliance, a federal appeals court ordered the EPA to revise rules from 2003 that did not adequately protect waterways in the U.S. from factory farm animal waste. That the courts had to tell the EPA to do their job properly is bad enough, but the "fix" is even worse: Basically the EPA has put the fox in charge of the hen house.

Large factory-style chicken, hog and cattle farms might soon have to get permits from the Environment Protection Agency when animal waste from their operations finds its way into local rivers, streams and lakes.

The agency proposed the new requirement Thursday, but it said it will leave up to farmers to define what constitutes pollution, and that if it’s only stormwater, never mind.

A federal appeals court had ordered EPA to also consider issuing new standards for controlling disease-causing bacteria, viruses and parasites in farm runoff. The agency opted not to adopt any.

So on top of handing over the protection of our environment to Big Ag, whose primary concern is profits -- environment be damned -- the EPA was so bold as to flat-out ignore a major instruction from the court.

With the EPA on their side, the industry is quite happy. Now they can do whatever they want:

“Pork producers can decide for themselves if they will need a federal Clean Water Act permit as they meet these standards, or if they want to meet these standards while not getting a federal permit,” said Randy Spronk, a producer from Edgerton, Minn., and chairman of the National Pork Producer Council’s environment committee. “Either way, we can have an effective regulatory program.”

As the NRDC's Melanie Shepherdson put it: “[The FDA is] letting the factory farms police themselves, which flies in the face of the whole purpose of the Clean Water Act permitting process.”

While the author here includes a quote from an activist that uses the term "factory farm," the rest of the article is careful to avoid it, though we're given a clear enough picture that the visual it conjures is quite apt:

At issue are about 18,800 concentrated animal-feeding operations, which contribute up to 60 percent of all the manure generated by farms that confine animals, according to EPA. Those farms generate 500 million tons of manure annually.

That's a lot of crap.

And so is the EPA's requirement, as proposed. Environmental protection does not seem to be as important to the agency as toadying up to the Bush Administration's agribusiness buddies.

Tags: EPA | factory farm | CAFO