[Senate Hearing 110-1180]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-1180
EXAMINATION OF THE POTENTIAL HUMAN HEALTH, WATER QUALITY AND OTHER
IMPACTS OF THE CONFINED ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATION INDUSTRY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 6, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman
MAX BAUCUS, Montana JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming1
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri
Bettina Poirier, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Andrew Wheeler, Minority Staff Director
------
1Note: During the 110th Congress, Senator Craig
Thomas, of Wyoming, passed away on June 4, 2007. Senator John
Barrasso, of Wyoming, joined the committee on July 10, 2007.
C O N T E N T S
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Page
September 6, 2007
OPENING STATEMENTS
Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California... 1
Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma... 15
Bond, Hon. Christopher S., U.S. Senator from the State of
Missouri....................................................... 86
WITNESSES
Hirsch, Robert, Associate Director for Water, U.S. Geological
Survey......................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Grumbles, Benjamin H., Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency................................ 9
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Edmondson, Drew, Attorney General, Oklahoma Office of Attorney
General........................................................ 17
Prepared statement........................................... 19
Sims, Olin, President, National Association of Conservation
Districts...................................................... 49
Prepared statement........................................... 51
Bonacquisti, Thomas P., Water Quality Program Manager, Loudoun
County Sanitation Authority, VA, and Association of
Metropolitan Water Agencies.................................... 57
Prepared statement........................................... 59
Blackham, Leonard, Commissioner, Utah Department of Agriculture
and Food and National Association of State Departments of
Agriculture.................................................... 62
Prepared statement........................................... 64
Fitzsimmons, Catharine, Chief, Air Quality Bureau, Iowa
Department of Natural Resources and National Association of
Clean Air Agencies............................................. 70
Prepared statement........................................... 71
Chinn, Chris, Farmer, American Farm Bureau Federation............ 90
Prepared statement........................................... 91
Nemec, Nick, Farmer, Western Organization of Resource Councils
And Dakota Rural Action........................................ 96
Prepared statement........................................... 98
Dicks, Michael, Oklahoma State University........................ 101
Prepared statement........................................... 103
Dove, Rick, Community Representative............................. 115
Prepared statement........................................... 117
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Articles:
The Plain Dealer; Looking out for farmer Goliath............. 146
The Idaho Stateman; Pollution exemption for dairies stinks... 147
The Register-Guard; Unlovely lagoons......................... 148
The Salt Lake City Tribune; Politics stinks, Manure factories
don't rate protection...................................... 149
Kansas City Star; Neighbors say nearby dairy farm
contaminates their wells with manure....................... 150
Brief of Amicus Curiae Texas Departments of Agriculture In
Support of Defendent's Motions Regarding Dimissal of CERCLA
Claims......................................................... 153
Brochure; Caliornia Dairy Quality Assurance Program.............. 174
Letters:
The United States Conference of Mayors....................... 176
State of New York, Office of Attorney General................ 179
National League of Cities.................................... 180
National Association of Counties............................. 181
City of Tulsa Oklahoma, Office of Mayor Kathy Taylor......... 182
City of Waco, City Manager's Office.......................... 183
Hidden View Dairy............................................ 186
State of Iowa, Department of Natural Resources............... 188
State Attorney's General; A Communication from the Chief
Legal Officers of the Following States: California,
Connecticut, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma,
Wisconsin.................................................. 189
Statements:
Steve Kouplen, President of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and
Director on the American Farm Bureau Federation Board...... 193
NACAA, National Association of Clean Air Agencies............ 200
NACCHO, National Association of County & City Health
Officials.................................................. 203
Arlen L. Lancaster, Chief Natural Resources Conservation
Service U.S. Department of Agriculture..................... 204
John D. Dingell & James L. Oberstar, Ranking members of the
Committees with Jurisdiction Over Superfund and the Clean
Water Act.................................................. 213
New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets........... 214
American Public Health Association........................... 225
Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies................... 226
DeMoines Water Works, Source Water Contamination from Animal
Waste...................................................... 228
Farmers for Clean Air & Water, Inc........................... 229
EXAMINATION OF THE POTENTIAL HUMAN HEALTH, WATER QUALITY AND OTHER
IMPACTS OF THE CONFINED ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATION INDUSTRY
----------
Thursday, September 6, 2007
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The full committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in
room 406, Senate Dirksen Building, Hon. Barbara Boxer (chairman
of the full committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Carper, Lautenberg, Bond
and Barrasso.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Boxer. We are here today to hold a hearing, which I
call to order, on a critically important public health issue,
concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. CAFOs are
industrialized animal production facilities including some that
can hold more than one million animals. I want to ensure that
there is a clear picture of the significant environmental and
health issues that stem from these facilities.
There is currently a proposal that would exempt CAFOs from
important environmental and public health safeguards, in
particular from the public reporting or right to know
provisions of the Superfund Law. The proposal also would
eliminate provisions that ensure polluters pay to clean up
their mess.
People deserve to have a clear understanding of the
environmental threats in their communities, so they can make
informed decisions to protect themselves and their families.
These environmental protection laws also ensure that where
there has been damage caused by these facilities and there have
been numerous instances of air and water pollution,
contamination of wells and other water supplies, the parties
responsible can be held accountable and pay to clean up the
mess they made. Proposals to weaken accountability for CAFOs
pollution undermine public health and the public's right to
know about pollution, and I believe it would be bad news for
the American taxpayer.
Proposals to roll back environmental protections on CAFOs
have sometimes been portrayed as a non-controversial issue, but
in fact there have been serious consequences, including deaths,
connected with CAFOs across the Country. Just this year, five
people--four members of a family and a farmhand--died in
Rockingham County, VA, when the father was overcome by hydrogen
sulfide gas from their dairy farm manure pit that he was trying
to repair. Others died from breathing the gas while trying to
save him.
The waste can increase phosphorus levels in water, causing
algal blooms that can foul drinking water supplies, increase
treatment costs and cause massive fish kills. CAFOs can create
significant air pollution including foul odors, ammonia,
volatile organic compounds and hydrogen sulfide. CAFOs' air
pollution can exceed the amounts emitted by industrial
facilities.
Let me repeat that: CAFOs' air pollution can exceed the
amounts emitted by industrial facilities.
When the proponents of these proposals come to me, they all
say, well, you know, farms are different than industry.
Well, in a lot of ways they are, but in this way, in some
cases, it could be worse in terms of the pollution.
I believe this hearing will contribute to the public's
clear understanding of the threats to environmental and health
associated with these facilities. Well managed agricultural
operations can avoid serious environmental and public health
consequences. Rollbacks on environmental reporting and polluter
pays requirements will greatly increase the risks that these
facilities can pose to local communities.
That concludes my statement.
[The prepared statement of Senator Boxer follows:]
Statement of Hon. Barabara Boxer, U.S. Senator
from the State of California
We are here today to hold a hearing on a critically
important public health issue--Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations, or ``CAFOs''.
CAFOs are industrialized animal production facilities,
including some that can hold more than 1 million animals.
I want to ensure that there is a clear picture of the
significant environmental and health issues that stem from
these facilities.
There is currently a proposal that would exempt CAFOs from
important environmental and public health safeguards--in
particular from the public reporting or ``right to know''
provisions of the Superfund law. The proposal also would
eliminate provisions that ensure polluters pay to clean up up
their mess.
People deserve to have a clear understanding of the
environmental threats in their communities so they can make
informed decisions to protect themselves and their families.
These environmental protection laws also ensure that where
there has been damage caused by these facilities--and there
have been numerous instances of air and water pollution and
contamination of wells and other water supplies--the parties
responsible can be held accountable and pay to clean up their
messes.
Proposals to weaken accountability for CAFO pollution
undermine public health and the public's right to know about
pollution, and would be bad news for the American taxpayer.
Proposals to roll back environmental protections on CAFOs
have sometimes been portrayed as a non-controversial issue, but
in fact there have been serious consequences--including
deaths-- connected with CAFOs across the country.
Just this year, five people--four members of a family and a
farm hand--died in Rockingham County, Virginia when the father
was overcome by hydrogen sulfide gas from their dairy farm
manure pit that he was trying to repair, and others died from
breathing the gas while trying to save him.
The waste can increase phosphorus levels in water, causing
algae blooms that can foul drinking water supplies, increase
treatment costs, and cause massive fish kills.
CAFOs can create significant air pollution, including foul
odors, ammonia, volatile organic compounds and hydrogen
sulfide. CAFOs' air pollution can exceed the amounts emitted by
industrial facilities.
I believe this hearing will contribute to the public's
clear understanding of the threats to environmental and health
associated with these facilities.
Well managed agricultural operations can avoid serious
environmental and public health consequences. Rollbacks on
environmental reporting and ``polluter-pays'' requirements will
greatly increase the risk that these facilities can pose to
local communities.
Senator Boxer. I want to put in the record, and I ask
unanimous consent to do it, the list of State and local
officials, public health, farm and environmental groups who
oppose weakening health protections and the polluter pays
principle. I may make reference to this later.
[The referenced material follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Boxer. We are very pleased to have with us a couple
of great panels. It is not that we want to rush you. It is that
we want to get to all of you. So I am going to be tough on the
5-minute rule. I am going to say as soon as we have 30 seconds
to go, I am going to say finish up, and we are going to move
on.
When Senator Inhofe, I will turn to him for his opening
statement.
We will start off with panel one, and we are going to go
this way across. We will start Robert Hirsch, Associate
Director for Water, U.S. Geological Survey.
Welcome, sir, and you are on.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT HIRSCH, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR WATER, U.S.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
Mr. Hirsch. Thank you.
Madam Chairman and Committee members, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before the Committee on Environment and
Public Works to testify on U.S. Geological Survey studies of
water quality issues related to CAFOs.
I am Dr. Robert M. Hirsch, Associate Director for Water,
the U.S. Geological Survey.
My written statement contains a number of specific findings
from USGS studies and contains a reference list of USGS
publications from which the testimony was developed. My oral
remarks will briefly summarize that material, and I request
that my full statement be entered into the record.
Senator Boxer. Without objection.
Mr. Hirsch. The mission of the USGS is to assess the
quantity and quality of the Earth's natural resources and to
provide scientific information to help resource managers and
policymakers at the Federal, State and local levels to make
sound decisions. Assessment of water quality conditions and
research on the fate and transport of pollutants and water are
important parts of the USGS mission.
We work closely with EPA, USDA, the Fish and Wildlife
Service and public health agencies like the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention to ensure that the results of our
research and monitoring are useful and widely available.
The quality of our Nation's water is affected by many
things including geologic factors such as naturally occurring
metals and atmospheric deposition of various substances. In
addition, activities on the landscape such as urban and
suburban development, agriculture, mining and energy production
all affect water quality.
CAFOs are a relatively new and rapidly changing factor
which the USGS is studying as part of its mission to understand
the Nation's water quality and what influences it. USGS studies
over the past 10 years have shown that CAFO impacts can include
a wide variety of contaminants in many different environmental
settings.
The USGS and other organizations have investigated impacts
from CAFOs that include the following: nutrients that cause
hypoxia or harmful algal blooms or could contaminate drinking
water sources, trace elements such as arsenic and copper that
can affect fish and aquatic plants, pathogens such as bacteria,
viruses and parasites, antibiotics that could foster the
development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens and hormones that
could influence fish reproductive capability.
USGS research has focused on five major areas of
investigation that are designed to track contaminants from
their sources through the environment and to animal and human
receptors. These research topics are development of methods for
identifying and quantifying veterinary medicines, naturally
occurring hormones, pathogens, surfactants and other compounds
which are not typically monitored in the environment but which
are likely to be associated with a variety of sources including
non-concentrated animal production, CAFOs and sewage treatment
plants.
The second area of study is quantifying relative
contributions and types of environmental contaminants
originating in CAFO waste.
Third, documenting and understanding the direct and
indirect pathways of these contaminants in the environment.
Fourth, developing source fingerprinting or source tracking
techniques that use genetic, chemical and microbial approaches
to identify sources of environmental contaminants. These
fingerprinting techniques may have the potential to enable
water quality scientists to discriminate between contaminants
coming from CAFOs and those coming from sewage treatment plants
or other sources.
And, finally, investigating potential individual and
community level ecological health issues that have been
hypothesized to arise from CAFO contamination. These issues
include eutrophication and oxygen depletion, diseases from
pathogens, antibiotic resistance and endocrine disruption.
Through our research and monitoring, the USGS has found
CAFOs to be a source of nutrients such as nitrogen and
phosphorus and ammonia, pharmaceuticals including both
synthetic and naturally occurring compounds and metals like
arsenic and copper in nearby waters and lands receiving wastes.
Ongoing research at the USGS is focused on comparisons of
the importance of CAFOs sources to other common sources.
Accurate identification of sources and movement of waste
contaminants requires more research on degradation and
metabolic products from the many compounds used in animal
agriculture.
The USGS will continue to work closely with EPA, the USDA,
the Fish and Wildlife Service and public health agencies as we
move forward on these issues.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the results of
USGS' assessments and research on CAFOs, and I am happy to
respond to questions from the Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hirsch follows:]
Statement of Robert Hirsch, Associate Director for Water,
U.S. Geological Survey
Madam Chairman and Committee members, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before the Committee on Environment and
Public Works to testify on the findings of U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS) studies of water-quality issues related to
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, commonly referred to as
CAFOs.
As you may know, the mission of the USGS is to assess the
quantity and the quality of the earth's resources and to
provide information to assist resource managers and
policymakers at the Federal, State, and local levels in making
sound decisions. Assessment of water-quality conditions and
research on the fate and transport of pollutants in water are
important parts of the overall USGS mission.
USGS studies over the past 10 years have shown that CAFO
impacts can include a wide variety of contaminants in many
different environmental settings. The USGS and other
organizations have investigated impacts from CAFOs that include
the following: nutrients and their proximity to receiving
waters that could cause hypoxia, harmful algal blooms, or
contaminate drinking water sources; trace elements such as
arsenic and copper that can contaminate surface waters and
affect fish and aquatic plants; pathogens such as bacteria,
viruses, and parasites; antibiotics that could foster the
development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens; pesticides and
hormones that can influence changes in fish reproductive
capability; and solids from feed and feathers that could limit
growth of desirable aquatic plants.
USGS research has centered on five major areas of
investigation which are designed to track contaminants from
their sources, through the environment, and to animal and human
receptors:
1. analytical method development
2. occurrence and relative source contributions of specific
chemical and microbial contaminants and their mixtures
3. pathways into and through the environment
4. source fingerprinting, and
5. ecological effects. These areas of research are designed
to provide scientific insights into potential public and
ecological health impacts as well as provide management and
policy decisionmakers with CAFO related information.
analytical method development
The first step in assessing potential environmental
contamination from CAFOs is to anticipate and identify
chemicals and microbes that are likely to be associated with
CAFO wastes and effluents. USGS scientists continually develop
new methods for identifying and quantifying veterinary
medicines, naturally occurring hormones, pathogens,
surfactants, and other compounds which are not typically
monitored in environmental settings but which are likely to be
associated with a variety of sources including, non-confined
animal production, CAFOs, and sewage treatment plants. Indeed
much of our research related to CAFO impacts on the environment
thus far has focused on analytical method development for a
range of these potential contaminants in various environmental
matrices including water, sediment, and animal tissue.
occurrence and relative source contributions
Because environmental contaminants have many sources, the
USGS is quantifying relative contributions and types of
environmental contaminants originating in CAFO wastes. The
intent is to understand environmental contaminants that are
specific to CAFO operations.
CAFOs can be sources of nutrient introduction to the
environment. Around the Nation, the USGS finds that relative to
other sources (atmospheric sources, synthetic fertilizers, or
point source nitrogen), manures were shown to be the single
largest source of nitrogen for some rivers, such as the
Susquehanna (PA), Altamaha (GA), Apalachicola (FL), White (AR),
San Joaquin (CA), and the Fox (WI). Manures are the second
largest source of nitrogen for the Potomac (VA, MD), Trinity
(TX), Rio Grande (NM), Snake (ID), Platte (NE), and Willamette
(OR). In the Neuse River Basin of North Carolina, we have found
that nitrogen concentrations in groundwaters near or under
areas treated with liquid swine waste tend to be higher than
areas treated with synthetic fertilizers. After 4 years of
application, nitrogen concentrations from swine waste increased
by 3.5 times in shallow groundwater compared to concentrations
prior to application, and median nitrate concentrations were
about double from swine spray applications compared to
commercial fertilizer. In Oklahoma, shallow monitoring wells
were tested around CAFO hog operations from the central part of
the State to the northwest, and these monitoring wells
indicated considerably higher nitrate concentrations than for
monitoring wells away from CAFO installations. For 79 wells
sampled in 2001, median nitrate concentrations in wells
affected by animal operations were near 30 mg/L versus about 15
mg/L for wells mostly affected by fertilizer applications.
These studies indicate a substantial influence from CAFO
operations on nitrogen concentration in the underlying aquifer,
and although the wells tested were not used for drinking water,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drinking water nitrate
standard of 10 mg/L was exceeded.
A study conducted in the Stillwater Basin in Ohio examined
runoff from agricultural fields for a variety of contaminants.
The study showed that veterinary antibiotics, particularly
lincomycin (detected in 23 percent of samples), were present
more frequently in streams draining watersheds with the highest
animal density. Antibiotics introduced to the environment from
the many CAFO type operations are of interest because of their
potential for causing antibiotic-resistant bacteria to
proliferate. In a reconnaissance water sampling of fish
hatcheries in 7 States from 2001 to 2003, the USGS found
aquaculture-approved antibiotics at low concentrations in about
15--30 percent of samples from hatchery water.
The USGS conducted a study near a National Wildlife Refuge
in Nebraska to determine the impacts of swine operations on
fecal bacteria occurrence. For the area near hog operations in
Nebraska, we found that the CAFO was a potential source of
zoonotic bacterial pathogens like salmonella. Wetlands created
from swine waste-water effluent had 5-50 fold greater
concentrations of phosphorus, ammonia, and total nitrogen, and
2-3 fold greater salinity compared to control sites.
Cyanobacteria were abundant in the created wetlands and
microcystin toxins were also detected in three of six wetlands
sampled water samples.
CAFO operations may also be sources of metals like copper
and arsenic. Often these metals are used as feed amendments to
enhance animal growth. Organic arsenic feed additives are used
in poultry production for increasing weight gain, improving
feed efficiency and pigmentation, and controlling bacterial and
parasitic disease. The USGS has done reconnaissance for arsenic
on the Delmarva Peninsula in areas dominated by poultry
production. From our examination of storm water, soil water and
shallow groundwater, it is evident that some arsenic from
poultry operations is released to the environment because
concentrations in fresh poultry litter were about 10 times the
concentrations found in soil of the area. Concentrations in
most samples in the Delmarva were generally below the drinking
water standard of 10L (parts per billion).
USGS water-quality research continues to show that
contaminants in water resources seldom occur alone and more
commonly occur in mixtures with other contaminants, including
combinations of naturally occurring or man-made inorganic,
organic, or microbial contaminant groups. These mixtures
sometimes originate from similar sources but often come from
varied sources contributing contaminants to our watersheds and
aquifers
pathways into and through the environment
CAFO wastes can enter the environment directly though
leaching under lagoons, ditching, or other direct hydraulic
connections or they can enter indirectly when solid and liquid
wastes are removed from CAFOs and applied to land elsewhere as
nutrient and soil amendments. Once in the environment, various
properties of chemical and microbial contaminants as well as
interactions with ambient conditions will determine their
movement and behavior. For example, some contaminants have a
natural affinity to attach to soils or organic material and
therefore tend to be sequestered close to the sources of
contamination while others readily dissolve in water and may
move long distances from the introduction location. The type of
soil, amount of organic material, and indigenous bacterial
populations it contains may facilitate or retard the movement
of various contaminants.
In one study around hog operations in Iowa where
tetracycline was used, we did not find the antibiotic in the
groundwater or even the lagoon berm, probably because
tetracycline is known to sorb to solids and the area soil is
rich in organic matter. In contrast near a hog operation in
North Carolina where both tetracycline and sulfamethazine are
used, tetracycline was not found in monitoring wells near the
lagoons, but the sulfamethazine was found. Sulfamethazine is
known to be much more mobile in water than tetracycline.
Poultry litter is applied to croplands in the North
Carolina coastal plain as a nutrient source, as it is in many
areas across the Nation, and the application increased shallow
ground-water concentrations of nitrogen more than synthetic
fertilizer applications in the vicinity. This is an important
finding because synthetic sources of nitrogen are typically
applied in readily available forms to plants as opposed to
manures, which require additional natural processing after
application and likely remain in the soils for longer periods
of time. Therefore the time between animal fertilizer
application and when their nutrients become available to plants
dictates the volume needed as well as timing of application,
and understanding these factors will be crucial to finding
effective management solutions. In contrast to the North
Carolina study, however, USGS research in southwestern
Missouri, where poultry operations are also concentrated, did
not find that nitrogen concentrations increased in shallow
groundwater after several years of poultry litter application
was used as a soil amendment. These differences likely
represent soil and geohydrologic property differences between
the two areas studied and the time period over which the
studies were conducted. The results suggest that it is
difficult to make broad generalized statements about CAFO
impacts to the environment from these studies of limited
geographic and temporal scope.
Movement of contaminants in CAFO waste also depends on farm
operations and local environmental conditions, and may reflect
the hydrologic or precipitation conditions at time of sampling.
In addition, hormones and other chemicals are excreted in a
changed or transformed form after being metabolized by animals
and therefore have different toxicological, chemical, and
physiological characteristics than before they are metabolized.
Waters draining land where animals have been raised on pasture
and not subject to CAFO finishing will likely have unique
chemical signatures. These differences in water chemistries
must be understood in context with the individual species of
animals raised in CAFOs as compared with their pastured
counterparts in order to understand contaminant issues unique
to CAFO management procedures. All these factors along with the
many sources of waste products from human and animal activity
contribute to wide variation in environmental conditions at or
near CAFO operations.
source fingerprinting
In addition to development of laboratory analytical methods
for specific contaminants, the USGS is focusing on development
of ``source-fingerprinting'' or ``source-tracking'' techniques
to identify various waste, and other, sources of environmental
contaminants. These efforts include genetic as well as chemical
and microbial approaches but all share the common objective of
identifying one or a few chemicals/microbes which, when
detected in environmental waters, can be unambiguously traced
back to a unique contaminant source.
As mentioned before, there are many varied sources of
nitrogen to the environment and therefore we believe it is
important to determine the different sources of nitrogen in
surface and groundwaters. The USGS is developing tools to
identify sources of nitrogen from CAFOs using nitrogen isotopes
and elements such as calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium.
In test wells located in fields sprayed with swine waste,
concentrations increased after spraying by 2 to 4 times for
many elements and an isotope of nitrogen (nitrogen-15), thereby
indicating that the source of contamination was the swine
waste.
Because CAFO areas can be an important source of bacteria
and other pathogens, and the antibiotics from these areas can
lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria, the USGS has been
developing microbial source tracking methods to determine
pathogen contamination of environmental waters associated with
livestock sources. The approach is to distinguish the origins
of gut microbes based on source-specific characteristics such
as individual species that are host specific, like bacteroides
found only in humans and therefore indicative of human waste
sources, or bacteria populations resistant to antibiotics
commonly used by humans versus other animals, or looking for
genetic markers that indicate specific host-microbe
interactions. While advances in these methods have been made in
recent years, microbes are most often found in complex mixtures
of waters from many waste sources originating from animals
exposed to various food and other sources of chemicals and
microbes. These, and other complexities, produce ambiguous
results even within organism specific identification
procedures.
In one study on biosolids applications in agricultural
fields in Colorado, molybdenum and tungsten, and to a lesser
degree antimony, cadmium, cobalt, copper, mercury, nickel,
phosphorus, and selenium, were determined the most likely
inorganic indicators of chemical migration from biosolid
applications on land to groundwater or surface water. Other
approaches have included indicators that occur infrequently in
nature but are associated with specific uses and waste sources.
While these fingerprinting techniques are not yet fully
developed, they will soon be used alone or in conjunction with
each other to enable the unambiguous distinction between
contaminants coming from CAFOs and the many other potential
sources of specific contaminants. This capability will be
crucial for management and policy decisions unique to CAFO
sources of environmental contamination.
ecological effects
Because most USGS research thus far has focused on methods
development and occurrence activities we are still in the
beginnings of investigating potential ecological health effects
of CAFOs. USGS research is focused on individual as well as
community-level ecological health issues such as
eutrophication/hypoxia of nearby waters, diseases from
pathogens, antibiotic resistance, and endocrine disruption.
Preliminary results have shown that fecal indicator
bacteria counts in surface waters downstream of hog operations
in Nebraska have exceeded Federal concentration standards for
contact recreation, and the majority of bacterial isolates
tested were resistant to at least one antibiotic, usually
tetracycline. Initial results from the study in Nebraska near a
National Wildlife Refuge indicate that impacts to created
wetlands from nearby hog operations could pose a threat to
waterfowl health due to pathogen exposure. In Oklahoma near
cattle and hog operations, the findings were similar and
although bacteria concentrations in Oklahoma were generally
lower, they have exceeded Federal standards for contact
recreation. In addition, resistance to antibiotics used in
animal agriculture was common among fecal indicator organisms
found in the Oklahoma study, especially gram positives, which
includes many well-known genera such as Bacillus, Listeria,
Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus, and Clostridium.
Information from studies in the literature and preliminary
studies by USGS have guided us to focus future CAFO research on
the spread of antibiotic resistance and the effects of
hormonally active chemicals.
summary
The USGS has found CAFOs to be a source of nutrient,
pharmaceutical, and metal contaminants in nearby waters and
lands receiving wastes. Additional research is needed to
determine the relative source contributions and environmental
behavior of contaminants originating from a range of animal and
land-use operations to make scientifically credible management
and policy decisions specific to CAFOs. Identification of
sources and movement of waste contaminants requires more
research on degradation and metabolic products from the many
compounds used in animal agriculture, especially
pharmaceuticals in various feed mixtures, therapies, and
environmental settings. Some potential ecological effects have
been hypothesized and are currently under investigation,
including the role of CAFOs in eutrophication of receiving
waters, wildlife exposure to pathogens and endocrine
disruptors, and development of antibiotic resistance.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the results of
USGS assessments and research on CAFOs. I am happy to respond
to any questions from the Committee.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so very much.
Next, we will hear from Benjamin Grumbles, Assistant
Administrator for Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN H. GRUMBLES, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR
WATER, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Mr. Grumbles. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you,
members of the Committee. I appreciate the honor to appear
before the Committee to discuss this matter, which is a very
important one, and represent EPA. It is an honor to be here.
EPA is working to accelerate the pace of environmental
protection while maintaining our Country's economic and
agricultural competitiveness.
I just want to say at the outset, Madam Chairman, that we
recognize there are risks. There are substantial and
significant risks from improper management of manure, from
CAFOs in various respects, and the Agency is taking many
actions with many partners on many fronts to advance the ball.
The first thing I would like to do is to say that over the
years, EPA and USDA have recognized, both in this
Administration and the previous administration, the importance
of advancing efforts on nutrient management at CAFOs throughout
the Country. CAFOs, as Bob Hirsch indicated, are changing.
There is definitely a trend toward larger and more concentrated
and intensive production efforts.
We also have concerns about the carrying capacity of
certain watersheds, and so our approach, our strategy has been
and will continue to be to use both the regulatory and
statutory tools we have but most importantly to truly advance
cooperative conservation and the voluntary programs and tools
that are out there.
One of the items that I think is a national model is the
California Dairy Quality Assurance Program. This is something
that EPA is pleased to be a supporter of. That example as well
as examples in the Chesapeake Bay, throughout the Country,
demonstrate that voluntary efforts, education, producer
education about nutrient management and what requirements exist
under Federal environmental laws will lead us toward greater
progress.
The next thing I would like to do is highlight some very
important programs we have at EPA that we are stepping up the
pace on. One is under the Clean Water Act, and that is the CAFO
Rule. In February 2003, Madam Chairman, the Agency issued a
final rule on CAFOs which made substantial improvements over
the rule from the 1970's.
It reduced the level of exemptions. It expanded the
universe. It clarified that land application of manure was
subject to Clean Water Act regulatory requirements. It took
several important steps.
We have been focusing for years on implementation of that
rule, and we will continue to do so. It is important.
In the meantime, a very important development occurred, and
that was a Federal court decision, the Waterkeepers decision in
the Second Circuit. By and large, a large majority of that rule
that this Administration issued was upheld. However, there were
some key issues where we had to go back to the drawing board.
Madam Chairman, we are working on that as fast as we can,
and we intend. The Administrator is looking to finalize that
rule by the end of this year.
The next thing I would like to mention are some of the
other efforts we are doing on the voluntary basis. We are
working very closely with our State partners and the
Departments of Agriculture throughout the Country to advance
the knowledge and information on nutrient management,
particularly under the Clean Water Act programs and
authorities.
We have worked to help with a website for producer
information and technology training. Our Agency has stepped up
to the plate and held numerous training and workshop sessions,
all about implementing that improved and revised February, 2003
rule.
The last thing I would focus on, Madam Chairman, is the
importance of looking at other aspects and potential risks that
may arise from concentrated animal feeding operations. One of
those is through the air emissions as you mentioned.
The Agency, in 2005, released an air compliance agreement,
and the goal there, Madam Chairman, is to increase knowledge
about air emissions, to be able to have a good scientific
understanding of how to characterize those risks and to further
improve efforts under the Clean Air Act and to ensure that the
air is clean and safe.
So we are very excited about that effort as well as working
under other authorities that we have under other Federal
programs, working in partnership with the agencies and with
producers across the Country.
Madam Chairman, I am happy to answer questions that you or
your colleagues may have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Grumbles follows:]
Statement of Benjamin H. Grubles, Assistant Administrator for Water
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
i. introduction
Madame Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am Benjamin
H. Grumbles, Assistant Administrator for Water at the United
States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Thank you for the
opportunity to discuss EPA's programs and actions to protect
water quality and public health from potential adverse effects
of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). We are
taking important actions, on many fronts with many partners, to
accelerate the pace of environmental protection, while
maintaining our country's economic and agricultural
competitiveness.
ii. human health, water quality and other effects of the concentrated
animal feeding operation industry
Nationally, there are an estimated 1.3 million farms with
livestock. About 238,000 of these farms are considered animal
feeding operations (AFOs) ? agriculture enterprises where
animals are kept and raised in confinement. Feed is brought to
the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise
seeking feed in pastures. AFOs annually produce more than 500
million tons of animal manure. If properly managed, these
operations may minimize environmental impacts and provide
valuable by-products; however, if improperly managed, the
manure from these operations can pose substantial risks to the
environment and public health.
Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) are operations where
animals are kept and raised in confined situations for at least
45 days/year and vegetation is not present in the confined area
(to distinguish it from grazing operations). An operation must
meet the definition of an AFO before it can be defined or
designated as a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).
CAFOs are further defined as a large or medium CAFOs based
primarily upon the number and type of animals confined at the
operation. Additionally, an AFO that does not meet either of
these definitions may be ``designated'' as a Small CAFO if it
is determined to be a significant contributor of pollutants to
waters of the US.
An ongoing trend toward fewer but larger farm operations,
together with greater emphasis on intensive production methods,
increases environmental and public health risks by
concentrating more manure nutrients and other animal waste
impacts within smaller geographic areas. In addition, many
large operations do not have sufficient land to effectively use
the manure they generate as fertilizer. Animal waste and
wastewater can enter waterbodies from spills or breaks of waste
storage structures (due to accidents or excessive rain), and
over-application of manure to crop land.
Despite substantial improvements in the nation's water
quality since the inception of the Clean Water Act, many of the
Nation's assessed waters show impairments from a wide range of
sources. Improper management of manure from CAFOs is among the
many contributors to remaining water quality problems. EPA's
2002 National Assessment Data base summarizes State water
quality reports (Section 305(b) reports) and categorizes the
quality of the state's assessed waters as good, threatened, or
impaired. For the 2002 reporting cycle, States assessed 19
percent of river and stream miles and 37 percent of lake, pond,
and reservoir acres nationwide. Of the waters assessed by
States, those States identified 45 percent of the assessed
miles of rivers and streams as impaired; agriculture,
hydromodification\1\, and habitat alterations are the leading
identified sources, in that order. States identified 47 percent
of assessed acres of lakes, ponds, and reservoirs as impaired
and identified agriculture, atmospheric deposition, land
application/waste sites, and hydromodification as the leading
sources.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Alteration of the hydrologic characteristics of a water body,
such as channelization or water diversions
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Improperly managed manure has caused acute and chronic
water quality problems and is a significant component of
waterbody impairments. Manure and wastewater from CAFOs can
contribute pollutants such as excessive amounts of nitrogen and
phosphorus, organic matter, sediments, pathogens, heavy metals,
hormones, and antibiotics to the environment. Excess nutrients
(i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus) in water can result in or
contribute to low levels of dissolved oxygen (anoxia),
eutrophication, and toxic algal blooms.
These conditions may be harmful to human health and have
been associated with algal blooms. Decomposing organic matter
(i.e., animal waste) can reduce oxygen levels and cause fish
kills. Pathogens discharged into waterways have also been
linked to threats to human health. Pathogens in manure can also
create a food safety concern if manure is applied directly to
crops at inappropriate times. In addition, pathogens are
responsible for some shellfish bed closures. Nitrogen in the
form of nitrate can contaminate drinking water supplies drawn
from groundwater.
iii. efforts to reduce the impacts of afos and cafos
Congress passed the Clean Water Act to ``restore and
maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of
the nation's waters.'' (33 U.S.C. 1251(a)). Among its core
provisions, the Act prohibits the discharge of pollutants from
a point source to waters of the United States except as
authorized by a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(NPDES) permit and it also requires EPA to establish national
technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards
(ELGs) for different categories of sources. Section 502 of the
Clean Water Act specifically defines the term ``point source''
(for the purposes of the NPDES program) to include CAFOs, but
in addition exempts ``agricultural stormwater discharges'' from
the definition of ``point source.''
EPA's regulatory program regarding animal agriculture
focuses on the largest operations (or ``CAFOs'') which present
the greatest potential risk to water quality.
EPA revised its NPDES regulations to control discharges
from CAFOs in 2003. As a result of that rulemaking, EPA
estimated at that time that close to 60 percent of all manure
generated by AFOs would be regulated. In addition to these
regulations, EPA has a strong voluntary program to reduce
environmental impacts from animal agriculture, ranging from
outreach programs to compliance assistance programs. An example
of this is the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding
Operations jointly developed by EPA and the United States
Department of Agriculture (USEPA/USDA, March 1999) which
specifies that the vast majority of operations that confine
animals are and will continue to be managed through locally
focused voluntary programs. EPA and USDA offer a comprehensive
suite of voluntary programs (e.g. technical assistance,
training, funding, and outreach) in addition to the regulatory
programs to ensure that livestock operations, both regulated
and non-regulated, properly manage their manure in order to
protect the environment and public health.
The Strategy defines a national objective for all AFOs to
develop comprehensive nutrient management plans to minimize
impacts on water quality and public health from AFOs. The vast
majority (estimated to be about 95 percent) of these plans will
be developed under voluntary programs.
EPA's working relationship with USDA has strengthened our
ability to protect the environment from animal agricultural
runoff. Our two Agencies hold bi-monthly meetings to discuss
all aspects of this issue. This, as well as our day-to-day
collaborations with USDA, has promoted increased understanding
of the industry, broadened our outreach efforts and increased
our ability to provide onthe-ground technical assistance to the
farmer.
The CAFO Rule
In February 2003, EPA made comprehensive improvements to
NPDES regulations for CAFOs. These revisions updated
regulations originally issued in the 1970's, and they expanded
the number of CAFOs covered by NPDES requirements to an
estimated 15,500 facilities and added requirements to manage
the land application of manure from CAFOs. The Agency estimates
that the revisions would reduce annual releases of phosphorus
by 56 million lbs.; nitrogen by 110 million lbs; and sediment
by over two billion lbs.
The rule also required all CAFOs with a potential to
discharge to apply for NPDES permits and required them to
comply with the technology and water quality-based limitations
in the permit as defined by the permitting authority. It also
required each permitted CAFO to develop and implement a site-
specific nutrient management plan (NMP).
Stakeholders representing both industry and environmental
groups filed lawsuits challenging various provisions in the
regulations. The case was brought before the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit. On February 28, 2005, the
Second Circuit issued its decision in Waterkeeper Alliance et
al. v EPA. While it upheld the majority of the regulatory
provisions, the Court vacated the requirement that all CAFOs
with a potential to discharge apply for NPDES permits, and held
that only those CAFOs that actually discharge must obtain NPDES
permits. The Court also held that the terms of the nutrient
management plans (NMPs) are effluent limitations that must be
made part of the permit and enforceable as required by sections
301 and 402 of the CWA and, as such, must be subject to public
comment and must be reviewed and approved by the permitting
authority. The court upheld EPA's definition of ``point
source'' as including discharges from a CAFO's land application
areas and its application of the ``agricultural stormwater
discharges'' exemption to only those precipitation-related
discharges that occur where the CAFO's land application
practices ensure the appropriate agricultural use of the
nutrients in the land-applied manure, litter and wastewater.
In June 2006, EPA proposed targeted revisions specifically
to respond to the Court's ruling in the Waterkeeper case. EPA's
proposed rule would require only those CAFOs that discharge or
propose to discharge to apply for a permit. It would require
CAFOs to submit their nutrient management plans to the
permitting authority with their permit applications Permitting
authorities would then be required to provide public notice and
review of the plans, and include terms of the NMP as
enforceable elements of the permit. It also clarifies that
CAFOs land applying manure, litter or processed wastewater
would not need NPDES permits if their only discharge is exempt
agricultural stormwater.
EPA received 580 unique public comments on the proposed
rule, which were considered in preparing a draft final rule.
The draft final rule is currently undergoing a 90-day
interagency review under Executive Order 12866, which began on
August 13, 2007. We anticipate that the Administrator would
sign the final rule by the end of the calendar year.
EPA believes our NPDES CAFO regulations are critical to
restoring and protecting watersheds across the Nation and we
are putting a priority on implementation. Since the 2003
regulations, EPA has instituted a quarterly reporting process
for tracking the number of CAFOs and NPDES permits. This
reporting shows that the number of CAFOs has grown to
approximately 19,000 facilities, and that roughly 8,300--or 43
percent--of those CAFOs are covered by NPDES permits. The EPA
is committed to finalizing the pending rulemaking process and
to moving ahead in its work with States and agricultural
partners to ensure continued increases in permits and NMPs for
CAFOs.
In addition, outreach and training is a major component of
our CAFO program. After the 2003 rule was finalized, EPA
published a series of guidance documents--one particularly
targeting the CAFO industry by providing plain language
explanations of how to comply with the rule. We have also held
training courses in all of our 10 Regions to ensure EPA and
State CAFO permit authorities clearly understand how to
implement this rule. Furthermore, we are principal participants
in an annual meeting held for all State regulatory authorities
on matters pertaining to CAFOs. The Association of State and
InterState Water Pollution Control Agencies, or ASIWPCA,
arranges this meeting and also holds monthly conference calls
where EPA regularly participates, to keep State regulatory
authorities up-to-date on CAFO regulatory issues.
CAFO Rule Extension
In July 2007, EPA finalized a rule extending certain
compliance dates necessary to allow the Agency time to respond
adequately to public comments on issues raised by the February
2005 Waterkeeper decision before those compliance dates take
effect. It extended the date by which facilities newly defined
as CAFOs under the 2003 rule must seek NPDES permit coverage to
February 27, 2009. In addition, all permitted CAFOs now have
until February 27, 2009, to develop and implement nutrient
management plans.
The extensions provide time for States and the agricultural
community to adjust to the new requirements once they are
finalized. I also issued a memorandum urging regional offices
and States to continue to implement their existing regulatory
programs while the Agency's response to the Court decision is
being finalized. Until NMPs and other aspects of the regulation
can be implemented in accordance with the court ruling, State
and existing Federal rules unaffected by the court ruling will
continue to protect water quality.
iv. partnership and collaboration
EPA has forged strong working relationships with other
organizations across the country to further promote
environmental protection from CAFOs. One such organization is
the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
(NASDA). State departments of agriculture are a source of
expertise that EPA can use to provide both outreach and
technical advice to farmers. As an example of this partnership,
EPA awarded a grant under our Clean Water Act 304(b) program to
NASDA to provide a website where farmers and the public at
large can obtain information regarding State requirements and
technical standards for manure management. It is called
CNMPWatch.com.
Other partnership and collaborations include:
The California Dairy Quality Assurance Program: This
partnership among industry, EPA, and State regulatory
authorities offers a training course to farmers in addition to
no-cost, onsite, independent evaluations of farmers'
operations. The State has seen a decrease in the rate of
surface water discharges from these operations as a result of
the program, the cooperation of industry, and enforcement
actions by the State and EPA.
USDA MOU: On May 9, 2007, the EPA and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) announced additional measures for
coordination and cooperation among the two agencies in
prioritizing and implementing nutrient reduction activities in
the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Under the agreement, EPA and USDA
are more closely coordinating actions, aligning resources,
tools, and partners, and monitoring for results to accelerate
clean water progress in the Bay watershed. Because crop and
pasture use account for 25 percent of the Bay Watershed--which
includes lands in Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia and West Virginia--the nutrient reduction activities
include a significant focus on agricultural contributions from
livestock operations.
Great Lakes: One of the key issue areas addressed in the
Great Lakes Regional Collaboration's Strategy to Restore and
Protect the Great Lakes is nonpoint source pollution.
Agriculture is recognized as one of the sources of this
pollution in the Great Lakes basin, and the Federal Great Lakes
Interagency Task Force has several activities underway to help
reduce the impacts of nonpoint source pollution on the Lakes.
For example, USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service
(NRCS) is conducting rapid watershed assessments in eight
watersheds in the western Lake Erie basin to collect natural
resource data and apply critical conservation on the ground.
USDA's Conservation Innovation Grants program is funding
several efforts in the Great Lakes, including projects to
reduce nutrient loadings and recycling waste streams from dairy
farms. NRCS is also working with the Corps of Engineers as the
Corps, through its Great Lakes Tributary Model program,
develops watersheds models for State and local agencies to
evaluate the effectiveness of conservation practices and
prioritizes areas for attention.
Gulf of Mexico/Hypoxia: Reducing the large hypoxic zone in
the Gulf of Mexico, which is largely created as a result of
excessive nutrients coming from municipal facilities as well as
agriculture, is a formidable challenge that requires focused
attention by our Federal and State partners. EPA has taken a
lead role reducing the affects of agricultural runoff on the
hypoxic zone. In 1997, EPA led the formation of the Mississippi
River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force, which I
chair, and EPA continues to coordinate ongoing Task Force
efforts. The goal of this Federal-State partnership is to
identify innovative and non-regulatory approaches to reducing
Gulf hypoxia while enhancing water quality and quality of life
in the Mississippi River Basin (Basin) and the Gulf. We plan to
issue a revision of the 2001 Action Plan in March 2008.
Additionally, OW has sponsored four scientific symposia and
requested EPA's Science Advisory Board to review the State of
the science regarding: (1) the causes and extent of Gulf
hypoxia, and (2) the scientific basis for different management
options targeting hypoxia mitigation in the Mississippi River-
Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB).
v. cafo water enforcement
With input from EPA Regions, States, Tribes, and the
public, EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
(OECA) selects multi-year national compliance and enforcement
priorities that focus on specific significant environmental
problems and identified widespread noncompliance patterns.
CAFOs have been an EPA Clean Water Act enforcement and
compliance priority for several years, and EPA has proposed to
maintain it as a priority through 2010. Our State partners have
consistently identified agricultural operations as a leading
source of water quality impairment throughout the Nation.
Industry trends have resulted in larger-sized operations
generating large volumes of manure. This, in combination with
outdoor manure storage at some CAFOs has contributed to some
unauthorized discharges into waters of the United States.
EPA's recent compliance monitoring and enforcement efforts
have focused primarily on existing CAFOs that are discharging
without an NPDES permit.
In fiscal year 5, EPA Regions conducted 174 Federal
inspections and 118 joint inspections with States at CAFOs, and
concluded 63 enforcement actions against CAFOs for Clean Water
Act violations. In fiscal year 6, EPA Regions conducted 262
Federal inspections and 130 joint inspections with States at
CAFOs, and concluded 56 enforcement actions against CAFOs for
Clean Water Act violations.
vi. cafo air compliance agreement and monitoring study
EPA concluded and the National Academy of Sciences
confirmed that it did not have sufficient air emissions data
for animal feeding operations (AFOs), which made it difficult
to determine the compliance status of AFOs with regard to
existing air emission requirements. In January, EPA published a
Federal Register notice providing AFOs with the opportunity to
participate in a voluntary consent agreement and monitoring
study. As part of the agreement, each participant agreed to: 1.
pay a penalty for potential past and ongoing CERCLA, EPCRA, and
CAA violations; 2. direct the payment of money into an industry
fund used to conduct a national air emissions study; and 3.
make its farm available, if selected, for air emissions
monitoring; 4. use the emission estimating methodologies
developed from the monitoring study to determine its compliance
status, and comply with any applicable CAA, CERCLA, or EPCRA
requirements. The goals of this innovative enforcement
agreement were to ensure compliance with Federal laws regarding
air emissions, monitor and evaluate AFO air emissions, reduce
air pollution, and promote a national consensus on
methodologies for estimating air emissions.''
vii. conclusion
Thank you Madame Chairman and Members of the Committee for
the opportunity to describe environmental and public health
risks from CAFOs and the many actions EPA is taking with our
State, local and agricultural partners. The implementation of
the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations and
EPA's 2003 and 2007 CAFO rules is critical in our mission to
restore and protect watersheds across the Nation. EPA is
committed to working with our Regions, States and agriculture
partners to ensure timely development of NMPs and submission of
permit applications and proper nutrient management from all
livestock operations.
I would be happy to respond to any questions you may have.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much.
Just in perfect timing because I was about to call on the
Attorney General from Oklahoma, our Ranking Member, Senator
Inhofe has arrived, and I know he would like to make some
comments. So you are recognized
Senator Inhofe. Very brief, and this is one of the rare
times, Madam Chairman, that I am glad you are Chairman and not
me to try to juggle all these votes that are coming up in front
of us.
Senator Boxer. I know.
Senator Inhofe. First of all, it is a real honor for me to
have two Oklahomans coming before us today, Madam Chairman.
Michael Dicks of the Oklahoma State University, I have to
say how much I enjoyed. I guess you are back there some place.
Senator Boxer. He must be. There he is.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Senator Inhofe. Yes, there he is. I enjoyed the honor that
I got at Oklahoma State University last Friday and all the
contributions that you have made.
I have to say to my good friend, Drew Edmondson, that I
have known for a long, long time. He is a Democrat. He is an
outstanding public servant, and he comes from a long line.
I knew J. Howard Edmondson very well. I knew your dad and
Ed Edmondson, well for a long, long time, and so I appreciate
very much your being here.
The only thing that I would want to mention is that as we
look forward to this, I happen to have been out in the
Panhandle just about 4 days ago. As we look at the problem that
is there, that we are addressing today--and I am glad we are
addressing this--I just want to keep in mind, Madam Chairman,
that we have a lot of our farmers in Oklahoma and throughout
America that watch very carefully the decisions that we are
making today and the discussion that is going on.
So I will look forward to asking questions at the
appropriate time and look forward to the hearing.
I apologize for being late, but as you know we had our
Armed Services hearing. They let me go first on that one.
[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:]
Statement of Hon. James M. Inhofe, U.S. Senator from
the State of Oklahoma
Oklahoma is among the states with the most concentrated
animal feeding operations. Concerns have been raised about the
possible environmental impacts of these facilities,
particularly the impact they have on water supplies.
Communities must have clean drinking water. In each of the past
two Congresses I have co-authored legislation to infuse
significant Federal funds into the two State revolving loan
funds to help communities meet their clean water obligations.
Both bills would have also authorized grants for disadvantaged
communities. Further, my legislation to reauthorize the Safe
Drinking Water Act's small system technical assistance program
was recently passed by the Committee.
We can have clean water and an active agriculture industry
but we cannot have one at the expense of the other. I have been
aggressive in assisting water systems comply with Federal laws
however, any effort to further regulate farms must consider the
critical economic and employment benefits provided by the
nation's farms. In a 2000 study, the State Department of
Agriculture found that of the over 111,000 agriculture jobs in
Oklahoma, 71 percent were related to livestock production.
According to the USDA, total farm and farm-related employment
in Oklahoma in 2002 was 343,636 jobs. Any legitimate concerns
should be addressed without threatening the economic viability
of Oklahoma's agriculture industry.
It is rare that we have the privilege of two Oklahoma
witnesses at one hearing but today we are joined by Drew
Edmondson, Oklahoma's Attorney General and by Professor Michael
Dicks of Oklahoma State University. It is always a great
pleasure to have folks from home come before the Committee.
Conversely, I am disappointed that the Chairwoman refused
to allow the Department of Agriculture to testify. USDA
oversees a variety of programs, including the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program to which so many farmers turn for
compliance assistance. The USDA would have been able to provide
much needed information for today's discussion.
Today's hearing will focus on several aspect of
environmental protection, including clean air. One of our
witnesses works with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources
(DNR), yet is not representing Iowa. I wonder if that is
because when Iowa's DNR studied the issue of odor, it found
that relatively few problems, with fewer than 4 percent of the
measurements taken near public areas, homes and businesses
exceeding acceptable odor levels. Further, another Iowa study
out of the University of Iowa found that every-day products,
pets and smoking were the cause of ammonia emissions and not
from CAFOs. Given these air studies, and the fact that industry
is working diligently to provide EPA with monitoring data to
assist EPA in its regulatory assessment, it seems clear that
this is an example of government actually working.
I anticipate some discussion today from those who suggest
that applying the nation's hazardous waste response law--
Superfund--to CAFOs is the solution to protecting our
communities' waters. The prospect of declaring animal manure a
hazardous waste and thus regulating under CERCLA deeply
concerns me. If animal manure is found to be a hazardous waste,
then virtually every farm operation in the country could be
exposed to liabilities and penalties under this act.
Furthermore, how then do we categorize the producers of such
``hazardous waste?'' Are chickens and cows producers of
hazardous waste and subject to CERCLA regulation as well? I do
not believe this is what Congress intended. This issue needs a
common sense approach where nature and sound science meet and I
look forward to our discussion on it.
CAFOs are already regulated under the Clean Water Act. In
2003, EPA published a new regulation updating its CAFO program.
The Second Circuit Court would later rule in its
``Waterkeepers'' decision that EPA could not require farmers
with only a potential to discharge to have an N.P.D.E.S.
permit. The Court correctly found that the Clean Water Act only
regulates actual discharges, not potential discharges. The EPA
will soon finalize a new rule to implement the Court's
decision. For those who call for additional regulation, it is
important to note that one of the current primary regulatory
tools has not yet been fully implemented. We need to see how
EPA's soon-to-be published rule, which for the first time
regulates land application of nutrients, improves water
quality.
Both Mr. Dove and Professor Dicks speak of converting
manure into energy. This is innovation that would contribute to
our nations' energy supply while addressing concerns about
excess animal waste. Most people know that Oklahoma is a leader
in the oil and gas world but Oklahoma also leads in developing
innovative energy technologies. For example, I have highlighted
the Noble Foundation's work with bioenergy crops while chairman
and ranking member. Before the recess, I added a provision to
the Senate energy bill that would promote geothermal energy for
GSA buildings. Oklahoma City's Climatemaster is a national
leader in this growing field. We need to encourage innovation
in all fields, including animal waste.
This is an important hearing that will allow us to take a
comprehensive look at the numerous Federal, State and local
initiatives and authorities that already exist to address any
pollution concerns related to livestock production. I look
forward to hearing from all of our witnesses.
Senator Boxer. We are very happy you are back.
Now it is my honor to introduce Drew Edmondson, Attorney
General, Oklahoma Office of Attorney General.
Welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF DREW EDMONDSON, ATTORNEY GENERAL, OKLAHOMA OFFICE
OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
Mr. Edmondson. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank
you, Senator Inhofe, for your invitation to appear here this
morning and, Senator Inhofe, thank you for being safe home from
Iraq too. I appreciate that.
My written statement is obviously too lengthy to read, and
I would ask that it be considered part of the record.
Senator Boxer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Edmondson. In 2005, the State of Oklahoma filed a
lawsuit after 3 years of unsuccessful negotiation against the
major poultry companies in western Arkansas and eastern
Oklahoma over degradation of the Illinois River watershed due
to the surface application of poultry waste for many, many
years.
Madam Chair, CAFOs are not normal agricultural operations
which are exempt under CERCLA. These are not chickens in a
yard, and you throw grain down and feed them and go in the next
morning and see if they laid any eggs.
These are houses that hold as many 25,000 birds at a time.
They turn over 4 to 5 crops a year which means a single house
will have a 100 to 125,000 birds in it in a year, and a typical
poultry farm will have from 3 to 20 houses. So you are talking
about an enormous amount of waste that is generated at an
industrial level by these operations.
The amount of phosphorus that is generated in the Illinois
River watershed alone from these poultry operations would equal
the untreated human waste of 10.7 million human beings, more
than the population of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas combined.
If we would contemplate, for just a second, taking the
human waste of 10.7 million human beings and simply surface
applying it to the land rather than sending it to treatment
facilities, that is exactly what we are getting annually in a
precious watershed in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas
from poultry operations. That is why we felt it necessary to
litigate when negotiation proved unsuccessful, and that is why
we hope to be able to change the practice of the industry in
western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.
It is about a one million acre watershed, lying roughly
half in Arkansas and half in Oklahoma. There are nearly 3,000
poultry operations within that watershed, about 2,300 of them
in Arkansas and the balance in the State of Oklahoma. So it is
a shared problem, and we could only reach it through the
Federal courts.
As has been mentioned, there are more chemical agents
besides nitrogen and phosphorus. There is also arsenic. There
is also selenium, zinc and copper and other trace elements as
well as growth hormones and, of course, E. coli.
So there are significant problems. They resulted in
degradation of that watershed and other watersheds in Oklahoma,
and I dare say, notwithstanding the progress that has been
made, the Chesapeake Bay remains degraded and work needs to be
done in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Work needs to be done
in Georgia.
I would suggest, if I may most humbly, that rather than
looking at exempting these industrial size operations from the
provisions governing clean water, that Congress might take a
look at national legislation to prevent the surface application
of untreated animal waste of an industrial level. That way the
playing field will be level and different operations would not
have competitive advantages, one against the other.
Senator Inhofe, thank you for mentioning my father and my
uncle. They used to take me canoeing on the Illinois River. I
took my children, picnicking and swimming on the Illinois River
and Lake Tenkiller. The result of your work and our efforts in
Oklahoma will determine whether or not my children can take
their children to enjoy those same waterways.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Edmondson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Boxer. Thank you, sir.
Olin Sims, President, National Association of Conservation
Districts.
STATEMENT OF OLIN SIMS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
CONSERVATION DISTRICTS
Mr. Sims. Good morning, Madam Chairman and members of the
Committee.
My name is Olin Sims, President of the National Association
of Conservation Districts and a rancher from McFadden, Wyoming.
Established under State law, conservation districts, nearly
3,000 across the country, are local units of State Government,
charged with carrying out programs for the protection and
management of natural resources at the local level. We share a
single mission: to support voluntary incentive-based programs
that present a range of options, providing both financial and
technical assistance to guide land owners in the adoption of
conservation practices.
Districts help producers participate in Farm Bill programs
like the cost-share Environmental Quality Incentives Program,
and districts also utilize EPA's 319 Non-Point Source Grant
Program to address concerns on animal feeding operations.
NRCS' conservation technical assistance program is the
backbone for these Federal programs as well as State and local
programs. Technical assistance is the individualized guidance
and information that helps a landowner make a needed change to
their operation.
Each State addressed livestock producers' needs
differently. Today, I am pleased to share examples of our
members' work across this great Country. In my home State, the
Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, in cooperation
with Federal and State partners, initiated an animal feeding
operation program in 1997.
The goals of the efforts were to, No. 1, inform and educate
livestock producers on potential impacts of AFOs on water
quality and other resources and regulatory requirements. No. 2,
establish demonstration projects and, No. 3, provide the
necessary cost-share and technical assistance to Wyoming's
livestock industry.
Fifteen demonstration project sites on animal feeding
operations were implemented, and additional efforts to fund
several animal feeding operation projects to address
impairments on surface waters within the State.
To my friend to the right from Oklahoma, the Oklahoma
Association and the Conservation Commission addressed water
pollution in two different watershed projects. Utilizing
voluntary incentive-based programs to reduce phosphorus loading
in the watersheds, the State also entered into an agreement on
a conservation reserve enhancement program with USDA and the
State technical committee prioritized certain watersheds as
EQIP priority areas, focusing efforts where they were most
needed.
The South Dakota Association of Conservation Districts and
their member districts worked to provide technical assistance
to producers to implement nutrient management plans.
Once a CNMP is complete, a producer frequently needs
assistance with the plan's requirements and guidance on
maintaining their operation to comply with the plan. Districts
teach producers how to correctly obtain soil, water and manure
samples and how to interpret the results, so they can correctly
apply the required amounts. Plans are reviewed annually with
the producer to determine success and identify needed changes
with a long term goal of the producer gaining the technical
skills to manage their own CNMP.
Soil and water conservation districts in North Carolina,
that are present with us here today, partner with the State
Soil and Water Conservation Commission to lead an aggressive
and proactive effort dealing with the State's major livestock
and poultry industries. In 1983, the North Carolina General
Assembly authorized the North Carolina Agricultural Cost-Share
Program to improve water quality associated with agricultural
and 3 nutrient sensitive areas covering 16 counties. In 1990,
the program was expanded statewide due to its success.
While the program addresses a range of agricultural-related
water quality issues, 2,500 permitted facilities are often the
focus of the activities. Approximately $58.1 million of the
funds have been directed to CAFOs and AFOs.
This year, North Carolina passed and the Governor just
recently signed legislation establishing a permanent moratorium
on new lagoon construction and developed a lagoon conversion
program to provide cost-share assistance to producers to
voluntarily convert conventional lagoon and spray field systems
to innovative animal waste management systems. The program
supports new technologies that produce marketable byproducts,
reduce or eliminate the emission of ammonia and greenhouse
gases, and are capable of being connected to a centralized
waste collection and treatment system.
The Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District in
Auburn, New York, works daily with CAFOs on multiple projects
including best management practices, bunk silos, manure storage
and transfer systems, milk house waste reduction, barnyard
runoff, crop planning and erosion control. The district
educates farmers about conservation tactics and efficient
agricultural techniques.
The most ambitious of the district's projects has been the
construction of a community methane biodigester. The
biodigester will centralize manure collection from three local
CAFOs.
As these examples demonstrate, each State or local
conservation district may take a slightly different approach to
addressing local environmental concerns, but there is a
consistent theme of working with landowners, providing
technical assistance and financial assistance and expertise to
help them improve their operations and practices. These changes
are critical to our success.
Conservation districts across the Country have been working
with landowners for over 70 years and will continue to seek
solutions that benefit our communities and protect natural
resources. We believe that flexibility should be built into
Federal programs and requirements to allow States to buildupon
their own successful efforts. NACD and our members will
continue to work with landowners to ensure the protection of
our natural resources.
Madam Chair and members of the Committee, thank you very
much for the opportunity to testify today, and I am more than
willing to answer any of your questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sims follows:]
Statement of Olin Sims, President, National Association
of Conservation Districts
Good morning, I am Olin Sims, President of the National
Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) and a rancher from
McFadden, Wyoming. On my family operation, the Sims Cattle
Company in the Rock Creek Valley, we run a 700 cow/calf
operation on 22,000 acres of deeded, private, State and Federal
leases in southern Wyoming. The ranch retains ownership of all
calves and feeds to finish in Nebraska.
I was first elected to my local Conservation District,
Medicine Bow Conservation District, as a Rural Supervisor in
1987 and have served as an area director since 1996. As a
national officer of NACD I am required to maintain my local
elected position in Wyoming. Conservation Districts across the
country are led by Boards that have been locally elected or
appointed by State officials. We represent members of the
community, landowners, farmers, ranchers, businessmen and women
or anyone that has a keen interest in the protection of natural
resources in their local community.
Across the United States, nearly 3,000 conservation
districts are helping local people to conserve land, water,
forests, wildlife and related natural resources. We share a
single mission: to coordinate assistance from all available
sources--public and private, local, State and Federal--in an
effort to develop locally driven solutions to natural resource
concerns. More than 17,000 members serve in elected or
appointed positions on conservation districts' governing
boards. Working directly with more than 2.3 million cooperating
land managers nationwide, their efforts touch more than 1.5
billion acres of private forest, range and crop land. NACD
believes that every acre counts in the adoption of conservation
practices. We work with landowners across the country--urban,
rural, row crop farmers, ranchers, forestland owners and
specialty crop producers on the plains, in the hills and on
both coasts--so we know that no one program, practice, or
policy will work for everyone. We support voluntary, incentive-
based programs that present a range of options, providing both
financial and technical assistance to guide landowners in the
adoption of conservation practices, improving soil, air and
water quality and providing habitat and enhanced land
management.
Established under State law, conservation districts are
local units of State Government charged with carrying out
programs for the protection and management of natural resources
at the local level. Our members work with the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service(NRCS)
as well as State and county programs to assist livestock
producers in developing, understanding, and implementing the
terms of their individual nutrient management plans . Each
State may address the needs of livestock producers a little
differently and included in my testimony are a few examples of
what local Conservation Districts are doing across the country.
locally led conservation
Local county-level Conservation Districts assist in the
implementation of Federal conservation programs, working with
the USDA's NRCS and the Farm Service Agency (FSA). Our members
see the benefits of appropriate technical assistance and
offering financial assistance when working with private
landowners. As members of our local communities, our neighbors
frequently want to take the correct action, but need the
technical information to know what those actions may be, the
education and training to be able to apply new practices and
requirements to their operations and in some cases financial
assistance to make a change in an agriculture operation.
The major Farm Bill program that assists livestock
producers is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program
(EQIP). EQIP provides cost-share funding (generally 50 percent
Federal, 50 percent from landowner) for specific systems and
practices, construction, and the development of Comprehensive
Nutrient Management Plans(CNMPs). Conservation districts assist
in gathering local input and priorities for these programs,
addressing the most pressing natural resource issues within the
state. Livestock producers in all states can apply for
assistance under EQIP.
Several states have also entered into agreements with FSA
and identified watershed and water bodies that would benefit
from a Federal/State partnership under the Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program (CREP). While this program focuses on
buffer strips, filter strips and retirement of certain acreage
from production and does not specifically address livestock
operations, it is utilized to focus broader efforts for water
quality improvements and leveraging State and Federal funds.
EPA's 319 Non Point Source Grant Program is frequently
utilized in states to address concerns on animal feeding
operations. Several Conservation Districts or State
Associations receive these grants to assist livestock producers
(non CAFOs) on proper management of their operations and
protecting water quality.
Conservation Technical Assistance is considered the
backbone for these Federal programs as well as State and local
programs. Technical Assistance is the individualized guidance
and information that helps a landowner make a change. It could
be engineering design work, assistance from an agronomist or
localized information for soil types, habitat, nutrient
reduction strategies and know-how for application of
conservation practices and structures or the development and
implementation of nutrient management plans.
cafo regulations
NACD provided comments to EPA on their CAFO regulations on
several occasions. In our written comments to the agency, NACD
expressed support for the elimination of duty to apply
requirement for all CAFOs. NACD supports EPA's proposal for the
revised regulation that would require only those CAFOs that
discharge or propose to discharge to apply for aNational
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.
NACD agrees with including CNMPs as a component of NPDES
permits for CAFOs. We also agree that associated production
and/or land application areas, as defined in the proposed
regulation, should be included within the permit only for the
CAFO permitee. It should not include offsite application of
CAFO-generated wastes. In modifying a nutrient management plan,
we support allowing the operation to modify implementation and
report modifications to the permitting authority while not
requiring public review. An operator must have flexibility in
meeting the goals of the nutrient management plan providing for
some alteration in cropping and practices as appropriate for
their operation.
NACD also supported the action by EPA this summer to extend
the compliance deadline for obtaining a comprehensive nutrient
management plan. As you will note from our specific State
examples, Conservation Districts and individual producers are
actively working on developing and implementing comprehensive
nutrient management plans. While this work is underway, we did
not see that it would have been possible to meet the July 31,
2007 deadline and therefore we support the extension to
February 27, 2009.
With regard to unpermitted large CAFOs and AFOs not
required to obtain permits, we would encourage all operators to
work with voluntary conservation programs and their local
conservation districts to determine the conservation practices
that best suit their specific operations. Landowners are
frequently seeking assistance in applying conservation
practices, but are limited by the technical knowledge to
implement these practices correctly.
Conservation Districts are actively working with livestock
producers with various sizes of operations. NACD is
facilitating information between our states and individual
districts to share success stories and information. We are
pleased to provide the committee with several examples of
outreach and implementation efforts from across the country.
state examples
In my home state, the Wyoming Association of Conservation
Districts, in cooperation with the Wyoming Department of
Agriculture, Wyoming Department Environmental Quality (DEQ),
NRCS and livestock industry in Wyoming, initiated an Animal
Feeding Operation/Confined Animal Feeding Operation Program in
1997.
The effort was implemented from 1997 ? 2001 with projects
continuing to be implemented to date. Educational efforts were
funded in part utilizing Clean Water Act section 319 funds. The
goals of this effort were to 1) Inform and educate livestock
producers on potential impacts of AFO's on water quality/
resource conditions and also an understanding of Federal/State
regulatory requirements 2) establish demonstration projects to
further awareness and 3) to provide the necessary cost-share
and technical assistance to Wyoming livestock industry.
The first 2 years of the program the primary focus was
aimed at elevating the level of awareness within the livestock
industry on Federal regulatory requirements through the
development of a educational brochure which was distributed to
3,000 livestock producers (producers owning 200 head of
livestock or more) and the development and distribution of a
self-assessment for producers to utilize to determine their
risk. Over 22 educational workshops were held throughout the
State with more than 1,250 livestock producers attending.
A cooperative agreement was also developed with NRCS which
dedicated two field staff to providing dedicated assistance to
producers to assess their operations and develop plans for
modifications if necessary.
Approximately 15 demonstrationsites on animal feeding
operations were implemented throughout the State on animal
feeding operations program that had ``unacceptable conditions''
as defined by the Federal regulations. Tours were conducted of
the sites after completion.
In addition, due to the high demand from livestock
producers to address unacceptable conditions on AFO's, NRCS
dedicated $225,000 at the State level in EQIP funds to
specifically meet the need for AFO cost share. Wyoming also
sought additional funds from the national level and received
$105,000 through NRCS to add additional technical assistance to
meet the demand. After the educational efforts were conducted,
a huge increase in assistance was experienced by NRCS and folks
in some areas were put on a waiting list.
In addition, the local conservation districts through their
water quality improvement efforts have continued to fund a
number of animal feeding operation projects as part of efforts
to address impairments on surface waters within the state.
Funding for these are typically from a variety of sources
including producers, local funds, CWA 319 and/or EQIP funds.
All districts that have waters listed on the state's 303(d)
list as being impaired due to bacteria (E. Coli) have local
programs to assist producers within these watersheds to address
their operations if unacceptable or contributing conditions
exist.
NRCS reports that in 2006 an additional 21 projects and in
2007, 28 projects were funded through the statewide EQIP set
aside fund.
Regarding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, in
Wyoming all CAFO's (based on the size threshold) are required
to obtain a NPDES permit from Wyoming DEQ. DEQ started
requiring that the permit include the nutrient management plan
prior to the final adoption of the EPA regulatory revisions.
There are 63 CAFO permits issued in Wyoming.
In New Mexico, the New Mexico Association of Conservation
Districts worked to ensure that conservation programs made
sense for the dairy operations within their state. After
initial concern about a process that was too complicated the
Association worked to ensure dairy producers could utilize
conservation assistance programs. Today, the State Technical
Committee that establishes priorities for the implementation of
USDA Farm Bill Conservation programs at the State level sets
aside EQIP funding to assist CAFOs in developing CNMPs. The
Association has also worked to obtain State funds for
additional technical assistance to CAFOs. The Association has
been able to contract with retired NRCS employees to provide
additional resources to develop CNMPs.
The South Dakota Association of Conservation Districts and
member districts work on several outreach and implementation
efforts with livestock operators within the state. For animal
feeding operations, the Association provides, through an EPA
319 nonpoint pollution grant, cost-share to design nutrient
management systems in targeted watersheds to meet Total Maximum
Daily Loads (TMDL) goals. Under this grant, the Association
staff work with the producer from initial contact through full
implementation. The producer pays 25 percent of the cost of the
engineer to design the system with 319 funding providing the
other 75 percent. Once the design work is complete, the
Association staff helps the producer apply through EQIP or
local watershed projects for cost-share assistance for any
needed construction assistance such as sediment ponds, lagoons,
vegetated treatment areas, etc. To date, 69 producers are
involved in the program.
South Dakota's work on existing CAFOsincludes an agreement
with NRCS to provide technical assistance to producers to
implement their nutrient management plans. Once a CNMP is
complete, a producer frequently needs assistance with the
requirements of the plan, and guidance on the maintenance of
their operation to comply with the plan. Agronomists help to
ensure continued proper application rates of nitrogen and
phosphorus. Producers are taught how to correctly obtain a soil
sample, a water sample, and a manure sample and how to
interpret the results so that they can correctly apply the
required amounts. The Association's employees have taught
producers how to calibrate their application equipment ?
including using portable scales so that producers can weigh
their manure spreaders and find out how much they really hold.
On an annual basis, the Association staff sits down with
the producer and re-evaluates their plan so that they can see
how well it is working or what they may need to do differently.
This really helps when the producer is using rented land for
application--sometimes they don't keep the lease and then they
need to re-work their application plans for new land. The goal
is that, after a few years, the producer gains the technical
skills to manage his own CNMP. The Association has learned that
they are asking the producers to adopt a whole new way of doing
things and that requires transfer of technical knowledge. They
don't expect producers to be able to learn it on their own
because it can be overwhelming.
CAFO operators can also seek financial assistance for
development of CNMPs and construction cost-share through the
EQIP programs.
In Minnesota, Conservation Districts play an important role
as an intermediary between producers and communities where
CAFOs are proposed. Districts are often called upon to provide
hearings for public comments when establishment of a CAFO is
being considered. The district can help to vet issues raised by
their local community, and can also provide information to the
community on the environmental impact of proposed CAFOs. This
service as a moderator ensures that dialog is established
between public and private interests during CAFO planning
phases.
Minnesota districts also assist CAFOs with different
approaches ensuring proper nutrient management. They can serve
as a bridge between CAFOs and NRCS when operators wish to apply
for Federal assistance through programs such as EQIP. Districts
also facilitate and promote EQIP opportunities for operators,
and provide assistance to operators interested in applying for
EQIP. Finally, Districts promote creation of nutrient
management plans in TMDL areas and Well Head Protection Areas,
and encourage CAFO operators with existing NMPs to meet with
Certified Crop Advisors to revisit their plan and make sure its
provisions are current with soil conditions.
In Oklahoma the Conservation Commission has taken the lead
on two different watershed projects addressing water pollution.
In cooperation with Federal State and local partners, these
projects resulted in improved water quality. The Peacheater Non
Point Source National Monitoring Program Project included the
Adair and Cherokee County Conservation Districts, NRCS, USGS,
EPA, Oklahoma State University Extension, and the Oklahoma
Scenic Rivers Commission. This project was funded through a 319
grant to work with landowners to implement riparian management,
buffer and filter strips, composters and animal waste storage
facilities, improved pasture management and septic systems.
Through the installation of BMPs, the phosphorus loading to
Preacheater Creek was reduced by 69 percent.
A similar project was conducted on the Eucha/Spavinaw
Watershed where 319 funds, State priority watershed funds and
individual landowner funds were used on a locally led effort. A
Local Watershed Advisory Group was established to recommend
BMPs and cost-share rates. The program included the Delaware
County Conservation District in Oklahoma and the Benton County
Conservation District in Arkansas, as well as the city of
Tulsa, USGS, NRCS, EPA, Oklahoma State University Extension,
and the Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Commission. The
project included riparian management, buffer and filter strips,
streambank stabilization, composters and animal storage
facilities, pasture establishment and management, proper waste
utilization and septic systems. The project resulted in a 31
percent decrease in phosphorus loading to Beaty Creek in the
Eucha/Spavinaw Watershed.
This area in the Eucha/Spavinow Watershed is also an EQIP
priority area and this past spring became a CREP area. The
primary objectives of the Oklahoma CREP are to install field
buffers to trap sediment, nutrients and bacteria; reduce
sediment loading by up to 3,702 tons, phosphorus loading by up
to 19,825 pounds and nitrogen loading by up to 191,887 pounds
annually. These goals are to be achieved by voluntary
enrollment in 14 or 15 year Conservation Reserve Program
contracts and 15 year or permanent State easements, as well as
enrolling adjacent non-CREP riparian acreage into a State
incentives program (FSA CREP fact sheet). Oklahoma has a
variety of voluntary conservation programs working together to
address nutrient and sediment loading to improve water quality
as well as improving wildlife habitat.
Thanks to a proactive approach to working with poultry
producers in Texas, most poultry facilities were already in
compliance with EPA when they recently made changes that
defined larger dry-litter operations as CAFO's.
Soil and Water Conservation Districts in Texas have been
working with the State for several years to assist poultry
facilities to comply with State laws. All operations in Texas
are required to have a Water Quality Management Plan, which is
equivalent to a CNMP.
These CNMPs included virtually all of the technical
components of a CAFO permit under the EPA NPDES Permitting
Program; consequently, the industry was well prepared for the
EPA regulation changes. Soil and Water Conservation Districts
in Texas provide the technical and financial assistance to
develop and implement these CNMPs so they comply with Federal
and State CAFO regulations.
The districts employ technical service providers to develop
the CNMPs and assist producers with the installation. Local
districts also provide state-appropriated cost share funding.
District employees also work with the poultry operations to
``maintain'' the implemented status of CNMPs through annual
status reviews and by providing soil sampling services.
Soil and Water Conservation Districts in North Carolina in
partnership with the state's Soil and Water Conservation
Commission, have led an aggressive and proactive approach to
dealing with the state's major livestock and poultry
industries.
In 1983 the North Carolina General Assembly authorized the
NC Agriculture Cost Share Program to improve water quality
associated with agriculture in three nutrient sensitive areas
that covered 16 counties. The program was expanded in 1990 to
include 96 Soil and Water Conservation Districts covering all
100 counties.
The program provides 75 percent cost share for producers to
implement resource management practices and encouraged the use
of new and emerging technologies. Highlights of the program
include the installation of 3559 waste management structures to
properly store and manage dry and wet animal waste; the
installation of 815 mortality management systems to properly
manage livestock mortalities to minimize water quality impacts;
and the placement of over 950 miles of fencing in combination
with other practices to exclude livestock from streams.
While the program addresses a range of agriculture-related
water quality issues, 2500 permitted facilities are often a
focus of the activities. Approximately $58.1 million (38
percent) of the funds have been directed to CAFOs and AFOs.
According the program's recent annual report, the program
is delivered locally by 494 elected and appointed Soil and
Water Conservation District supervisors and by over 400 local
staff of districts and Federal partners. District supervisors
are responsible for seeing that State funds are spent where
they are most needed to improve water quality. District
supervisors are required to develop a prioritization ranking
system for administering the program in their respective
districts to maximize the benefits to the state's water quality
goals. Applications are evaluated and prioritized by the
District and Districts are required to inspect at least 5
percent of the contracts annually.
The cost share program is not the only activity in NC to
help better manage livestock and poultry operations. In 1993,
the NC State government established a non-discharge rule
requiring all farms meeting the following threshold numbers to
register with the appropriate State agency and to secure a
certified animal waste management plan by 1997. The size
requirements are as follows:
250 swine (55 pounds or greater)
100 or more confined cattle
75 horses
1,000 sheep
30,000 confined poultry with liquid waste system
These plans must be certified by a technical specialist
designated by the NC Soil and Water Conservation Commission.
The technical specialists are often conservation district
employees. These requirements became a part of the State and
NPDES permitting process in 1996.
In 1999, in the wake of flooding devastation from
Hurricanes Dennis, Floyd, and Irene, the State initiated a
buyout program for active swine operations in the 100-year
floodplain. The State has invested over $16 million to operate
this program to date, and has removed 39 swine operations from
harm's way in the floodplain. Another grant of $3 million has
just been approved to continue this popular and highly
successful flood hazard mitigation program with the expectation
that another 6-7 high-priority operations will be included.
Participating operations must agree to allow a conservation
easement on the property to prevent future CAFO operation on
the property and to prevent development of the property for
non-agricultural uses.
Just this year, NC passed legislation that established a
permanent moratorium on the construction of new lagoons and a
new Lagoon Conversion Program where producers can receive cost
share assistance to voluntarily convert from conventional
lagoon and spray field systems to ``approved'' innovative
animal waste management systems. The program supports systems
that produce marketable by products, reduce or eliminate the
emission of ammonia and greenhouse gases, and are capable of
being connected to a centralized waste collection and
treatment.
The NC Soil and Water Conservation Commission and
conservation districts will be involved in the development and
implementation of this exciting new initiative.
As you can see, communication and collaboration among
interested parties have established exciting programs and
policies in NC. In many cases the success of the programs can
be tied to a goal of locally led programs with involvement and
support of conservation districts.
The Sussex Conservation District in Delaware has four
conservation planners on staff funded through a Nonpoint Source
Pollution Section 319 Grant and the State of Delaware. These
planners are funded to provide nutrient management plans to
Sussex County landowners.
Upon request, the Sussex Conservation District provides
producers with technical and financial assistance. A
conservation planner visits the farm to assess their resource
concerns and provide the farmer with a comprehensive nutrient
management plan. The District also provides financial
assistance through a cost-share program for BMPs that address
water quality issues. Some of the BMPs that the District
provides cost-share assistance are poultry manure structures,
poultry carcass composters, poultry incinerators, poultry
windbreaks, animal waste systems, heavy use area protections
(concrete pads at the ends of chicken houses or manure
structures), and cover crops. With the District's cost-share
program, structural BMPs have to be ranked because we always
get more requests for funds than we have cost-share money.
The District also administers a 3 percent low interest
Agricultural Nonpoint Source loan program that allows farmers
to finance, at a low rate, their portion of BMPs that is not
covered through cost-share. The normal cost-share rate for BMPs
is 75 percent meaning that the farmer must come up with the
remaining 25 percent. For example, they can also use the 3
percent loan to purchase a front-end loader for their
composting operation or a calibratable manure spreader.
The District also works closely with the Delaware Nutrient
Management Program. Delaware's program, which was established
with the passing of the Nutrient Management Law in 1999,
mandates all landowners with 10 or more acres or 8 animal units
be required to have a nutrient management plan by 2007. We are
proud to say that the Sussex Conservation District assisted the
Delaware Nutrient Management Program in meeting this goal.
If there is conservation or nutrient management concerns on
a farm, the District staff may accompany the representatives
from the Nutrient Management Program to the farm to discuss
alternatives or solutions to whatever issues the farmer is
facing. The Delaware Nutrient Management Program also offers
cost-share assistance to poultry operators for manure
relocation and nutrient management planning. The manure
relocation program takes manure from farms that have excess
manure and ships it to farms that need the manure or for
alternative uses. The cost-share is used to cover the
transportation costs. In western Sussex County, there is a
manure pelletizing plant that manufactures and packages
pelletized manure to be sold to retail locations for
fertilizer.
The Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District in
Auburn, New York has had many beneficial interactions with
CAFOs in Cayuga County. The District has about half a dozen
conservation professionals that work regularly with CAFOs on
multiple projects including:BMPs, bunk silos, manure storage
and transfer systems, milk house waste reduction, barn yard
runoff, crop planning and erosion control. The District has
worked extensively with farmers to educate them about
conservation tactics, and efficient agricultural techniques.
The nutrient management specialists have worked to lower the
environmental impacts of manure waste on the community and
environment. The District has been involved with
vermacomposting, drag hose application; manure additives and
wind powered manure agitators all of which limit CAFOs waste
problems.
The most ambitious of the District's projects has been the
construction of a Community Methane Biodigester. The
Biodigester will centralize manure collection from 3 local
CAFOs on the District's campus. The manure, along with food
waste, will be anaerobically digested to create
``environmentally friendly'' biogas, liquid fertilizer and
solid compost. The Biodigester will address nutrient runoff and
loading problems in the Finger Lakes. The Biodigester will make
the liquid fertilizer much more nutrient balanced for
reapplication to the farm fields, while removing the solid,
nutrient rich, compost out of the watershed by selling it
separately to gardeners and nurseries. The Biodigester will
also eliminate pathogens and odor caused by the spread of
manure and that make community relations difficult for CAFOs.
At a recent NACD Northeast Region meeting, a Conservation
District shared a proactive approach in working with CAFOs. The
district realized that in the event of an agriculture emergency
such as a manure spill, they could provide assistance both to
the operator and to emergency management personnel who would
respond by serving in an advisory capacity.
To that end, the district has established a relationship
with 911 officials and local fire departments so that they are
aware of agriculture related emergencies and how to respond. As
a result, the local 911 center created a data base of resources
to utilize for agriculture emergencies, including the local
conservation district. The district has also provided outreach
to local CAFO operators to provide instruction on how to
develop agriculture emergency plans and procedures for
contacting authorities in the event of an agriculture
emergency. In doing so, the district is also helping CAFO
operators stay in compliance with regulations, which require
notification in the event of an emergency.
As these examples demonstrate, each State or local
conservation district may take a slightly different approach to
addressing environmental concerns in the local area. We have
provided only a few examples, but most states have similar
efforts and Conservation Districts across the country are
assisting in the delivery on Farm Bill Conservation Programs,
prioritizing local projects and natural resource issues within
the state. Each State may take a different approach, but there
is a consistent theme of working with landowners, providing
technical assistance, financial assistance and expertise to
help them make changes to their operations, or alter practices
that is critical to our success. Conservation Districts across
the country have been working with landowners for 70 years, and
we will continue to seek solutions that benefit our communities
and protect natural resources. Proactively working with
landowners, educating, teaching and providing useful
information, expertise and guidance is critical to the success
of our efforts. We believe that flexibility should be built
into Federal programs and requirements to allow states to
buildupon their own successful efforts. NACD and our member
State associations and individual districts look forward to
continuing to work with landowners to ensure the protection of
our natural resources.
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much, sir.
We next turn to Thomas Bonacquisti, Water Quality Program
Manager, Loudoun County Sanitation Authority, Association of
Metropolitan Water Agencies.
Welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS P. BONACQUISTI, WATER QUALITY PROGRAM
MANAGER, LOUDOUN COUNTY SANITATION AUTHORITY, VA, AND
ASSOCIATION OF METROPOLITAN WATER AGENCIES
Mr. Bonacquisti. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, Senator
Inhofe and distinguished members of the Committee.
My name is Tom Bonacquisti, and I am currently the Water
Quality Program Manager with the Loudoun County Sanitation
Authority which serves drinking water and provides wastewater
services to 175,000 people in eastern Loudoun County, Virginia.
Previously, I worked as the Director of Water Quality and
Production for the Fairfax County Water Authority also located
in northern Virginia.
Today, I am here on behalf of the Association of
Metropolitan Water Agencies or AMWA, which is an organization
of the largest publicly owned drinking water providers in the
United States. AMWA's members provide clean and safe drinking
water to more 127 million Americans from Alaska to Puerto Rico.
AMWA commends you for holding this hearing to investigate
the impact of concentrated animal feeding operations on
regional water quality and safety and appreciates the
opportunity to present its views on this important and timely
issue.
Thirty-five years ago this fall, Congress passed the Clean
Water Act, landmark legislation that has greatly reduced the
discharge of harmful pollutants into the Nation's waters and
enabled their continued use as drinking water supplies.
With the subsequent passage in 1980 of the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, CERCLA,
also known as the Superfund Law, Congress sought not only to
strengthen environmental protections but also to ensure that
communities were able to recover from polluters the cost of
cleaning up toxic and hazardous waste released into the
environment.
However, in recent years, the owners and operators of large
concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs have
increasingly advocated in favor of taking steps to exempt
themselves from the critical environmental law.
Today, I will discuss the negative impacts that components
of animal waste have on America's drinking water supplies and
testify that exempting these substances from the requirements
of CERCLA would carry significant public health and financial
cost for all Americans who depend upon access to clean and safe
water.
First, it is important to define what exactly constitutes a
CAFO. According to EPA, a CAFO is a large farm that generally
holds hundreds of animals such as more than 700 dairy cattle,
1,000 beef cattle, 55,000 turkeys or 30,000 hens for a period
of at least 45 days. Clearly, it would be difficult to confuse
a large industrial CAFO with a small family farm which
generally holds far fewer animals and, as a result, has much
less of an impact on the surrounding environment.
Over the past several decades, the number of corporate
CAFOs in the United States has steadily increased while the
number of small farms has declined and, as a result, today it
is estimated that 54 percent of U.S. livestock are held on
CAFOs, representing only 5 percent of livestock farms.
These CAFOs alone generate approximately 570 billion pounds
of animal waste per year. Because such a large volume of waste
is generated each day at CAFOs, it is rarely economically
feasible to have animal manure hauled away. As a result, the
waste is usually stored in onsite lagoons until it is applied
to fields as fertilizer.
There are several problems with this process including poor
maintenance of lagoons that will allow the waste to leach into
the ground and surrounding water supply. For example, a study
in Iowa found that more than half of the State's 5,600
agricultural manure storage facilities consistently leaked in
excess of legal limits, thereby allowing CERCLA-regulated
contaminants commonly found in manure, such as nitrogen and
phosphorus, to run off into the watershed.
The increasing prevalence of such contaminants in drinking
water contributed to EPA's finding in 2000 that agriculture is
the leading contributor to State-reported water quality
impairments with 29 States identifying livestock feeding
operations as a source of such impairments.
One of the most common drinking water quality problems
related to animal manure is the increasing level of algae that
grows in water supplies when phosphorus or nitrates are
present. When too much a nutrient, such as phosphorus, is added
to a reservoir, it stimulates plant algae and bacterial growth,
leading to serious taste and odor problems.
Senator Boxer. Sir, we have to ask you to finish up.
Mr. Bonacquisti. OK.
In conclusion, public drinking water systems have a duty to
do all that they can to ensure that the water they deliver to
their customers is clean and safe. Likewise, CERCLA, with its
polluter pays principle, offers assistance to communities
forced to clean up the mess.
Senator Boxer. Sir, I am sorry. Our problem is, sir, we
have just been told that the cloakroom is not going to postpone
this vote. So the vote is actually going to start at 11:05.
Mr. Bonacquisti. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bonacquisti follows:]
Statement of Thomas P. Bonacquisti, Water Quality Program Manager,
Loudoun County Sanitation Authority, VA, and Association of
Metropolitan Water Agencies
Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, Senator Inhofe and
distinguished members of the committee. My name is Tom
Bonacquisti, and I am currently the Water Quality Program
Manager with the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority, which
serves drinking water and provides wastewater services to about
175,000 people in eastern Loudoun County, VA. Previously, I
worked as the Director of Water Quality and Production for the
Fairfax County Water Authority, also located in Northern
Virginia. Today I am here on behalf of the Association of
Metropolitan Water Agencies, or ``AMWA,'' which is an
organization of the largest publicly owned drinking water
providers in the United States. AMWA's members provide clean
and safe drinking water to more than 127 million Americans from
Alaska to Puerto Rico.
AMWA commends you for taking the opportunity offered by
this hearing to investigate the impact of concentrated animal
feeding operations on regional water quality and safety, and
appreciates the opportunity to present its view on this
important and timely issue.
Thirty-five years ago this fall Congress passed the Clean
Water Act, landmark legislation that has greatly reduced the
discharge of harmful pollutants into the nation's waters and
has helped make them safe for multiple uses, including as
drinking water sources. With the subsequent passage in 1980 of
the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund law,
Congress sought not only to strengthen environmental
protections, but also to ensure that communities were able to
recover from polluters the cost of cleaning up toxic and
hazardous waste released into the environment. However, in
recent years the owners and operators of large concentrated
animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have increasingly advocated
in favor of exempting themselves from this critical
environmental law, by removing manure and its components from
CERCLA's jurisdiction. Today, I will testify that providing a
blanket exemption for manure from the requirements of CERCLA
could damage the quality of drinking water sources that
millions of Americans have come to depend upon.
what is a cafo?
It is essential to first define what exactly is a ``CAFO.''
Despite the arguments made by some, concentrated animal feeding
operations are very different from small family farms.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency's 2004 Risk
Management Evaluation for Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations, a CAFO is a large farm that generally holds more
than 700 dairy cattle, 1,000 beef cattle, 55,000 turkeys, or
30,000 hens (with a liquid manure system) for a period of at
least 45 days.\1\ On an annual basis, these CAFOs can produce
as much waste as a small-to-mid-size American city. Clearly,
large operations of this size are not what one thinks of when
envisioning a typical family farm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\EPA, Risk Management Evaluation for Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations, EPA/600/R-04/042 at 3-1 (May 2004) (``Risk Management
Evaluation''), http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r04042/600r04042.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It must also be clear that small family farms are unlikely
to be impacted one way or another by efforts to redefine
CERCLA's application to agricultural operations. While some
have painted the absence of a CERCLA animal waste exemption as
a threat to the existence of family farms in the United States,
responsible small farming operations are unlikely to pollute to
the extent to which they would be found in violation of the
Superfund law. However, the sheer magnitude of animals densely
held in CAFOs cause such operations to have a far more serious
impact on the surrounding environment and water quality. It is
estimated that 54 percent of U.S. livestock are held on CAFOs
representing only 5 percent of livestock farms,\2\ which
generate approximately 575 billion pounds of animal waste every
year.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\Gollehon N, Caswell M, Ribaudo M, Kellogg R, Lander C, Letson D
(June 2001), Confined Animal Production and Manure Nutrients, Economic
Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural
Information Bulletin No. 771, http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/
aib771/.
\3\U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service,
Manure and Byproduct Utilization: National Program Annual Report:
fiscal year 1, www.nps.ars.usda.gov/programs/
programs.htm?npnumber=206&docid=1076.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contributing to this problem is the growing prevalence of
these CAFOs. In 1982 there were more than 1.2 million small
farms in America holding fewer than 150 animals, but by 1997
there were only about 920,000, a 26 percent reduction. During
the same timeframe, large farms with more than 1,000 head of
livestock increased 47 percent, from 5,442 to 8,021. Viewed a
different way, over that fifteen-year period the total number
of animals on small farms decreased from 45.8 million to 34
million, while the animal population of large farms increased
by 58 percent from 15.7 million to 24.9 million.\4\ The
consequences of this shift are twofold: not only are large
corporate-run animal feeding operations rapidly supplanting
traditional family farms, but the typical manure disposal
practices of CAFOs--which commonly involve holding waste in
huge leak-prone cesspools and field application techniques that
lead to increased runoff--pose serious dangers to the quality
of nearby drinking water supplies. Waste from family farms, on
the other hand, is usually generated and released in much
smaller volumes, so it is more readily controlled.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\Risk Management Evaluation at 3-1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
current manure regulation under cercla
As the number of CAFOs in the United States continues to
grow, industry representatives have increasingly argued that
they deserve an exemption from pollution cleanup liability
under CERCLA. Legislation has been introduced in both houses of
Congress that would specifically exclude manure and its
components from the law's definition of a ``hazardous
substance'' under section 101(14) and from the definition of a
``pollutant or contaminant'' under section 101(33). These
proposals ignore the facts about CAFOs, CERCLA and animal
manure in favor of giving large industrial farms the freedom to
release regulated contaminants into the environment without
consequence.
Most importantly, it must be noted that under current law,
animal manure itself is not considered a hazardous substance,
pollutant or contaminant under CERCLA. Arguments from the farm
industry that environmentalists are seeking to place animal
manure in the same broad category as industrial waste are
simply false. However, several toxins frequently found in waste
emissions from CAFOs are regulated as hazardous substances
under CERCLA, including phosphorus, nitrates, ammonia and even
arsenic. Because a dangerous toxin remains a dangerous toxin
whether it is released into the environment alone or as a
component of another substance, it would be a mistake for
Congress to relieve CAFOs of Superfund liability for each and
every chemical and substance that may be found in animal
manure. When deposited into the drinking water supply,
community water systems must take additional treatment steps to
remove these toxins and keep the water potable, regardless of
their original source. If water systems were unable to recover
excessive costs from polluters, all the citizens of the
community would see their water rates increase just to maintain
their previous level of drinking water quality, an outcome that
is unfair and in direct conflict with the Superfund law's
``polluter pays'' philosophy.
Furthermore, some have argued that the Superfund law could
enable the government to prohibit farms from spreading manure-
based fertilizers on their fields. This is plainly false. In
fact, CERCLA already excludes liability for pollution related
to the ``normal application of fertilizer.'' However, cost
recovery is permitted against a CAFO that wrongly uses
fertilizer as a way to dispose of waste in an attempt to avoid
the law. This is a fair, common sense approach that prevents
CAFOs from abusing the law, and therefore should not be
tampered with.
the impact of cafos on water quality
For a number of years there have been cases of components
of untreated manure from CAFOs having harmful effects on public
drinking water supplies across the country. For example, in
2000 EPA's National Water Quality Report to Congress identified
agriculture as the leading contributor to state-reported water
quality impairments, with twenty-nine states identifying
livestock feeding operations as a major source of water
impairments.\5\ EPA has also reported that the sources of
drinking water for 43 percent of the U.S. population have
suffered some level of pathogen contamination related to
CAFOs.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\EPA, ``National Water Quality Inventory, 2000 Report'' (August
2002) EPA-841-R-02-001, http://www.epa.gov/305b/2000report/
\6\Risk Management Evaluation at 4-2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I previously mentioned, CAFOs typically dispose of their
animal manure first by storing it in large lagoons, usually
close by where the animals are kept. But because such a large
volume of waste is generated each day at CAFOs, it is rarely
economically feasible for a CAFO to have animal manure hauled
away. As a result, the waste usually stays stored in onsite
lagoons until it is applied to fields as fertilizer. There are
several problems with this process. First, many manure lagoons
are poorly maintained, and allow the waste to leach into the
ground and surrounding water supply. For example, a study in
Iowa found that more than half of the state's 5,600
agricultural manure storage facilities consistently leaked in
excess of legal limits.\7\ Even when applied to fields as
fertilizer, many CAFOs are not large enough to absorb the
massive amounts of nutrients contained in the manure. As a
result, CERCLA-regulated contaminants included in manure, such
as nitrogen and phosphorus, often runoff into the watershed and
adversely impact the water supply.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\Simpkins WW, Burkart MR, Helmke MF, et al. (2002) Potential
impact of waste storage structures on water resources in Iowa. J Am
Water Resources Assoc. 38:759--771.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the most common drinking water quality problems
related to animal manure is the increasing levels of algae that
grow in water supplies when phosphorus--a common manure
component and a CERCLA-regulated hazardous substance--enters
the water supply. When too much of a nutrient such as
phosphorus is present in a reservoir, it stimulates plant,
algae, and bacterial growth. If left untreated this increased
algae causes serious taste and odor problems with the water,
making it unfit for human consumption. To counter this problem
water utilities must undertake additional treatments to combat
the algae, but the effectiveness of these treatments tend to
diminish over a long period of time if nutrients continue to be
added to drinking water sources. What's more, increased
treatment made necessary by high levels of nutrients in water
sources also contribute to the formation of disinfection
byproducts that result from the reaction of natural organic
matter with disinfectants such as chlorine, ozone, chlorine
dioxide and chloramines. The entry of these disinfection
byproducts into the water supply can be largely avoided if
excessive nutrients are not deposited into drinking water
sources in the first place.
Finally, these additional disinfection measures are a
sustained cost that water systems and ratepayers should be
entitled to recoup from polluters--for the dual purpose of
keeping costs under control and encouraging responsible
environmental stewardship on the part of agricultural
producers.
Some recent examples of CAFO-related drinking water
pollution include:
Des Moines, Iowa
The Des Moines Water Works supplies drinking water to
approximately 350,000 people in 4 counties and 23 communities
in Central Iowa. In 1991 it constructed the world's largest
nitrate removal system (at a cost of $3.7 million to the
utility) to clean water from the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers.
The plant costs approximately $3,000 a day when in use, and on
average must operate between 45 and 60 days per year in
response to upriver manure releases. Nitrate is a common
component of animal manure and is also on the list of
contaminants regulated by CERCLA.
Oshkosh, Wisconsin
The city of Oshkosh spends an extra $30,000 a year on
copper sulfate treatment to kill algae in drinking water
supplies from Lake Winnebago, which are attributed to excess
nutrients like phosphorus from manure and other sources. In
2004, there were 59 reported incidents of manure polluting
water in Wisconsin, although the State says that the actual
number was likely greater.
Illinois River, Oklahoma
The Illinois River, which flows through Arkansas and into
Oklahoma, is the source of 22 public drinking water systems.
But Arkansas's Illinois River watershed has one of the nation's
densest poultry operations, producing waste equal to 10.7
million people, greater than the combined populations of
Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. After 4 years of attempted
negotiations and mediation with the industry, the State of
Oklahoma sued 14 corporate poultry operations for polluting the
Illinois River and the Tenkiller Lake.
Chino Basin, CA
The Chino Basin is the supply of drinking water for Orange
County. In 1988, 40 percent of the wells in the basin had
nitrate levels above drinking water standards. EPA found that
dairies were a major cause of the nitrogen, which is a CERCLA-
regulated hazardous substance. Removing these nitrates costs
more than $1 million per year. Chino also removes more than
1,500 tons of salt per year, which comes from local dairies, at
a cost of $320 to $690 for every ton.
Waco, Texas
Lake Waco supplies drinking water to 150,000 people. Dairy
cows in CAFOs upstream from Lake Waco created 5.7 million
pounds of manure per day that was over-applied to land and made
its way into the lake. The State found that nearly 90 percent
of the controllable phosphorus in the river came from CAFOs in
the watershed, and an independent researcher who conducted much
of the state's analysis found that dairy waste applied to
fields supplied up to 44 percent of the lake's phosphorus. From
1995 to 2005, the city spent $3.5 million on phosphorus-related
water pollution, and has spent a total of approximately $70
million to improve water treatment. To recoup costs the city
filed suit against 14 large industrial dairies in 2003 and
eventually reached a settlement with the defendants.
Tulsa, Oklahoma
The city of Tulsa supplies drinking water to 500,000 people
in its metropolitan area, but pollution from poultry farms in
Arkansas led to excessive algae growth in Lake Eucha, one of
its main water sources. As a result the city spent more than $4
million on increased drinking water treatments to address the
problem, and unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with poultry
operations to reduce their manure applications. In 2002, the
city sued six major poultry operations and the case was
eventually settled, agreeing to a temporary moratorium on the
application of litter and the installation of a new drinking
water treatment system.
conclusion
When properly managed, the animal waste from agricultural
operations can have a minimal impact on their region's water
quality. However, this outcome is dependent upon farm
operators--particularly those overseeing CAFOs--implementing
strong environmental management practices that adequately treat
animal waste before releasing it into the surrounding
environment. Unfortunately, too many large, corporate-run CAFOs
have not implemented these practices on their own, which is why
it is so essential for the communities and the public to
continue to have recourses available through the Superfund law.
Public drinking water systems have a duty to do all that
they can to ensure that the water they deliver to their
customers is clean and safe. Likewise, CERCLA, with its
``polluter pays'' principle offers assistance to communities
forced to clean up the mess when CAFOs ignore their
responsibility to minimize harmful discharges into the
environment. However, providing an entire industry with a
waiver to discharge regulated hazardous substances such as
phosphorus and nitrates into their region's watershed would
result in a more polluted environment and higher costs for
community water system ratepayers. As Congress celebrates the
thirty-fifth anniversary of the Clean Water Act, such a waiver
would turn back the clock to the days of unchecked pollution
and declining water quality.
Senator Boxer. Mr. Blackham, Utah Department of Agriculture
and Food. We welcome you, sir.
STATEMENT OF LEONARD BLACKHAM, COMMISSIONER, UTAH DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE AND FOOD AND NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE
DEPARTMENTS OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Blackham. Madam Chairman, members of the Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify on concentrated animal
feeding operations and the environmental issues facing
agriculture.
My name is Leonard Blackham. I am the Commissioner
Agriculture for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
I appear here today to represent the National Association
of State Departments of Agriculture, NASDA. NASDA represents
the commissioners, the secretaries and directors of agriculture
in 50 States and 4 territories.
We share your commitment to the environment and have a long
history of being good stewards of the land by implementing
sound conservation practices. States are partners with the
Federal Government and the Federal system in protecting the
environment. For example, a majority of the 50 States'
departments of agriculture have been the lead agency in
implementing Federal pesticide laws.
You may be surprised to hear that half of the State
conservation agencies are housed within the State departments
of agriculture. In this capacity, we oversee and implement soil
and water conservation programs, non-point source water quality
programs and a variety of other environmental resource
programs.
In my State of Utah, we jointly administer the concentrated
animal feeding operation program in partnership with the
Department of Environmental Quality and with non-governmental
partners, all the major commodity groups, Farm Bureau and Utah
State Extension.
State agriculture departments have tackled many
environmental, water quality, food safety and pesticide issues
before they reach the national attention. In part, this is due
because we have established a close working relationship with
farmers and ranchers and a diverse group of local stakeholders.
In Utah, we have had an amazing success in the CAFO, and I
think one of the main reasons is that because when a knock
comes on the door, it is either a farm bureau rep, someone from
the conservation district or someone from the extension
service, knocking on the door. We hear them say there is a
little problem here, but we are here to help you, and it is one
time when they believe that, that we are here to help. It is
far different than if it is an EPA staff member knocking on the
door, saying that there is a problem.
State-led initiatives and Farm Bill conservation programs
are providing significant and continuing opportunities for
major environmental quality protection. Crop and livestock
producers are among the most dedicated and effective stewards
of our natural resources because agriculture depends upon the
continued access of clean water, air and fertile land for its
vitality.
USDA conservation programs have increased in addressing
water quality issues related to livestock operations. The
Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, provides
financial and technical assistance to install and implement
conservation practices on working agricultural land. The 2002
Farm Bill, in fact, requires 60 percent of EQIP funds to be
targeted toward livestock production in this arena.
EQIP and USDA conservation programs are critical to
agriculture because meeting new environmental demands is a make
or break challenge for most producers. Many on-farm
environmental enhancements are beyond the short term and even
long term economic payback for producers. For example, many
conservation practices have high capital and management costs
but do not generate any additional revenue. Agriculture is not
organized in a fashion that allows increased costs to be passed
on to the consumer.
We have many State programs, and that is included in the
written testimony, and I will skip that. You can look at that.
We have provided you with three examples that report--
California, New York and Utah--on the CAFO program. You can
read that and see some real success stories that are happening
in the Country with those three examples, and many other States
have similar success.
NASDA believes in a market-based approach to agriculture
environmental protection is more effective. We reach the
producers. We provide greater environmental benefits, give
States flexibility to address the most critical problems,
target resources where most needed on a site-specific basis,
increase local buy-in to find workable solutions, emphasize
preventive measures which are more cost-effective and offer
economic returns, and address the expanding list of emerging
problems such as carbon emissions and air quality problems.
A key component of our proposal for the 2007 Farm Bill is a
new incentive to address agriculture conservation and natural
resource and environmental priorities through a State
partnership agreement. We are suggesting a block grant type
approach to the departments of agriculture to address these
important issues.
A strong livestock----
Senator Boxer. Sir, could you just wrap it up? You have 8
seconds left.
Mr. Blackham. You bet. Thank you.
A strong livestock industry is important to all of us. We
all enjoy food. We enjoy cheap food in this Country, and we
don't want to do a program that is going to drive our livestock
industry outside of this Nation.
We want to protect the environment, and a partnership with
the States and with local commodity and organizations and
farming is the way to do it.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Blackham follows:]
Statement of Leonard Blackham, Commissioner, Utah Department of
Agriculture and Food and National Association of State Departments of
Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for
the opportunity to testify on Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations (CAFOs) and environmental issues facing agriculture.
My name is Leonard Blackham. I am the Commissioner of the Utah
Department of Agriculture and Food, and I appear here today on
behalf of the National Association of State Departments of
Agriculture (NASDA). NASDA represents the commissioners,
secretaries and directors of agriculture in the fifty states
and four territories.
We share your commitment to the environment and have a long
history of being stewards of the land by implementing sound
conservation practices. Today, I would like to broadly outline
the important role that State agriculture departments play in
environmental protection and describe our efforts and issues
related to animal feeding operations. The challenge today is
how to maintain an economically viable and healthy agricultural
landscape producing the food and fiber on which our country
depends, while improving the agricultural environmental
benefits our citizens enjoy. Agriculture provides not only the
food and fiber of America, but is the largest offset provider
against human activity. A healthy agricultural landscape
provides clean air, water and open space.
role of state agriculture departments
States are partners in the Federal system of environmental
protection. For example, a majority of the fifty State
departments of agriculture have long been the lead State
agencies for implementing Federal pesticide laws. You may be
surprised to hear that about half of the State conservation
agencies are housed within the State agriculture departments.
In this capacity, we oversee and implement soil and water
conservation programs, non-point source water quality programs,
and a variety of other environmental resource programs. In my
State of Utah, we jointly administer the program for
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in partnership
with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
State agriculture departments often tackle environmental,
water quality, food safety, and pesticide management issues
before they reach national attention. In part, this has
occurred because we have established close working partnerships
with farmers, ranchers, and a diverse mix of local
stakeholders. However, the scope and range of our environmental
activities are rapidly expanding. For instance, major
initiatives on water quality, including proposals for Total
Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations (CAFOs), new Clean Air Act standards, and endangered
species protection all have a significant impact on
agricultural activities and individual farm and ranch
operations. Implementing these new and ongoing regulatory
activities are placing tremendous demands on State budgets and
resources in the technical, financial, educational, and
enforcement delivery system.
agricultural conservation opportunities and accomplishments
State-led initiatives and Farm Bill conservation programs
have provided significant and continuing opportunities for
major environmental quality protection. Crop and livestock
producers are among the most dedicated and effective stewards
of our natural resources because agriculture depends upon
continued access to clean water, air and fertile land for its
viability. Many of them have voluntarily adopted
environmentally friendly practices that have local, regional,
and even global benefits. However, the public is increasingly
looking to the agriculture sector to address a growing agenda
of environmental issuesincluding nonpoint source pollution and
water quality, water shortages, air quality, urban sprawl,
animal predation, and invasive species. Other emerging
challenges include climate change, carbon emissions, pesticide
use, and biodiversity.
USDA conservation programs have increasingly addressed
water quality management issues related to livestock
operations. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)
provides financial and technical assistance to install or
implement conservation practices on working agricultural land.
The 2002 Farm Bill required that sixty percent of EQIP funds be
targeted at practices dealing with livestock production.
Another important provision requires producers who receive
cost-share money to complete a Nutrient Management Plan (NMP)
or Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP). The 2002 Farm
Bill provided an historic funding increase for EQIP authorizing
$6 billion over 6 years, starting with $400 million in fiscal
year and increasing to $1.3 billion in fiscal year 6. According
to USDA, even with increased levels of funding, requests for
EQIP contracts are exceeding available funding by almost six to
one.
EQIP and other USDA conservation programs are critical to
agriculture because meeting new environmental demands is a
``make or break'' challenge for producers. Many on-farm
environmental enhancements are beyond the short-term and even
long-term economic payback for producers. For example, many
conservation practices have high capital or management input
costs, but do not generate additional revenues. Agriculture is
not organized in a fashion that allows increased costs of
production to be passed on to consumers. As such, on-farm
expenditures for conservation compete directly with servicing
farm debt, and other family financial needs. In addition,
implementing more stringent and complex standards usually
increases the need for more costly approaches and technologies.
Farmers are ready to do their part in accomplishing current and
future national environmental goals. However, what will be
expected of a cattle feeder in North Dakota will be quite
different from the challenges faced by a citrus grower in
Florida.
Many State departments of agriculture have begun to move on
our own to try and fill the gaps in exisiting programs. These
initiatives have taken different forms in each region of the
country, reflecting State and regional differences both in what
our farmers produce and in the most pressing agricultural
challenges that they face. For example:
California began implementing a Dairy Quality Assurance
Program (CDQAP) in the late 1990's to promote public health
(food safety), animal care and welfare, and environmental
stewardship. CDQAP is a partnership of government, educators,
and the dairy industry. For example, the environmental
stewardship component is designed to assist producers in
meeting all Federal, state, regional, and local requirements
related to manure management and water quality. The voluntary
program provides education about their legal environmental
obligations, resources, and funding for the certification of
dairy operations.
New York has developed the highly successful Agricultural
Environmental Management (AEM) program. It's principal focus
has been to provide direct assistance to farmers with the
technical side of nutrient management planning, followed by
cost sharing for improvements carried out under plans developed
with that technical assistance. The primary environmental goal
has been to assure that their dairy farms, which account for
more than half of the state's agriculture output, can continue
to operate within increasingly stringent water quality
regulations.
Kansas has focused on pesticide management as a key
environmental challenge, developing programs to support
integrated pest management and establishing Pesticide
Management Areas designed to protect surface and groundwater
quality.
The New Jersey Urban Conservation Action Partnership
concerns itself with the issues that arise when farming
coexists with urban and suburban development.
Southwestern states are looking at programs that have a
large water conservation component.
Utah has partnered with State agencies, farm
organizations, commodity groups and others to achieve an 86
percent succes rate in developing and completing CNMPs for all
CAFOs in our State.
Each of these State programs are designed to supplement
those that already exist to help farmers carry out their
stewardship function and bear the costs of what we see as
substantial public benefits: open space conservation, resource
preservation for future generations, clean air and water. Each
is voluntary, incentive-based rather than sanction-based,
designed to address local needs while complimenting existing
programs, and carried out in collaboration with all Federal and
State agencies already engaged in local environmental
management activities.
NASDA believes that such market-based approaches to
agricultural environmental protection will be much more
effective because they would:
Reach more producers, thus provide greater environmental
benefits overall;
Give states flexibility to address their most critical
problems;
Target resources to where most needed on a site-specific
basis;
Increase local buy-in to find workable solutions;
Emphasize preventive measures, which are more cost-
effective and offer more economic returns;
Address the expanding list of emerging problems (i.e.
carbon emissions, etc.).
This is a high priority for State departments of
agriculture and one of our key proposals for the 2007 Farm
Bill is a bold, new initiative to address agricultural
conservation, natural resource and environmental priorities
through State partnership agreements. This new Agricultural
Stewardship Partnership
Agreement would be a ``block-grant'' type initiative that
would give State and local governments more flexibility,
innovative tools, and resources to implement agricultural
conservation and environmental priorities.
animal feeding operations (cafos) and
waste management issues
A strong livestock industry is essential to our Nation's
economy, a healthy and high quality food supply, and the
viability of our rural communities. Animal Feeding Operations
(AFOs) and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)
present a number of natural resource protection and management
challenges. In recent years, animal feeding operations have
become increasingly consolidated, specialized, and regionally
concentrated.
If properly stored and used, manure from these operations
can be a valuable resource. Applying manure to land can be an
environmentally sound approach to fertilizing fields. With
today's technology, manure can also be used in digesters to
produce electricity and other beneficial by-products such as
ethanol. If not managed correctly, wastes produced from animal
operations can impact the environment and human health. We
believe it is important to address waste management issues and
water quality impacts in a way that is most appropriate for
individual operations affected and which can be implemented
with reasonable cost. States and producers need flexibility.
state activities and regulation of animal feeding operations
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been
regulating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) for
more than 25 years. In many cases, the states preceded the
Federal Government in both recognizing and regulating issues
related to animal feeding operations. Throughout the 1970's,
1980's and 1990's, a number of states set higher or more
restrictive standards for CAFOs, usually as a result of local
issues or information. Some states developed permit programs
and/or required design criteria for protection of both surface
water and groundwater. Other states implemented voluntary,
incentive-based programs with strategies for nutrient
management. These efforts have been led by State agriculture
and conservation agencies working together with Federal
agencies, livestock and poultry industries, land grant
universities, engineering consultants, scientists, and other
local stakeholders.
Both State and Federal CAFO rules have been reevaluated and
updated over the past several years to keep up with industry
changes, new technologies, and public perceptions. EPA
finalized new regulations for CAFOs in 2003 which expanded the
number of operations covered by the Clean Water Act (CWA)
permit program to an estimated 15,500 operations. New permit
requirements were added to include comprehensive nutrient
management planning, and to extend coverage to include all
poultry operations of a certain size. EPA is currently revising
its 2003 CAFO rules to conform to a ruling of the 2d Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals in 2005. EPA proposed a revised rule in
2006, but it has not yet been finalized.
NASDA supports EPA's proposed 2006 revised rule. Now, the
State agriculture departments and other agricultural
stakeholders are anxiously awaiting the agency's final rule. We
have urged EPA to limit the final rule to the issues addressed
by the court ruling and to provide more clarity on the
regulatory obligations of livestock operations. States will
need time to modify their CAFO programs to conform with the
final rule. In late July, EPA announced that certain compliance
deadlines would be extended until February 2009. This is
helpful and will allow the states and other stakeholders an
opportunity to adjust to the new requirements.
Although states have additional time to implement the new
CAFO program requirements, the changes will create a resource
and administrative challenge for State agriculture and
conservation agencies. EPA has estimated that the CAFO
regulations could result in compliance costs of $850 million to
$940 million per year.
States will need to increase our efforts to identify,
permit and inspect CAFOs. A major challenge is the ability of
producers and State agency personnel to prepare the thousands
of new nutrient management plans that will be required under
the new rule. Livestock operators will need to address multiple
nutrients in their waste management plans. They will need
additional technical assistance, education, and training to
comply with their permits. This creates additional demands on
the State agriculture and conservation agencies which provide
technical and financial assistance.
The key to achieving the national goal of assuring that
animal feeding operations are managed to protect water quality
is to provide states with the flexibility and resources to meet
legal and programmatic responsibilities. We strongly believe
that programs for managing animal nutrients are most
appropriately implemented at the State and local level.
other environmental challenges
While environmental improvements are being made, many
challenges remain and new issues continue to emerge. NASDA
believes there needs to be more recognition, evaluation and
research on cross-media impacts from animal feeding operations.
CAFOs can affect multiple pollutant media streams--soil, water,
air? which could present management challenges or benefits. For
example, methane emissions from an animal feeding operation
could provide a potential energy source.
Air quality concerns associated with agricultural
production include odors, ozone precursors, particulate
emissions, and greenhouse gases. More study is needed. Very
little science exists for agriculture related air quality
issues. In fact, agriculture is currently financing $15 million
in research for EPA to help refine air quality issues.
EPA and USDA should develop partnerships with State
agriculture departments to address these issues in a voluntary,
incentive based way because we will have better success. For
example, odor is a local issue. Addressing air quality concerns
is an area of increasing emphasis in USDA conservation
programs. Livestock producers enrolled in EQIP can receive
cost-share assistance for installing anaerobic waste digestors,
which significantly reduce odors. The new Conservation Security
Program (CSP) provides enhancement payments for action that
directly benefits air quality, including improving visability,
reducing near-surface ozone levels, reducing transport of fine
and course particulates, reducing the potential for airborne
agricultural chemicals and volatile organic compounds to affect
human health, and increasing the sequestration of carbon on
crop, range, and pasturelands.
superfund regulation of animal wastes
Recent lawsuits are threatening livestock and poultry
operations by potential liability for emissions or discharges
from manure produced or used in their operations.
NASDA strongly believes that it was never intended for
agricultural operations and manure to be regulated under the
Comprehensive Environmental Recovery, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA) or the Environmental Protection and
Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), which are commonly known
as Superfund.
We are pleased that EPA has issued guidance to clarify this
issue, but urge Congress to pass legislation and confirm that
agricultural byproducts produced during routine agricultural
operations should not be subject to the provisions of EPCRA and
CERCLA. If this clarification is not put into place, farming
operations of all sizes could be subject to unwarranted
litigation which would negatively impact their operations and
the nation's food supply.
Animal agriculture operations and manure managements are
already regulated under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and
various State laws to protect the environment. These laws and
regulations provide for permitting, enforcement, and if
necessary, remediation.
It is important to note that CERCLA/EPCRA clearly exempt
the application of chemical fertilizers containing the same
constituents as manure--orthophosphate, ammonia, and hydrogen
sulfide--which occur naturally in the environment.
This is not a large versus small farm issue. CERCLA/EPCRA
current reporting requirements and liability thresholds for
non-agricultural releases/emissions of regulated substances are
quite low. This means virtually any agricultural operation
producing, storing, and/or using animal manure could be held
liable under laws. We do not want agriculture to be driven out
of business or outside our borders by the heavy hand of
government. CERCLA/EPCRA will only divert critical resources
away from making agricultural environmental improvements to
legal pockets.
state surveys on concentrated animal feeding operations (cafos)
NASDA's Research Foundation has been conducting periodic
surveys on CAFOs since 1997 with the latest surveys conducted
in 2003 and 2005. These surveys were developed to obtain
detailed information about State efforts to address water
quality concerns, provide an overview of State requirements and
regulations, and development of nutrient management plans.
The surveys show that many states have regulations more
stringent and/or specific than Federal regulations for CAFOs.
Most states have required the development and implementation of
a nutrient management plan for the application of manure, while
some use a voluntary, incentive-based approach in accordance
with sound agricultural practices and agronomic rates. Some
states have developed more inclusive individual permit programs
and/or required design criteria for protection of both surface
water and groundwater. Other states have specified additional
surface water protection based on containment structure
capacities. A number of states have mandatory training
requirements for the operation of a variety of animal
operations. In addition to the Federal EQIP cost-share program,
many states have their own cost-share programs or a low-
interest loan program for best management practices. Most
states have required inspections as part of their monitoring
and enforcement process.
In 2006, NASDA launched CNMP Watch, a complete web-based
source for manure and nutrient management planning information.
This website was designed to help producers in preparing NMPs/
CNMPs and provide all stakeholders with a portal for
information on Federal and State activities. The website
address is: www.CNMPWatch.com.
recommendations
As we have emphasized throughout our testimony, states have
already taken a strong lead in working with and regulating
animal feeding operations. The Federal Government should
capitalize on the proven strengths of the State CAFO programs
by providing funding, guidance, and coordination of resources
to effectively achieve environmental quality on animal
operations. NASDA offers the following recommendations to
enhance our capabilities: $ EPA should provide states with the
flexibility to account for regional differences in approach and
should recognize ``functionally equivalent'' State programs
that meet the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(NPDES) goals.
More coordination is needed between EPA and USDA
regarding components of CNMPs, and other forms of nutrient
management planning. The CNMP used in the regulatory program as
a permit requirement must be the same as the CNMP used
voluntarily by non-permitted AFOs. If two different plans are
used, the incentive for producers to voluntarily develop CNMPs
in hope of avoiding the regulatory program disappears.
Fully fund the EQIP and Section 319 Nonpoint Source
Management Program. NASDA has long believed that the 319
program has been severely underfunded. Under the 319 program,
states receive funds to support a wide variety of activities to
address nonpoint source water quality issues, including
technical assistance, education, training, technology transfer,
demonstration projects, and monitoring.
Provide and fund additional technical assistance from
USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). Thousands
of CNMPs are currently waiting for technical support to be
completed.
Provide more research and funding for water quality data
and air quality data. Current information and statistics on
water quality are lacking in completeness and are dated. Very
little science and data currently exists for agricultural air
quality issues. More State and Federal funding is needed in
these areas to get more accurate, science-based data. This
evolving base of knowledge can be used to provide technical
assistance and educational assistance to producers. From this
knowledge, we also know which management practices and
investments should be supported with financial assistance in
the form of cost-share payments, loans, and grants.
Additional research and technology development is needed
to better understand cross media issues, such as air quality,
odor, greenhouse gases.
Congress should approve legislation to confirm that
agricultural byproducts produced during routine agricultural
operations should not be subject to the provisions of EPCRA and
CERCLA.
conclusion
One of the most significant trends in the last decade is
the growing awareness of nearly all segments of the U.S.
society in the importance of preserving our land, water and air
resources. Agriculture--like other business sectors--has made
substantial investments and taken great strides in protecting
the environment.
The challenge today is how to maintain an economically
viable and healthy agricultural landscape producing the food
and fiber on which our country depends, while improving the
agricultural environmental benefits our citizens enjoy.
Agriculture provides not only the food and fiber of America,
but is the largest offset provider against human activity. A
healthy agricultural landscape provides clean air, water and
open space.
NASDA urges you to carefully consider agriculture's needs
as we continue efforts to enhance environmental protection
while maintaining a viable farm production system. We would
welcome the opportunity to discuss these critical issues and
look forward to working with you.
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much, sir.
Senator Inhofe and I have been collaborating on how to deal
with the time problem. We have come up with a plan.
I would ask the second panelists, is there anyone on the
second panel who could not come back at 2 p.m.?
Can you all come back at 2 p.m.?
That is excellent. So what we are going to do is take the
rest of our time. We don't have that much left, but we will now
hear from our final speaker on this panel.
Catharine Fitzsimmons, Chief Air Quality Bureau, Iowa
Department of Natural Resources, National Association of Clean
Air Agencies, welcome.
STATEMENT OF CATHARINE FITZSIMMONS, CHIEF, AIR QUALITY BUREAU,
IOWA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF CLEAN AIR AGENCIES
Ms. Fitzsimmons. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chairman
and members of the Committee.
Senator Inhofe. Move it a little closer, if you would,
please.
Ms. Fitzsimmons. Thank you.
My name is Catharine Fitzsimmons, and I am Chief of the
Iowa Air Quality at the Department of Natural Resources.
I appear today on behalf of NACAA, the National Association
of Clean Air Agencies, the association of air pollution control
agencies in 54 states and territories and over 165 metropolitan
areas across the Country.
NACAA's members are responsible for ensuring that our
citizens breath clean air. We are required under the Clean Air
Act to develop State implementation plans demonstrating that
areas attain and maintain the national ambient air quality
standards. In developing these plans, we analyze every
important source of pollution, large and small, ranging from
electric utilities and other industrial sources, from cars and
trucks to even bakeries and dry cleaners.
In light of the fact that plan development is a zero-sum
calculation, our agencies do not have the luxury of ignoring
any significant sources of air pollution. Accordingly, we are
troubled by legislative and regulatory efforts to exempt large
industrial size CAFOs from environmental laws. If CAFOs emit
air pollutants that exceed permitting thresholds or reportable
quantities, then just like any other sources of pollution,
CAFOs should comply with environmental laws.
Our primary concern is with large industrial scale CAFOs
that house thousands of dairy cows or beef cattle, tens of
thousands of swine and hundreds of thousands, even millions, of
chickens. These facilities are responsible for thousands of
tons of manure and release in substantial quantities, air
pollutants such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and particulate
matter that can cause severe health effects including death,
heart attacks and increased severity of asthma attacks.
In light of this, it seems obvious that like every other
industry that has an impact on human health and the
environment, CAFOs should comply with environmental laws.
Instead, however, there have been several attempts to exempt
CAFOs from these important statutes. Let me give you a few
examples.
First, EPA entered into an agreement with the CAFO industry
to fund a monitoring program to obtain emissions data in
exchange for a safe harbor from Clean Air Act, CERCLA and EPCRA
requirements.
The agreement has several major problems. It contains a
much too broad enforcement waiver. Given the small number of
farms that are being monitored, the data collected will not
likely be representative, and there is no assurance that
participating CAFOs or any CAFOs will be required to reduce
their air emissions as a result of the agreement.
Second, we are concerned about regulatory and legislative
efforts to exempt manure from CERCLA and EPCRA requirements.
The implications of this exclusion are significant. Emergency
responders would be prevented from having critical information
about potentially dangerous releases, EPA or a State could not
use CERCLA response authorities, and CAFOs would also be exempt
from any natural resource damages, leaving the financial burden
of any cleanup on the public.
Finally, we are concerned about efforts by an industry-
dominated Federal advisory committee of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to limit the application of environmental laws to
CAFOs. For example, last year the committee recommended
defining the word, source, so narrowly that CAFOs might not
face any requirements for controlling air emissions regardless
of the results of the monitoring being conducted under the air
compliance agreement for AFOs.
In summary, the well documented adverse health effects and
substantial levels of air pollutants from CAFOs warrant
rigorous application of environmental laws to these sources. It
is exactly such sources that statutes such as the Clean Air
Act, CERCLA and EPCRA are intended to address.
Attempts by Congress, EPA and other to exempt CAFOs from
environmental laws and arguments made in support of such
exemptions are inappropriate. Instead, CAFOs, like every other
major industry in this Country, should be expected and required
to accept their obligations and comply in full with
environmental laws.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Fitzsimmons follows:]
Statement of Catharine Fitzsimmons, Chief, Air Quality Bureau, Iowa
Department of Natural Resources and National Association of Clean Air
Agencies
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much.
We are going to start our questioning. We are going to do
it the early bird rule, and each of us will have 4 minutes, and
I am going to try to enforce the rule. Let me start.
Mr. Blackham, you said at the end that you want to see
cities and States and counties work together to resolve these
issues, and I just wanted to pick up on the point because we
have a list here of the folks who oppose weakening the health
protections and the polluter pay principles, in other words,
the people who support the current law. That includes the U.S.
Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, the
National Association of City and County Health Officials, the
American Public Health Association, the National League of
Cities, the city of Waco, Texas, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
and it goes on.
So I just wanted to point out that when we say that we want
the cities and counties to work in a cooperative way and the
States, they have already spoken out. I guess that would. lead
me to a question to Mr. Grumbles.
I am assuming that you would agree that, say, for example,
the State of Oklahoma has the right to sue the CAFOs industry.
Mr. Grumbles. I would agree that they have the right to
sue. It always depends on what statute or authority you are
focusing on.
Certainly, the Agency respects and celebrates the fact, for
instance, under the Clean Water Act, it is largely the States
that carry out the programs that we oversee when we provide
national standards. So throughout our efforts to strengthen
control regulation over CAFOs and work.
Senator Boxer. They are suing under Superfund is my
understanding. Is that right?
Mr. Grumbles. That is right.
Senator Boxer. Attorney General Edmondson, suing under
Superfund?
Mr. Edmondson. That is one of our causes of action, yes,
ma'am.
Senator Boxer. OK, one of them. So I wonder if you could
talk to us because it is a big step. You are going up against a
lot of giants, and I would like to know what was the straw that
broke the camel's back that you decided that you needed to do
the lawsuit.
Mr. Edmondson. We began negotiating with the industry in
November 2001 and went through several years of unsuccessful
negotiations. During that process, the city of Tulsa also found
it necessary to file a lawsuit. They negotiated a settlement,
and the industry began removing 70 percent of the litter out of
the Eucha/Spavinaw of our watershed that provides drinking
water to the city of Tulsa.
Even after doing that, they continued to surface supply in
the Illinois River watershed and the other watersheds of
western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.
The straw, if there was one, was simply a loss of patience.
Every month that we negotiated was another month with litter
being applied on the land.
Senator Boxer. What did you hear from the people in
Oklahoma? Why were they upset about this?
Mr. Edmondson. They were upset about it in the State of
Oklahoma for two reasons. One is this watershed is a
recreational resource, and the water clarity and quality had
declined dramatically over the last several decades, and the
other is municipal and rural water districts rely on that
watershed for drinking water.
As was mentioned by another panelist, heightened levels of
chlorine were necessary in order to treat the levels of algae,
and the more chlorine you use, the more risk you have of
producing trihalomethanes which are a carcinogen. So it is
Hobbesian choice for those who want that water to drink. They
either get it smelling bad and tasting bad or they up their
risk of cancer.
Senator Boxer. My last question, because I am running out
of time, is to Mr. Hirsch. I really appreciated your very clear
testimony, sir.
Livestock operations use antibiotics and hormones to
promote growth and to reduce the likelihood of disease
outbreaks in areas where animals are tightly packed together.
Could you describe some of the USGS' findings concerning
antibiotics and hormones in relation to livestock operations
and some of the concerns that have spurred USGS to examine
these pollutants?
Mr. Hirsch. I think I would prefer to respond for the
record to that. There is a lot of research. I am not familiar
with the details of it, and I don't think it would be wise for
me to try to delve into that at this time.
Senator Boxer. Do you agree that those antibiotics and
hormones show up in the waste?
Mr. Hirsch. Yes, they do.
Senator Boxer. Thank you.
All right, Senator Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
First, Ms. Fitzsimmons, one quick question here: Are the
public health departments in swine-intensive counties reporting
higher incidents of respiratory problems than public health
departments elsewhere?
Ms. Fitzsimmons. I do not have data about every county in
the State of Iowa or in other areas. However, Wellmark Blue
Cross and Blue and the University of Iowa have conducted a
number of health surveys that have annotated that.
Senator Inhofe. OK, that is fine. I think the answer is no
on that, but we are on a fast track here.
Mr. Edmondson, your lawsuits against the poultry industry
and you are asking the court to define animal waste as
hazardous waste in 1972 CERCLA, my problem has been that it is
not confined to the poultry industry, and I think that is the
reason that the Farm Bureau and the Farmers Union and all the
farmers are concerned about this. I would like to have you
explain to us what you think the impact would be on those
industries.
Mr. Edmondson. Thank you, Senator.
Our litigation was confined to the poultry industry.
I understand the concern felt by the cattle industry and
others as to the possible future ramifications of our lawsuit.
I don't think those concerns are valid in regard to cattle that
graze and cattle droppings in a field. The concentrated feeding
operations, whether they are bovine or swine, are still subject
to stricter regulation than animals in a field, and I think
that will remain the case.
We are not talking about rodeos. We are not talking about
parades. We are talking about industrial level generation of
waste.
Senator Inhofe. Well, some of the cattle waste, for
example, has been used very productively in types of fertilizer
and even some suggestion on energy being produced from these.
It is concerning to me that the method of disposal, should that
be declared as a hazardous waste, would be to lose all that,
which could be an asset. Have you thought about that as being a
problem?
Mr. Edmondson. I think it can be an asset, and I don't
think the result of this lawsuit is going to keep that from
happening. There are some very exciting ideas about there.
Senator Inhofe. I hate to keep rushing here. But in the
lawsuit, and you are a smart, smart lawyer--I know that--is
there any way that you could construct this thing to somehow
confine it to the poultry industry or alleviate some of the
problems that we see, that I see and that you see, I am sure
too, and as well as our farmers see in Oklahoma?
Mr. Edmondson. Senator, we would be real happy in the event
of a successful result to work with the court to make sure that
the findings are so limited. Whether our lawsuit is successful
or not, the chemicals are what is listed in CERCLA, and we are
not going to add chemicals or remove chemicals from what is
already covered under that statute.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Sims, first of all, I wish there was more time. I could
elaborate on the great loss that we have here, losing Craig
Thomas. He and I were elected to the House at the same time and
the Senate, and he served on this Committee, and he certainly
is ably replaced by Senator Barrasso.
We have in Oklahoma a program that has been very
successful. We had a hearing there, and we passed this into
legislation. It is the partnership program with Fish and
Wildlife.
I think you have commented in your written statement how
successful these programs, the voluntary conservation programs,
have been. Yet, I think there are probably some on this panel
who feel that nothing is going to really be done and achieve
environmental progress unless it is through a very heavy-handed
regulation.
I would just like to know your experience and your feelings
about that.
Mr. Sims. Excuse me, Madam Chairman.
Senator, thank you for the opportunity.
We have seen across the Country that probably one of the
biggest issues in this whole subject that we are talking about
today is just the lack of understanding of the existing rules
and regulations that are in place.
In many States across the Country, they already, the States
themselves, the State environmental agency has more stringent
regulations than the Federal Government, not in all States but
in some States. And so, the States, a lot of them, have already
been ahead of the curve on a lot of this.
But you have got some smaller operations that, even though
they fall under this threshold of the numbers that we talked
about of whether it is livestock or chickens or whatever, for
the fact that they have had facilities that are built on live
streams, like our grandfathers did years ago when they settled
our part of the Country. Even though they are a small
operation, they still meet the technical criteria of
unacceptable conditions. That throws them under this CAFO
definition.
So through voluntary efforts and education, we have been
able to educate those folks and really make a lot of change out
there on the ground to improve the water quality issue.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr Sims.
Senator Boxer. Thank you, Senator Inhofe.
Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Madam Chair.
When I was the Governor of Delaware, we wrestled with, as
most States did, what to do about welfare, how to make sure
people got off welfare and were better off. We wrestled with
how do we reduce incidents of teenage pregnancy. We wrestled
with what do we do with agriculture runoff for years and years,
and folks would clean out their chicken houses and simply use
the litter as fertilizer on their fields.
What we did on welfare is we brought together a lot of
folks who received welfare and said: You know this is not a
good system. What can we do to make it better?
For teen pregnancy, we brought in teenagers from high
schools all over our State and asked them to help us figure out
what we ought to do on teenage pregnancy.
With respect to reducing agriculture runoff, really from
chicken litter, we pulled together all kinds of farmers,
environmentalists from our State. The EPA was good to
participate. State offices were good to participate, Natural
Resources and so forth, Department of Ag.
We said: Help us figure out what to do about this problem.
We know there is a problem, and we can't keep going on this
way.
We came up with the idea of requiring nutrient management
plans to be developed and adopted for most of our significant,
actually almost any animal operation of any size, and to train
the folks, the farmers from those, whose nutrient management
plan was adopted for their farm, to train them how to use it,
how to implement it.
It is now enforced. It is enforced by the Department of
Natural Resources, Department of Agriculture, and even the EPA
from time to time will come by and get after somebody who needs
to be gotten after. So this is something we have thought a
whole lot about.
We have, in Delaware, 300 chickens for every person who
lives in my State. So we have a fair amount of chicken litter.
We have worked very hard for actually the last six or 7 years,
and I am real proud of what we have done.
While I am not interested in completing exempting every
animal feeding operation, certainly in Delaware or other
places, from Superfund, I am interested in figuring out how do
we provide some certainty, some protection that I would call
the good actors as opposed to the bad actors.
If we wrote legislation here that clearly defined the
normal application of fertilizer to be the use of a certified
nutrient management plan, would that provide the peace of mind
that the good actors are looking for and without exempting
improper management from their liability?
That is my question. Let me just ask a couple of you to
respond to it, if you will, starting with Mr. Grumbles, if you
would share your thoughts on that question.
Attorney General Edmondson, welcome. We are glad you are
here. Thanks for coming.
Mr. Sims, I was interested in asking you what size jacket
you wear. I mean we would like to sign you up to play football
for the University of Delaware.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Sims. Is there a signing bonus?
Senator Carper. And Commissioner Blackham, we would like to
ask you to respond. If the four of you would take a shot at
that, I would be grateful and just try to be succinct, if you
will. Thanks.
Mr. Grumbles. Very succinctly, Senator, right now one of
EPA's highest enforcement priorities is on the bad actors at
CAFOs across the Country. That is one of our national
priorities, enforcement priorities. So, like you, we want to
focus on going after the bad actors and also encouraging and
working with good actors.
In terms of the legislation, we are happy to work with you
on that and look for ways to make progress.
A key for us is to advance the ball on nutrient management.
One of the things you mentioned is a very positive one, and
that is looking for incentives, which we are also doing with
USDA, on getting CAFOs and AFOs across the Country to develop
comprehensive nutrient management plans and nutrient management
plans under the Clean Water Act regulatory program. We think
that is the key to reducing nitrogen, phosphorus and other
types of pollutants.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Senator Boxer. Senator Carper, because of the time, we are
really going to have to move on. Do you want to pick one other
person to be brief on that question?
Senator Carper. The attorney general.
Mr. Edmondson. Thank you, Senator Carper, and I will be
brief.
We have best management practices in Oklahoma, and I don't
think any farmer is violating those.
The problem is the other half of the statute says that in
no event shall surface application result in runoff, and that
is what is happening. I think it would be very difficult to
craft a statute that says you can apply at industrial levels
and guarantee no runoff into the water.
Senator Carper. If I could, Madam Chairman, I would like to
ask Mr. Sims and Commissioner Blackham to respond for the
record, please.
Senator Boxer. Would you do that, respond for the record?
Thank you.
Senator Boxer. Senator Barrasso, you have been very
patient.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I am very pleased to have Olin Sims here today to testify
on behalf of the National Association of Conservation
Districts.
Senator Carper, we have a lot more like him at home, and we
would be happy to find a place on our football schedule for
anyone from Delaware.
Senator Carper. We don't want to play you guys.
[Laughter.]
Senator Barrasso. We did beat the University of Virginia
this last weekend, 23 to 3, so it was a great weekend in
Wyoming.
Senator Boxer. Well, Cal beat Tennessee, if we really want
to get into it. I was at the game, but let us go on.
Senator Barrasso. That is good.
[Laughter.]
Senator Barrasso. Well, Mr. Sims' family runs a cow-calf
operation, Madam Chairman, in south central Wyoming. From his
experience on the ranch, as well as from his years of elected
service on the Conservation District Board, he understands the
challenges that livestock producers face on a yearly basis.
Many families in Wyoming run operations and elsewhere. They
are concerned about how confined animal feeding operation
regulations are going to impact their future. So Wyoming
ranchers are concerned that expanding CAFO regulations are
going to change their lives forever and not for the better.
Wyoming ranchers fear that as urban areas encroach upon
rural communities across the West, that conflicts will grow and
well funded special interest groups will force them to spend
their hard-earned money in courtrooms rather than improving
their land or investing in the future of our State. So they are
frustrated by the refusal of so many to acknowledge that people
who live and rely on the land for economic survival are often
the best stewards of the land as we have seen time and time
again in Wyoming.
After reading Mr. Sims' testimony, I have to say I am
impressed by the efforts of our producers and by the
conservation districts to improve the situation by doing it
voluntarily and with incentives. I believe that their approach
has been extremely successful, and their use of EQIP funds has
been equally impressive.
As we listen to the testimony today, I hope all of us will
remember that there are a lot of good things that are happening
in America's agriculture community and that pursuing a one size
fits all solution is, in fact, not a solution at all.
Mr. Sims, I would like to ask you to talk about the
importance of flexibility, allowing States to have more
responsibility to build their own successful programs and to
tailor programs for the unique circumstances that each State
develops individually.
Mr. Sims, please.
Mr. Sims. Madam Chairman, members of the Committee, Mr.
Barrasso, thank you very much.
I completely agree. I think the Federal Government, the
regulatory agencies have a responsibility to set the goal, to
set the environmental regulation that we need and then allow
the States then to find the approaches, the best approaches
that fit each area because we have got areas of the semi-arid
West and Southwest.
Then we go to the South, the North Carolina folks that are
dealing with hurricanes, and we go to New York, the State of
New York, where they have 300 inches of snow. So we can't find
the cookie cutter type regulation that is going to address all
of these issues.
Let the Federal Government establish the goal. Let us
figure out to achieve it. Yes, there needs to be consequences
along the line, but there is a lot of good work on the ground.
I don't know that we need new regulation. We need to better
implement what we have right now to look at new technologies.
Conservation technical assistance is key. We need to make sure
that the Federal Government funds NRCS to an appropriate level,
to have producers out on the ground who work, excuse me, to
have field technicians out on the ground to work with
producers.
Producers want to do the right thing. Sometimes they just
don't know what they need to do.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Sims.
No further questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Boxer. Thank you.
Senator, one thing you said struck me because there already
is an exemption in the law for the normal application of
fertilizer. I just want to make sure you were aware of that.
The next on our list is Senator Lautenberg.
Welcome, sir.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Coming from a State like New Jersey, these problems aren't
quite as apparent. But, of course, we are, in this Committee
and in this body, very much interested in reducing risks to the
population from wherever it comes.
Oddly enough, the subject of waste removal here today
accompanies a statement that was made on television this
morning about what happens with ship exhausts, one ship
producing more in a day than 365,000 cars. So we are
overwhelmed by excessive pollution coming from all kinds of
sources.
Mr. Edmondson, if we were to exempt factory farms from the
authority of Superfund, would that not result in costs being
passed along to the taxpayers?
Mr. Edmondson. I think it would result not in only costs
going to the taxpayers. That is assuming that States or the
Federal Government engage in cleanup of the mess. The
alternative is untreated, uncorrected destruction of our
environment and our waters.
Senator Lautenberg. If we did that, it would remove any
incentive for these farms to reduce pollution from waste on
their own. If we took it away from Superfund and had to pass
other costs along, I don't know that we would get the
cooperation that we need to solve some of these problems.
Madam Chairman, in the interest of time, I am going to ask
that other questions that I have be able to be submitted for
the record. The record, I assume, will be kept open for that
purpose.
Senator Boxer. Yes, in fact, it will.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you.
Senator Boxer. Senator Bond.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER S. BOND,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI
Senator Bond. Madam Chair, thank you very much for giving
us an opportunity in this format. I regret that I have
commitments in the Intelligence Committee this afternoon and
will not be able to join you. We have a witness from Missouri
on the second panel. I will have some questions for her.
Some of you may know that Missouri is home to extensive
beef, hog, poultry and dairy farms and ranchers providing the
food and dairy products for the Nation. We have a comprehensive
set of laws with which they must abide, and Mr. Blackham's
comment on pollution control through cooperative efforts
reflects precisely what is going on in Missouri.
You can be very proud of what you are doing in your State
and the other States. We have found that that works. I am very
proud of our Missouri farmers and ranchers who make an honest
living by playing by the rules to bring us nutritious and
affordable beef, pork and poultry products.
As I mentioned, Chris Chinn from Emden, Missouri, will be
testifying on the second panel. She is an example of the future
of agriculture. I would note that the 2004 Missouri Farm Bureau
Young Farmers and Ranchers Achievement Award went to Mrs.
Chinn, and I am grateful for her willingness to come and share
with us how she and her husband manage their hog farms and
their parents' sow farrow-to-finish operation, respecting the
environment and providing high quality pork products.
The Chinns and farmers in Missouri and across the Country
have to follow a host of Federal and State Clean Water
permitting nutrient management plan requirements, and they do
so with pride. Together with their partners at the district,
State and Federal level, they ensure adequate storage of
manure, litter and wastewater. They ensure that clean water is
diverted from production areas. They prevent contact between
confined animals and waters.
They ensure that chemicals handled onsite are not disposed
of in any manure. They identify site-specific conservation
practices to implement, including buffers and controlled runoff
of pollutants into waters, and they establish protocols for
applying their manure in accordance with site-specific nutrient
management practices. Our universities have been in the lead in
helping with the Federal agencies, the development of those
standards.
After EPA's coming CAFO rule is finalized, plans to apply
these requirements will be open for public comment and
contained in enforceable permits. That is an example of working
together in partnership, which I support, and I support
strongly punishing those who violate the law. We have the laws,
and we have an obligation to protect the environment. When
mistake are made, penalties must be paid and problems fixed.
What I do not support are efforts by some in Congress and
certain groups to misuse our laws in ways never intended such
as applying the Superfund Law intended for toxic industrial
waste pollution instead to farmers and agriculture.
For organic farmers who use manure as a fertilizer, this
would mean that their food products would come from a Superfund
site. Would they have to disclose that?
The result of such a strategy seen here today in Oklahoma's
lawsuit is litigation gridlock with endless court motions and
no resolution. They don't improve the environment. Efforts to
pay bounty contingency fees to trial lawyers bringing charges
of violating the public trust and creating conflicts of
interest by giving a financial interest to lawyers who may have
given campaign contributions, that is not the way to improve
the environment.
Supporters of Superfund abuse try to deny their efforts
will hurt farmers. They neglect to mention that Superfund
strict liability schemes makes anyone who contributes anything
to the situation, no matter how small, liable for the entire
cost of cleanup and, yes, it would apply to rodeos and parades.
Madam Chair, the vote has started. We are out of time. I
thank you, and I ask unanimous consent to submit the rest of my
statement and the questions for Mrs. Chinn for the record.
Senator Boxer. Absolutely, Senator Bond.
[The prepared statement of Senator Bond follows:]
Statement of Hon. Christopher S. Bond, U.S. Senator from
the State of Missouri
Thank you Madame Chairman for holding this hearing on
animal feeding operations. You may know that Missouri is home
to extensive beef, hog, poultry and dairy farms and ranches
meeting the needs of families across the Nation.
I am so proud of our Missouri farmers and ranchers who make
an honest living playing by the rules to bring us nutritious
and affordable beef, pork and poultry products.
Chris Chinn, from Emden, Missouri, is an example of the
future of agriculture. I am grateful to her for sharing with us
how she and her husband manage their hog farm and their
parents' sow farrow-to-finish operation with respect for the
environment.
The Chinns and farmers and ranchers across the country must
follow a host of Federal and State clean water permitting and
nutrient management plan requirements, and they do so with
pride. Together with their partners at the district, State and
Federal level they:
-ensure adequate storage of manure, litter and wastewater,
-ensure that clean water is diverted from production areas,
-prevent contact between confined animals and waters,
-ensure that chemicals handled onsite are not disposed of
in any manure,
-identify site-specific conservation practices to implement
including buffers to control runoff of pollutants into waters,
and
-establish protocols for applying their manure in
accordance with site-specific nutrient management practices.
After EPA's coming CAFO rule is finalized, plans to apply
these requirements will be open for public comment and
contained in enforceable permits. This is an example of working
together in partnership to manage the land, which I fully
support.
I also fully support punishing those who violate the law.
We all have an obligation to protect the environment. When
mistakes are made, penalties must be paid and problems fixed.
What I do not support are efforts by some in Congress and
certain groups to misuse our laws in ways never intended, such
as trying to apply the Superfund law intended for toxic waste
and industrial pollution instead to farmers and agriculture.
The results of such a strategy seen here today in
Oklahoma's lawsuit is litigation gridlock with endless court
motions and no resolution. That does not improve the
environment. Efforts to pay bounty contingency fees to trial
lawyers bring charges of violating the public trust and
creating conflicts of interest by giving a financial interest
to lawyers who may have given campaign contributions. That is
not the way to improve the environment.
Supporters of Superfund abuse try to deny that their
efforts will hurt small farms. They neglect to mention that
Superfund's strict liability scheme makes anyone who
contributed anything to the situation, no matter how small,
liable for the entire cost of cleanup.
This provision has already bankrupted countless small
businesses caught up in toxic dump cases. I refuse to condemn
farmers to that fate.
Supporters of Superfund abuse try to cite provisions of the
Superfund law to support extending it to farms. However, they
do not recite the provisions they could be violating by
diverting recovered funds, which the law requires must go
solely to clean up and restoration, instead to trial lawyers
working on contingency they hired to pursue their suits.
We in the Heartland know that farmers overwhelmingly are
great stewards of the land. They share our commitment to
protecting the environment. We thank them for their commitment
to providing affordable, abundant, and nutritious beef, pork,
poultry and dairy products.
Thank you.
Senator Boxer. I want to put in the record an article from
the Kansas City Star: Neighbors Say Nearby Dairy Farm
Contaminates Their Wells With Manure. I want to put that in
because I think sometimes we get off into the weeds of
jurisdiction and argument.
[The referenced article can be found on page 150.]
To me, it has always been what is the real facts on the
ground. What happens to our people? What is their quality of
life?
I think we need to balance. I come from the largest
agricultural State in the Union. People seem to forget that. We
do have Hollywood and Silicon Valley, but we are the No. 1 ag
State.
So we have to balance all of our needs, but there is no
reason why we can't balance a clean and healthy environment
with a prosperous, growing industry if people just had some
sense of corporate responsibility because we are not talking
about a few chickens. We are talking about some farms that have
up to a million animals, and these folks don't live on the
land. That is why I think we have to make a distinction between
the people Senator Barrasso was so eloquent about and these
huge, large scale operations.
This panel has been terrific. You have all brought your
expertise.
We will leave the record open, and we look forward at 2 to
hearing from panel two.
Senator Carper. Madam Chair, just one last thing.
Senator Boxer. Yes, yes.
Senator Carper. Several of our witnesses talked about
things we can do in a technological way.
Senator Boxer. Yes.
Senator Carper. One of the things we are proudest of in
Delaware--I just visited it recently--is the folks from Perdue,
Jim Perdue, who is actually a marine biologist and runs the
Perdue poultry company, and the State of Delaware teamed up in
a partnership to take about 10 to 15 percent of all the chicken
litter off of the DelMarVa Peninsula and to pelletize it and
sell it as a fertilizer, organic fertilizer all over the
Country. That is the kind of solutions that are part of the way
out of this as well.
Senator Boxer. Absolutely, Senator, I believe you are
right, that we can protect the health of the people and still
grow our economy. That always comes down to where I am at.
So I thank you very much.
We stand in recess, actually, until 2.
[Recess.]
Senator Boxer. The Committee shall come to order.
I want to thank Senator Inhofe for his very good suggestion
that we work on this panel this afternoon. I really do
appreciate our terrific witnesses waiting around, and I hope
that you had some enjoyable lunch or chat.
So why don't we just get started?
Each of you will have 5 minutes. We will start with Chris
Chinn, Farmer, American Farm Bureau Federation.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS CHINN, FARMER, AMERICAN FARM BUREAU
FEDERATION
Mrs. Chinn. Thank you, Chairman Boxer, and I would like to
thank the entire Committee for allowing me to speak today.
My name is Chris Chinn, and I am the Young Farmers and
Ranchers Chair for the American Farm Bureau Federation. I also
serve on the Board of Directors for the American Farm Bureau
Federation.
My husband, Kevin, and I are fifth generation farmers, and
we raise hogs along with other family members in northeastern
Missouri. Kevin and I are also raising the sixth generation of
family farmers. We have two young children. Their names are
Conner and Rachelle.
Kevin and I actively support our local Lions Club, our
county fair, our church, and we are active in our community
with other civic and youth organizations. I also serve on the
Board of Directors for the YMCA, and Kevin and I are both very
active in our local and State Farm Bureaus.
Some Americans have a very nostalgic view of what they
think agriculture should be. They think that we should raise
our animals the same way that farmers did 50 years ago, but 50
years ago life on the farm was a lot harder, harder for the
farmer, harder for the farm family and harder on our hogs.
As recently as 30 years ago, my family raised hogs in what
people call a traditional manner. Our hogs were not protected
from the weather, diseases or predators. But, today, our hogs
are housed in climate-controlled facilities. This allows us to
not only raise our hogs, but it also allows us to protect our
environment.
Our farm is a family farm. Our parents, our siblings and
our children live and work there. Many people would say that we
are big farm. While my family farm may fulfill the perception
of a big farm in terms of size, my family cares about the
environment, we care about our community, and we care about our
animals.
We follow and, in fact, many times, often go above and
beyond Federal and State rules and regulations. My family has a
comprehensive nutrient management plan as well as an
environmental management system in place on our farm. Together,
they ensure quality continued improvements as well as
protecting our environment and our community.
We monitor daily rainfall, we test our soil, and we use
best management practices. This is only a very short list of
the many things that we do to protect our environment and keep
our farm productive.
In fact, I am so certain that the air and water around my
farm is clean that Kevin and I recently built a home within 200
yards of our water treatment lagoon. Visitors to our farm and
my home think that the pretty patch of water out back is a
pond. They don't know it is my lagoon unless we tell them.
My kids' favorite place to be on our farm is inside our hog
barns, working beside their dad, and I feel that environment is
just as safe as their schools. When they are in our barn----
Senator Inhofe. Let me interrupt to point out to everyone
who is here that we are showing some of these charts of your
farm that you are talking about, so it gives a little visual
for your presentation.
Mrs. Chinn. Thank you, Senator.
As I said, my kids' favorite place to be is inside the
barns, working with their father. They learn great, valuable
lessons about how to care for our animals and all the
intangible ethics that come from growing up on a farm.
I know that that environment inside our buildings, as you
can see, is just as safe and clean as it can be. We have
computer-controlled ventilation systems that ensure healthy
air.
But Kevin and I are not alone in protecting our
environment. We know many farmers across this Country who care
for their land, their environment and their animals in the same
manner that we do. This Country is very diverse with livestock
operations, but the one thing that we all have in common is our
desire to protect our environment.
American farmers and ranchers produce the most safe and
abundant supply of food in this world, and I hope that I never,
ever see a day when the majority of our food comes from China
like my children's toys do today.
American farmers produce a safe and abundant supply of
food, and it is dependable from farm to fork, and it is also a
system that protects our environment.
Finally, please do not assume that just because my family
farm may be big, it must be bad. Our farm supports multiple
family owners representing five different families. We employ
40 people, not to mention all the other farmers who we work
with in our community. We purchase all of our grain locally
from our local farmers. That creates another market for their
corn.
When you consider enacting new legislation or rules and
regulations upon us, please keep in mind the impact that these
rules and regulations will have on farmers like me, the
communities that we represent and the other farmers that we
support because without farmers, my rural community will die.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Chinn follows:]
Statement of Chris Chinn, Farmer, American Farm Bureau Federation
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) respectfully
submits our views to the committee as it reviews the impact of
Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). As the Nation's
largest general farm organization and the representative of
millions of farmers and ranchers in every State in the Nation,
AFBF has a vital interest in how animal care issues affecting
our members are perceived, examined and decided.
overview
Many people outside of agriculture and the livestock
industry have concerns about the environmental and health
impacts of livestock operations. Some have gone so far as to
demonize livestock operations, calling them factory farms and
industrial livestock production. In fact, many of these
livestock farms continue to be family owned and operated.
Contrary to anti-livestock rhetoric, this nation's livestock
industry is proficient at producing safe and abundant food
while protecting our natural resources. The industry is highly
regulated and farmers often surpass requirements when
fulfilling their roles as caretakers of the environment and
good citizens of their communities.
It is often overlooked, but the vast majority of farmers
who operate CAFOs are involved in a family based business, are
highly educated college graduates, community leaders, and
experts in science and technology. Most are trained in humane
animal husbandry and environmental sciences and spend great
amounts of time, money and other resources ensuring that their
operations do not harm the environment. More good news is that
the efficiency of livestock production in the United States
ensures Americans can purchase beef, pork, eggs, turkey,
chicken and milk that is safe, nutritious and affordable.
Providing meat to the United States and international markets
also supports hundreds of thousands of jobs on farms, in rural
communities, and in value-added food chain facilities
nationwide.
Livestock production helps drive our bedrock agricultural
economy in the United States with receipts annually on par with
crop receipts. This means that the total value of cattle, hog,
sheep, broiler, turkey, egg, milk, butter, cheese, honey, and
farm-raised fish sales is roughly equivalent to the dollars
generated from selling wheat, corn, rice, hay, cotton,
soybeans, peanuts, tobacco, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and
greenhouse/nursery crops. Typically, cattle and sheep
production has been located in areas where crop production is
not economically practical, thus making efficient use of land
resources that would otherwise lack an economic use. Hog,
dairy, poultry, and egg production has historically been co-
located with crop production to make the most efficient use of
crop production and crop aftermath. This co-location continues
today, with livestock operations locating near biofuels
production and making highly efficient use of the by-products
of ethanol production.
Livestock farms and ranches employ hundreds of thousands of
workers, providing rural residents with jobs and benefits that
would otherwise not exist. In the hog business alone, Iowa
State University researchers estimate more than 34,000 full-
time jobs are directly attributable to farm-level production,
with more than 110,000 additional jobs in the processing/
packing sector. In the cattle industry, the American Farm
Bureau Federation estimates more than 23,000 employees work in
feedyards alone. America's livestock producers work hard, not
only to feed their own families, but the families of thousands
of others whose livelihoods depend on producing and processing
livestock and meat products. By virtue of feed they purchase
for their livestock, these farmers also are supporting farmers
involved in crop production.
America's livestock producers face generally low profit
margins. They must watch expenses closely, so economics as well
as science ensures they make judicious decisions when it comes
to the use of livestock inputs. They consider carefully the
impact of their activities on not only the quality of the end
product, but on the quality of life of the livestock under
their care.
America's livestock producers are the most efficient
producers in the world, providing safe and wholesome meat,
poultry, egg, and milk products despite regulatory burdens that
far exceed those faced by their competitors in Asia and South
America. Here in the United States, feed and other inputs cost
more, labor costs more and is less available, yet despite this,
our nation's innovative farmers and ranchers still produce
among the best and safest all-around product in the world. That
being said, this cannot continue indefinitely. Many operations
are near the tipping point where needless regulation that
accomplishes no real environmental or food safety goal will
drive them out of business. Additional regulation means dollars
out of the pockets of farmers and ranchers, pure and simple.
While other facets of our economy simply pass along costs such
as these, farmers--independent livestock producers in
particular--do not have this option. The vast majority of
farmers are price-takers, rather than price-setters, in our
economic system. While America's livestock producers recognize
the need for adequate regulations to ensure environmental
quality, food safety and other science-based endeavors, they
increasingly find their livelihoods threatened by government
regulations that cross the threshold of common sense in
attempts to address any number of perceived societal ills.
The population of the United States passed 300 million
people in 2006. Many demographers predict that number will
exceed 400 million by 2040. A sober question that must be asked
is ``how will we feed one-third more people in just 35 more
years?'' A short and equally sober answer would be ``not from
domestic food production if irrational regulations shift
production of meat, milk, poultry, and eggs outside the United
States.''
If Americans are concerned about the environmental impacts
of agricultural production and the safety of their foods and
beverages, the Nation would be well-served to preserve food
production here at home. Our nation has the best environmental
and food safety protocols in the world. Recent concerns about
the safety of imported foods point out the simple fact that if
we make it so hard and cost-prohibitive for America's farmers
and ranchers to stay in business, our nation will be forced to
import a larger portion of our food. We will import most of
that food from nations which have significantly fewer
environmental, food safety and labor safeguards. Simply put, in
a misguided effort to stamp out problems here at home that are
either marginal or do not exist, we will create larger problems
that are arguably more serious.
clean water act
CAFOs are regulated by the Clean Water Act. They must
either have zero discharges, or obtain a National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Contrary to the
assertions of some, it would be incorrect to presume that all
or even most CAFOs experience actual discharges to navigable
waters. The evidence clearly demonstrates that CAFOs as a class
cannot be presumed to be discharging, that the vast majority of
CAFOs do not discharge, and that the probability is extremely
high that a majority of CAFOs will never have a discharge in
the future.
Livestock producers whose operations are classified as
CAFOs, however, are highly regulated with some of the most
stringent fines and enforcement actions available under the
Clean Water Act. As with any regulated group, there are events
and actors that cause a catastrophic failure of the regulatory
system, and they must always be dealt with swiftly and in full
accordance with the law. Spills and discharges can occur, but
in spite of the rhetoric of anti-livestock groups, they are not
the norm and do not represent the practices of the overwhelming
majority of livestock producers.
In particular, we note that any animal feeding operation
(pork, poultry, beef, dairy or horse) of almost any size faces
potential enforcement and severe penalties for even a single
discharge from the operation to waters of the United States.
This was not the case (and was certainly not perceived to be
the case) prior to EPA's 2003 CAFO rule. Perhaps even more
important is that the 2003 rule extended CWA protections to the
application of manure to CAFO lands. Under this change, the
application of manure to these lands without appropriate and
documented agronomic and conservation best management practices
would make any resulting storm water runoff of pollutants to
waters of the United States a CWA ``discharge'' potentially
subject to substantial penalties.
These changes are monumental shifts in the Federal policies
and regulations that govern animal feeding operations. They
have created substantial and effective incentives for CAFOs to
prevent any discharge from CAFO production areas and to use
sound and effective manure application practices in land
application areas. They represent substantial improvements in
water quality protection. Moreover, these benefits will be
realized even for CAFOs that do not need a Federal NPDES
permit. This is a sound policy outcome because certain aspects
of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Waterkeeper ruling will
make the permitting process for CAFOs that do seek permit
coverage more bureaucratic, more cumbersome, and less adaptable
to changing operational circumstances.
nutrient management plans
EPA's CAFO rule will require every permit to include a
nutrient management plan. These plans contain management
practices and procedures necessary to implement applicable
effluent limitations and standards. NMPs will:
Ensure adequate storage of manure, litter, and process
wastewater, including procedures to ensure proper operation and
maintenance of the storage facilities;
Ensure proper management of mortalities (i.e., dead
animals) . . . ;
Ensure that clean water is diverted, as appropriate, from
the production area;
Prevent direct contact of confined animals with waters of
the United States;
Ensure that chemicals and other contaminants handled
onsite are not disposed of in any manure, litter, [or] process
wastewater . . . ;
Identify appropriate site-specific conservation practices
to be implemented, including as appropriate buffers or
equivalent practices, to control runoff of pollutants to waters
of the United States;
Identify protocols for appropriate testing of manure,
litter, process wastewater, and soil;
Establish protocols to land apply manure, litter or
process wastewater in accordance with site specific nutrient
management practices that ensure appropriate agricultural
utilization of the nutrients in the manure, litter or process
wastewater; and
Identify specific records that will be maintained to
document the implementation and management of the minimum
elements.
These provisions require (1) minimization of phosphorus and
nitrogen transport from the field to surface waters through
land application rates; (2) annual testing of manure for
nitrogen and phosphorus content and 5-year testing of soil for
phosphorus content; (3) periodic inspection of land application
equipment; and (4) land application setbacks from waters or
vegetated buffers.
innovation
Beyond design and engineering of adequate structures to
perform waste management, livestock producers today are
employing new methods to reduce nutrients in a CAFO's internal
waste stream. Modifying animal diets to reduce nutrient
excretion and improvements in biological, physical, and
chemical treatment processes for manure and wastewaters can
reduce the acres of land needed to utilize manure nutrients.
Furthermore, byproduct recovery processes are being developed
that can transform waste into energy and other value-added
products to be marketed off the farm. Additional management
practices include costly and burdensome requirements like the
daily inspections of water lines, weekly inspections of storm
water and runoff diversion devices, and manure, litter or
process wastewater impoundments, and maintenance of records
documenting these daily and weekly inspections.
two-tiered assurance
Existing data have established the fact that the vast
majority of CAFOs do not discharge and should not be presumed
to discharge.
The major livestock, poultry and egg producing states have
State regulatory programs that involve permitting requirements.
Under these programs, many states keep records of manure
releases or discharges from livestock operations. Some also
have strict requirements that CAFOs report not only
``discharges'' to the waters of the State or U.S., but also
other types of permit violations, as well as manure spills,
releases, or other incidents regardless of whether they involve
waters of the U.S. Some of these states actively accept and act
on public complaints about incidents, releases, or violations
and they record the complaints and the actions taken in
response. Some of these states require each regulated CAFO to
have a periodic visit from a State regulator/inspector to check
compliance.
The scope, extent and consistency of these publicly
available release or discharge records have grown extensively
since the late 1990's. While there are differences in the
information collected and reported; there is a sufficient
quantity and quality of information available to indicate just
how rare CAFO discharges to waters of the U.S. really are.
Professor Terence Centner of the University of Georgia argues:
``To assume that data from 10 years ago reasonably
describes the current water quality conditions requires that
the locations and practices of AFOs have not undergone any
significant changes. It also assumes that if any changes have
occurred due to the expansion or demise of operations, they
have not markedly altered the pollution reported in the early
1990's. Furthermore, reliance on this data assumes polluters of
the 1990's are engaged in the same activities today and that
they have not implemented new pollution-prevention practices.
Given the available data on current AFO practices, these
assumptions are simply not realistic'' (4).\1\
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\1\See Centner (126-7) for a fuller explanation of recent changes
in the AFO industry.
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protecting air quality
The vast majority of farmers and ranchers live on or near
their livestock operations. This means they and their families
breathe the same air as their neighbors. Most livestock farms
are proactively instituting practices to reduce air quality
concerns for the welfare or their workers, neighbors, animals,
and their own families. Most operations are now using natural
barriers such as tree screens to help mitigate air quality
issues. These screens help to direct air flow from our barns
and lagoons away from other rural residences. Modern facilities
are now being built with computer controlled ventilation
systems to ensure healthy indoor air. Although these common
management practices help reduce emissions of odors, air
particles, and gases, such as ammonia, there is much more that
we do not understand about animal facilities and air emissions.
A 2003 study conducted by the National Research Council of the
National Academy of Sciences\2\ and commissioned by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency determined that there is
insufficient data to fully understand the environmental and
health impacts of large animal operations. In response to the
NAS study, U.S. EPA is partnering with agricultural operations
and land grant universities to measure air emissions from
various types of livestock facilities. The aims of the National
Air Emissions Monitoring\3\ study are to collect accurate data
and develop procedures to better estimate emissions from
livestock facilities. It is important to note that over 2,500
livestock farmers are helping to share the cost of this study
though voluntary participation. The USDA Air Quality Task
Force\4\ has brought more attention to agricultural air quality
research needs; however, funding and support has fallen short.
Scientific studies currently available have only scratched the
surface, and the current patchwork of air regulations does not
make sense for agriculture.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\National Research Council. Air Emissions from Animal Feeding
Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs. 2003. Washington, DC.
National Academies Press.
\3\http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/?odor/NAEMS/
\4\http://www.airquality.nrcs.usda.gov/AAQTF/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the Clean Air Act sets national standards for
criteria pollutants--such as nitrous oxides and fine and coarse
particulate matter (PM), each State is charged with developing
its own implementation plan to meet these standards in areas
that have been given a non-attainment designation by U.S. EPA.
EPA often offers guidance to states to reduce emissions, but
this does not insure uniform treatment of agricultural
operations across all states. As national air quality standards
continue to be tightened, states with large agricultural
production will be more apt to regulate agricultural sources in
order to meet the Federal emissions mandates. Because air
quality reviews are conducted every 5 years, it is difficult to
deal with regulations that are constantly changing. In addition
to Federal standards, individual states often impose additional
air quality regulations and permitting requirements. In
Missouri, State regulations set limits on odor emissions and
require odor control plans separate of any Federal standards.
Missouri also has optional programs to prevent pollution from
agricultural feeding operations. This fragmented approach to
air quality creates an uncertain environment for producers.
the overkill of cercla
In addition to all the Federal and State laws that already
regulate agriculture, livestock and poultry producers, and
anyone else who uses or transports animal manure have yet
another looming concern. Recent lawsuits from activists and
local and State municipalities seek to expand Superfund
liability to animal manure. Collectively, the litigation argues
that manure should be considered a hazardous substance--just
like radioactive and toxic waste--under the Superfund laws.
The Superfund laws--the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA)--
were crafted to address toxic or abandoned waste situations
such as the notorious Three Mile Island and Love Canal sites.
Animal manure has not been regulated under these laws, nor do
we think that the congressional record indicates that Congress
ever intended for a natural substance like manure to be
regulated under such a strict liability scheme.
Compounds are typically regulated under Superfund without
regard to facility size. Further, the threshold amounts of
compound triggering clean-up requirements are from a business
perspective, very small. Superfund was designed to mandate
cleanup of compounds that are very harmful even in small
amounts--manure is a beneficial and natural product that does
not fit that description. Proper production use, storage and
disposal of manure is certainly not harmful to human health or
the environment. Numerous Federal and State laws are in place
to regulate farms when and where manure is found in areas and
quantities that could pose an environmental or health risk if
handled improperly. If the courts do eventually classify manure
as a hazardous substance under Superfund, then the liability
and consequences to farmers and ranchers will negatively alter
the viability and structure of American livestock and poultry
production.
Most farms with animals could be exposed to severe
liabilities and penalties as a result of being brought under
the Superfund laws. Farmers may lose the option of using manure
and be forced to rely on commercial fertilizer at three or more
times its cost. And, ironically, manure and commercial
fertilizer pose similar risks to the environment from over-
application, runoff and air emissions. Congress did exclude the
normal application of ``commercial fertilizers'' from Superfund
liability, so it seems only reasonable that land application of
manure as fertilizer should be afforded the same status.
Superfund already has a legacy of bankrupting small
businesses caught in its path. If manure is determined to be a
hazardous substance, the cost of technical monitoring and
compliance will drastically affect small-and medium-sized
farmers the most, while large producers with far greater
financial resources would be better able to absorb the
compliance and cleanup costs.
The risk of potential liability under the Superfund laws
has compelled companies in other industries to relocate or
significantly shift their facilities out of the U.S. American
animal production is integrated, and future relocation
decisions could result in the loss of animal-production
contracts for farmers, leaving thousands of folks in financial
ruin with empty barns.
The organic foods industry would be affected by any
decision to classify as hazardous the use of manure as
fertilizer. It is unclear how farmers who use organic methods
would be allowed to continue applying manure to their crops,
just as it is uncertain whether any effective, alternative
fertilizer would be certified for use under organic standards.
Farmers and ranchers support research into new uses for
manure. Using manure as a fuel source to generate energy shows
great promise and Federal, State and private investment is
being made into research. Moreover, hazardous substances simply
are not used for energy generation. Which is precisely why
petroleum based fuels are exempted from Superfund liability.
Superfund liability would stifle innovation just as the promise
of developing renewable energy from manure is getting under
way. If manure is classified as hazardous waste under
Superfund, using manure to generate energy--through methane
digesters, for instance--could result in entrepreneurs and
scientists being held liable for cleanup costs under CERCLA
which would preclude the use of manure as a potential energy
source.
conclusion
Farmers and ranchers understand their roles in improving
and maintaining the health and safety of the nations'
environmental resources. Farmers are sensitive to the
environment because they own and manage two-thirds of the
nation's land. They are doing their part to promote the
principles of environmental stewardship by being good
caretakers of the nation's soil, air and water resources. But
the cost of this stewardship is not cheap. Meeting the demand
for food, feed and fuel as well as society's demands for
improved environment quality requires farmers and ranchers to
balance, and often individually bear, the cost of achieving
many competing goals and objectives.
Agriculture's impacts on the environment are closely
intertwined with countless human activities that yield a higher
quality of life for all Americans. Our ability to increase
agricultural productivity--with the use of modern crop
production tools like fertilizers--has enabled our nation's
farmers and ranchers to increase the production of food, feed
and fuel without increasing the acreage of cropland. Our
productive capacity is unprecedented in the world's history and
allows our farmers and ranchers to meet the demands of our
nation's growing population as well as growing world
populations and markets abroad. On top of this unprecedented
productivity, there is little doubt that farmers and ranchers
have made great strides in improving our environment over the
last three decades. By nearly every measure, our environment
and natural resources are in better condition than any other
time in recent history.
Last, we ask members to seek a balanced policy that will
avoid business as usual, and steers way from classic command
and control approaches. Agriculture is a delicate and
interdependent economic activity and the originating link in
the nations' food chain. Livestock production in the United
States must survive and profit. It is essential to the health
and livelihoods of many related aspects of agriculture, such as
feed grain production, and many support sectors of our rural
economies. If animal agriculture loses its economic
sustainability due to overregulation, American consumers would
be left to depend on foreign food imports, likely grown with
less regard for food safety.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much, Chris.
Nick Nemec, and let me say Farmer, Western Organization of
Resource Councils and Dakota Rural Action.
STATEMENT OF NICK NEMEC, FARMER, WESTERN ORGANIZATION OF
RESOURCE COUNCILS AND DAKOTA RURAL ACTION
Mr. Nemec. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the
Committee for giving me this opportunity to testify.
My name is Nicholas Nemec, and I farm and ranch on 4,100
acres in Hyde County, South Dakota. From 1993 to 1996, I
represented my area in our State Legislature.
I am here today as a member of the Western Organization of
Resource Councils and Dakota Rural Action, two non-profit
organizations with over 9,700 members in 7 western States.
My roots in agriculture in South Dakota run deep. My great-
great-grandparents and great-grandparents immigrated to America
from Eastern Europe early in the last century and homestead in
South Dakota in 1907.
Those roots were threatened in early 1997 when Tyson Foods
approached our county commissioners with a plan to construct
over 100 hog confinement barns that would feed over a half
million hogs each year and plans to build more barns in future
years. With the endorsement of the county commissioners and
city council in hand, Tyson Foods thought the door was open for
a major expansion into South Dakota. Little did they know that
the South Dakota State motto is Under God, the People Rule, and
in Hyde County, the people eventually did rule.
My wife and I and our neighbors were worried because we
knew that our county had no zoning ordinances of any kind of
even a requirement for building permits. We were worried that
we might wake up some day and find a large hog barn being built
across the fence or down the road from our farms.
Hyde County is an area with tens of thousands of acres of
shallow lakes and wetlands and many intermittent streams.
People were concerned about the pollution that could be caused
if the dikes around one of the manure cesspools at the proposed
hog farms would fail. The manure would run into our lakes and
streams, killing wildlife and vegetation and contaminating our
shallow aquifers. These kinds of failures occurred in North
Carolina.
We were also concerned about runoff from fields where
manure had been applied at rates greater than the crops could
use.
We are rural people and are used to and not afraid of the
smell of a little manure, but promises by Tyson Foods to be a
good neighbor and glowing testimonials from Hughes County,
Oklahoma, where Tyson had a similar operation, did not allay
our concerns about odor and pollution.
We were able to contact citizens of Hughes County, who told
a very different story. They told of being prisoners in their
own homes and being unable to open the windows because the
stench of manure cesspools permeated everything. They told of
being unable to enjoy the outdoors because the stench was so
overwhelming that it made their eyes water and gave them
headaches. In short, their quality of life was what we feared
ours would become.
My oldest daughter has asthma. My wife and I had read that
particulate matter in the air around large hog confinement
barns and the stench from the manure cesspools triggers asthma
attacks in some people. Watching your child fight to get air
during an asthma attack and rushing her to a hospital is a
scary experience that we didn't want to ever have to go through
again.
With the help of Dakota Rural Action, we began drafting an
ordinance that prohibited locating a manure management system
for livestock housed in barns closer than four miles from any
existing residential structure. The ordinance passed by a
margin of 56 to 43 percent.
The rural vote of 75 percent in favor versus the town vote
of 46 percent of the ordinance reveals the divisive nature this
issue had on our small community, pitting urban against rural
with the rural residents, mainly ag producers, supporting
stricter controls.
It also illustrates the distinction that many of us in
agriculture make between this new model of livestock production
and the family farm model that is traditional in our rural
communities. I call these new operations, factory farms, to
distinguish them from traditional family farms.
The factory farm model is often promoted as the next
logical step in the modernization and industrialization of
agriculture. It is, in fact, bringing with it a host of new
concerns. Communities are suddenly dealing with regulating and
permitting operations that are touted as agriculture when, in
fact, they are more similar to industrial production facilities
than traditional family farms. The result is that factory farms
have proven to have many unanticipated consequences to the
environment and the high quality of life that sets our rural
communities apart.
Townships, counties and even States across the Nation are
struggling to handle the impacts of these factory farms. Many
have established moratoriums in an attempt to put in place
adequate laws and regulations to protect their citizens,
natural resources and their quality of life from the unintended
consequences of factory farm development.
While we in Hyde County have tried to protect our local
environment, we also knew that a local county zoning ordinance
couldn't protect us from manure spills in counties upstream.
Water, creeks and, for that matter, manure run downhill and
don't respect county or State lines.
In closing, I understand that there are proposals to exempt
factory farms from some of our Federal environmental laws, and
I urge you to oppose these efforts and to preserve the clean
air and water standards we have for factory farms and all of
agriculture as well as those to ensure that toxic waste sites
are cleaned up and that the public is given information about
emissions of pollutants and contaminants.
As a farmer and rancher, I do not feel threatened by these
laws. They are not designed to punish responsible farmers of
any size or type, and I am not aware of a single instance where
they have been used to do so. These laws are designed to ensure
the health and well being of my family, my land and my
downstream and downwind neighbors. Today, more than ever, we
need to maintain and even strengthen them to protect the
communities in which factory farms are operating.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nemec follows:]
Statement of Nicholas Nemec, Farmer, Western Organization of Resource
Councils and Dakota Rural Action
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the Committee for
giving me this opportunity to testify. My name is Nicholas
Nemec. I am a farmer and rancher from central South Dakota
where I raise cattle, wheat, sunflowers, corn, and hay on 4,100
acres in Hyde County. From 1993-1996, I represented six central
South Dakota counties in the State legislature.
I am here today representing the Western Organization of
Resource Councils (WORC) and Dakota Rural Action (DRA), two
non-profit organizations that have worked proactively for
family farm agriculture in the West for nearly 30 years. WORC
is a network of grassroots organizations from seven western
states that includes 9,700 members and 44 local community
groups. About a third of WORC's members are family farmers and
ranchers. WORC has many members who are affected by or could be
affected by large factory farms and are working on the issue in
local, state, and Federal Government settings.
My roots in agriculture and South Dakota run deep. My
great-great-grandparents and great-grandparents immigrated to
America from Eastern Europe early in the last century. They
homesteaded in South Dakota in 1907 and in their struggle to
establish a foothold in this country and a future life for our
family they experienced all the hardships that were so common
to homesteaders, including the death of my great-great-
grandmother, who was bitten by a rattlesnake at the door of her
sod house. That original homestead is now owned by my uncle and
last week, at the South Dakota State Fair, was recognized as a
Century Farm.
Those roots were threatened in early 1997, when Tyson Foods
approached our county commissioners with a plan to construct
over 100 hog confinement barns that would feed nearly 520,000
hogs each year and plans to build more barns in future years.
All this would happen that spring in a small county of only 860
square miles and 1,600 people. The county commissioners and the
city council both passed resolutions welcoming Tyson Foods and
their hogs to our county under the guise of ``economic
development''. With the endorsement of the two local governing
bodies in hand, Tyson Foods thought the door was open for a
major expansion into South Dakota. Little did they know that
the South Dakota State motto is ``Under God the People Rule''
and in Hyde County the people would eventually rule.
My wife and I and our neighbors were very worried because
we knew that our county had no zoning ordinances of any kind or
even a requirement for building permits. We were worried that
we might wake up someday and find a large hog barn being built
across the fence or down the road from our farms. Hyde County
is in the Prairie Pothole region of South Dakota. It is an area
with tens of thousands of acres of shallow lakes and wetlands
and many intermittent streams. This area is one of the premier
duck nesting areas in North America. One of those streams,
South Medicine Knoll Creek, meanders for two miles through my
farm. I have several shallow wells on the banks of the creek
that I use to water cattle. I have watched this creek grow from
a few isolated fishing holes to a river 100 yards wide and 8
feet deep in less than a day. Our county was experiencing
severe flooding that spring. The creeks were high and the lakes
were full. People were concerned about the pollution that could
be caused if the dikes around one of the manure cesspools at
the proposed hog barns would fail. That manure would run into
our lakes and streams, killing wildlife and vegetation and
contaminating our shallow aquifers. Those kinds of failures had
occurred in North Carolina. We were also concerned about runoff
from fields where manure had been applied at rates greater than
the crops could use.
We are rural people and are used to and not afraid of the
smell of a little manure. But we also know that the more manure
you have the worse it smells and we didn't want to wake up
every morning and spend everyday smelling hog manure. Promises
by Tyson Foods to be a good neighbor and glowing testimonials
from Hughes County, Oklahoma, where Tyson had a similar
operation did not allay our concerns. With very little
difficulty we were able to contact citizens of Hughes County
who told a very different story about living amongst tens of
thousands of hogs. They told of being prisoners in their own
homes, unable to open the windows because the stench of manure
cesspools permeated everything. They told of being unable to
enjoy the outdoors because the stench was so overwhelming that
it made their eyes water and gave them headaches. In short,
their quality of life was what we feared ours would become.
Our oldest daughter has asthma. My wife and I had read that
particulate matter in the air around large hog confinement
barns and the stench from the manure cesspools triggered asthma
attacks in some people. Watching your child fight to get air
during an asthma attack and rushing her to a hospital is a
scary experience that we didn't want to go through ever again
that I wish no other parent has to go through.
The opponents to the Tyson plan began meeting and formed an
ad hoc group to determine what, if anything, could be done to
slow or stop Tyson Foods. We contacted several lawyers and
learned that in our State the citizens of a county have the
right to circulate petitions to force a special election on an
initiated measure. With the help of Dakota Rural Action, we
began drafting an ordinance to require a setback from
residential structures. We also set up several informational
meetings to gauge the level of concern. Eventually an ordinance
was written that prohibited locating a manure management system
for livestock housed in barns closer than four miles from any
existing residential structure.
The hard fought election divided our county with the rural
residents, farmers, and ranchers supporting the proposed
ordinance and the local business community in town opposing it.
Tyson Foods' purchase of multiple full page ads in the local
eight page newspaper was seen as another heavy-handed attempt
to sway the election. The ordinance passed by a margin of 56
percent-43 percent. The rural vote of 75 percent-25 percent
versus the town vote of 46 percent-54 percent reveals the
divisive effect this issue had on our small community pitting
urban against rural, with the rural residents, mainly ag
producers, supporting stricter controls.
It also illustrates the distinction that many of us in
agriculture make between this new model of livestock production
and the family farm model that is traditional in our rural
communities, and that I still believe is the most sustainable
for our rural communities.
I call these new operations ``factory farms'' to
distinguish them from traditional family farms. When
neighboring landowners challenged a huge pork feeding facility
in Grand Forks County, North Dakota, District Judge Bruce
Bohlmann hit the nail on the head when he said the facility was
``not a farming operation'' but a ``pig factory.''
This term refers to the model of production only. I do not
use it as a negative term to pass judgment on the individual
owners or farmers who are developing these large-scale farming
operations. I know that there are many responsible,
conscientious farmers who work diligently to prevent their
factory farming operations from having the environmental
consequences that my neighbors and I are so concerned about.
However, I also know that, regardless of these efforts by some
factory farm operators, these operations inherently have
impacts and pose risks that traditional family farms do not.
For this reason, factory farms have become an extremely
polarizing issue in our rural communities as an aging
population of farmers struggles to provide financially
successful options to bring young farmers back to rural areas,
while weighing the inherent impacts and risks of the factory
farm model of production.
The factory farm model is often promoted and presented as
an essential shift for the future of our rural economy, and the
logical next step in the modernization and industrialization of
agriculture. It is, in fact, bringing with it a host of new
concerns, never before presented by traditional family farms.
Communities are suddenly dealing with regulating and permitting
operations that are touted as agriculture, when in fact, they
are more similar to industrial production facilities than
traditional family farms.
The reality is that factory farms have proven to have many
unanticipated consequences to clean air, pristine landscapes,
precious water resources, and the high quality of life that
sets our rural communities apart. What's more, the promises of
jobs, income and prosperity remain largely unfulfilled.
The unplanned, unregulated expansion of these operations
threatens the very communities that their proponents claim they
will enhance, yet they have expanded dramatically over the past
30 years, and are continuing to do so.
South Dakota Ag statistics show that by 2002, our State
lost more than 80 percent of the dairy farms and more than 83
percent of the hog farms that were operating in 1982. However,
over the same time period, we only lost 20 percent of our hogs
and half of our dairy cows. In other words, South Dakota's
remaining dairy farms are two and a half times larger than they
were 25 years ago, and our hog farms nearly five times larger
than they were 25 years ago.
In Iowa the average inventory of hogs per farm increased
from 250 in 1980 to 1,430 in 2000--over five times larger.
In Missouri, while the total number of hogs stayed the
same, the average size of an operation grew from 180 in 1985 to
1,227 in 2005--nearly seven times larger.
This shift in farming methods is recent and far-reaching
enough to have swamped many local and State governing bodies
with ballooning costs to school districts, road maintenance,
and environmental costs.
Townships, counties and even states across the Nation are
struggling to handle these impacts. Many have established
moratoriums as they attempt to put into place adequate,
comprehensive laws and regulations to protect their citizens,
natural resources, and their quality of life from the
unintended and often accidental consequences of factory farm
development.
Hyde County, South Dakota, is not unique in setting tough
standards for factory farms. Throughout the network of WORC
chapters in seven western states, we can point out numerous
examples of agricultural leaders and communities standing up to
the industrial scale feedlots and attempting to protect their
natural resources and quality of life.
In Hyde County and elsewhere, we are protecting our local
environment, but stronger State and national rules are needed.
Pollution doesn't know or care about State lines. While we in
Hyde County have tried to protect our local environment, we
also knew that we couldn't protect ourselves from manure spills
in counties upstream with a county zoning ordinance. Water,
creeks and for that matter manure run downhill and don't
respect county or State lines.
I understand that there are proposals to exempt factory
farms from some of our Federal environmental laws, and I urge
you to oppose these efforts, and to preserve the clean air and
water standards we have for factory farms and all of
agriculture, as well as those that ensure that toxic waste
sites are cleaned up, and that the public is given information
about emissions of pollutants and contaminants.
As a farmer and rancher, I do not feel threatened by these
laws, and I do not believe that any factory farm operator need
fear them either. They are not designed to punish responsible
farmers of any size or type, and I am not aware of a single
instance when they have been used to do so.
These laws were designed to insure the health and well-
being of my family, my land, and my downstream and downwind
neighbors. Today more than ever, we need to maintain and even
strengthen them to protect the communities in which factory
farms are operating. If factory farm operators are going to
manage large numbers of livestock in small, confined units, let
them do so by internalizing the full costs of their operations
by managing and treating the wastes, and containing harmful
emissions, and by receiving an appropriate penalty if they fail
to do so.
Thank you.
Senator Boxer. Thank you, sir.
Dr. Dicks from Oklahoma State University, welcome.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DICKS, OKLAHOMA
STATE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Dicks. Good afternoon. My name is Mike Dicks, and I am
a professor of agricultural economics.
Thank you. I want to thank the Committee for holding this
hearing and for providing me with an opportunity to provide
input.
I provided written testimony to include in the record and
want to focus my time here on just a specific few points. I
listened to the comments this morning, and I think these points
are interesting to be sure.
My main point is that we need to stop dealing with the
waste, with animal manure as a waste and start dealing with it
and viewing it as a natural resource, as a valuable natural
resource. By treating it as a waste, we have employed all
efforts and resources to contain and eliminate rather than
collect and utilize.
The animal industry implements the best manure management
strategies provided by public and private research efforts. To
demand that an industry continue to adopt cost-effective BMPs
is not unreasonable, but to be unhappy with the result of that
implementation and then pose new regulations or restrictions on
the industry without either the available technologies or
financial ability to implement those technologies would seem
unreasonable.
I also don't know of a single study that has actually
measured the benefits and the costs of implement known BMPs in
the Nation's CAFOs. Few studies have attempted to evaluate the
benefits and costs of discharge abatement in specific
watersheds and most are loaded with assumptions where
scientific data is unknown or uncertain. For the most part,
Federal, State and local actions have been taken to contain and
eliminate animal manure under the assumption that the damages,
real or perceived, exceed the abatement costs.
Environmental regulation of CAFOs should only impose costs
where the value of corresponding benefits is greater.
Considering all available abatement technologies, only those
that have the costs for specific operations where the value of
corresponding benefits is greater should be implemented.
Otherwise, individuals, communities, regions and societies have
lower welfare than before the abatement technologies were
implemented.
Most States are implementing animal manure and water
quality standards that exceed those established in Federal law.
We have heard that this morning.
These tighter standards are in response to environmental
conditions unique to specific area and the public's perception
of problems. Certainly, Oklahoma is no exception and has been
actively engaged in addressing air and water quality concerns
associated with animal manure
The current focus of BMPs is on containment and
elimination. The most obvious forms of containment are manure
ponds, lagoons and holding pits.
Examples of successful alternative manure management
strategies that stress collection and utilization include the
Mason-Dixon Dairy in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, S&S Aqua Farms
in West Plains, Missouri, the Solar Aqua Farms in Sun City,
California, and there are many more that I could list.
These farms incorporate animal manure into a production
system to produce energy, fertilizer, chemical-free quality
food, bedding and fresh water. These are all examples of farms
that have moved from monoculture production schemes to multiple
product systems. These farms have incorporated animal manure
into the production process. They collect and utilize.
There are many of these new types of farming systems
developing throughout the world, but they are still far outside
the mainstream thinking.
In addition, considerable research efforts are underway at
private and public universities and businesses. Some examples
of these research thrusts include improving nutrient content of
foods and better animal genetics to reduce the total quantity
of manure, new collection systems to move manure from feed pens
to storage facilities and new storage facilities that actively
process manure for incorporation into new products.
On average, CAFOs have funds available for the adoption of
new technologies. However, the amount of funds in a given year
are highly variable. Because of the return to investment in
these operations are often below the returns to limited risk
investments, the decision to implement new technology in these
operations is frequently not a good business decision.
The contain and eliminate paradigm has led to environmental
issues of great concern to those individuals and communities
near and downstream from the animal feeding operations. In
response, new State and Federal Government regulations have
been promulgated to address these concerns and have not, as
yet, been fully implemented.
The new regulations require many operations to make major
investment in plant or operational changes that are not part of
their original operation plans. We are currently unsure of the
costs of implementing these strategies is exceeded by the
benefits of doing so.
BMPs developed to incorporate animal manure into food and
fuel production may provide added benefits and increase the
economic feasibility of both private and public support of
adoption. CAFO initial operation plans contain the best
technologies of the time. As we learn more about how animal
manure interacts with the environment through different
operations and unique ecological systems, the best management
practices today will be changed.
The animal feeding operations have limited funds to
incorporate new technology and, of course, technological
economies of size exist in this industry. Thus, a requirement
to adopt new technologies puts a greater burden on smaller
operations. In response to financial constraints, Federal and
State Government have provided cost-share assistance and
adequate timelines and consideration for financial burden.
The industry is engaged in developing nutrient management
plans and implementing BMPs, but these efforts won't be fully
realized for several years. After full implementation of the
new EPA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
permitting requirements and Effluent Limitations Guidelines and
Standards rule, we can revisit the environmental concerns
related to animal feeding operations and determine a future
course of action.
However, until we change to a paradigm of collect and
utilize, we will never fully address the issues surrounding
animal manure.
Thank you for your time, and I will be open to questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dicks follows:]
Statement of Michael Dicks, Oklahoma State University
Animal manure management has always been a major component
of the design and operation of confined animal production
facilities but has certainly increased in importance over the
last 30 years. I have been involved with animal production and
manure utilization for more than 35 years and been part of the
design and implementation of manure utilization technologies in
the U.S. and Africa. I am currently a Professor of Agricultural
Economics at Oklahoma State University and specialize in the
areas of agricultural policy and farm and ranch management. The
issues surrounding animal manure are important and I thank the
Senate Public Works and Environment Committee for holding this
hearing and providing me the opportunity to bring a new
perspective to the debate on animal manure management. I am
going to focus my remarks on public and private efforts too
minimize the adverse impacts of animal manure on human health
and the environment.
Oklahoma has 799 registered poultry feeding operations, 220
licensed confined swine feeding operations, 66 licensed
confined cattle feeding operations and 12 licensed confined
dairy operations. These represent only those operations with
actual or potential discharge that are large enough to be
required to be licensed or registered under current State or
Federal statues and thus there are certainly more animal
feeding operations in the state. These Animal Feeding
Operations (AFOs) are spread throughout the State but tend to
be lumped by species in specific regions of the state.
Oklahoma also contains approximately 11,611 miles of
shoreline, (slightly less than the estimated combined general
coastline of the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, and Arctic Coasts)
and approximately 78,578 miles of rivers/streams. From 1996
through 2007 roughly 1,000 complaints have been received by the
Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry (ODAFF)
related to animal manure concerns from cattle, swine, horse,
rabbit, poultry, goat, and dog confined production operations.
These complaints dealt with potential or actual water quality
problems, odor, dust and noise.
The combination of abundant AFOs, number of water bodies
and concerned citizens in Oklahoma provides an excellent
opportunity to study the interaction of the three. To assert
there are no problems in animal manure management in the State
of Oklahoma would be nothing short of ridiculous, but to assume
that the owners of livestock production, feeding and processing
firms are not actively engaged in pursuing changes to meet new
standards and implement the latest ``Best Management
Practices'' (BMPs) would also be ridiculous. The management of
animal manure is just one complicated issue in a very complex
industry. Few understand either and even fewer understand both.
My main message is the need to change from dealing with
animal manure as a waste and place more focus on fully
utilizing this valuable resource through greater support of
research and development. By treating manure as a waste we
employ all efforts and resources to contain and eliminate
rather than collect and utilize. We seem to have abandoned this
resource, valuable for energy and food production, in favor of
other less efficient sources such as chemical fertilizers and
ethanol. The demand for cheap food and international
competition from countries with cheaper capital assets has
induced the proliferation of the large CAFOs over the last four
decades. These facilities were initially constructed to
efficiently provide abundant and cheap sources of animal
protein with little thought toward their combined environmental
impact. As we have become aware of this impact the industry has
changed and devoted a considerable amount of their net earnings
to meeting the problem. The industry has and continues to
implement the strategies provided by public and private
research efforts. To demand that an industry continue to adopt
cost effective BMPs is not unreasonable but to be unhappy with
the result of implementation of these BMPs and then pose new
regulations or restrictions without either the available
technologies or the financial ability to implement those
technologies is unreasonable. And, the continued promulgation
of new regulations here and not abroad will eventually shift
the industry abroad.
Some view regulation and litigation as the answer to
problems and others seek innovation and incentives. Solutions
that are profitable and adaptable will be readily adopted by
industry. These facts support the idea that our scarce
resources are best spent not on forcing change through
regulation and litigation but rather inducing change through
research and education.
do we need new cafo regulations?
The purpose for this hearing is to address the impacts of
CAFOs on human health and water quality to determine the need
for increased regulation in an attempt to mitigate any adverse
impacts from animal manure. The nutrients in animal manure have
found their way into natural waters and the odor and dust from
CAFOs has found its way into the air we breathe. However, I do
not know of a single study that has actually measured the
benefits and costs of implementing known BMPs in the nations
CAFOs. Few studies have attempted to evaluate the benefits and
costs of discharge abatement in specific watersheds and most
are loaded with assumptions where scientific data is unknown or
uncertain. For the most part, Federal, State and local actions
have been taken to contain and eliminate animal manure under
the assumption that the damages, real or perceived, exceed the
costs. In theory, environmental regulation of CAFOs should only
impose costs where the value of corresponding benefits is
greater. In considering all available abatement technologies,
only those that have costs for specific operations, where the
value of corresponding benefits is greater should be
implemented. Otherwise, individuals, communities, regions and
society have lower welfare than before the abatement
technologies were implemented. To impose this restriction would
end the debate pending a benefit/cost assessment. However, to
move us beyond this point we will assume that the
implementation of nutrient management plans that choose from
amongst a set of best management practices is accomplished such
that the costs do not exceed the benefits of this
implementation.
To induce a change in current behavior we can employee
either the stick or the carrot approach. In terms of Federal
policy, we have used, and continue to use both approaches. The
most commonly known carrot approaches include technical and
cost-share assistance, subsidies and the less commonly included
approaches of research and education. On the stick approach we
have Federal, state, and local regulations, taxes, and permits
that pose constraints on behavior. In either the stick or the
carrot approach there are two conditions required to induce or
force behavior change. First, there must be clear, cost
effective alternatives to current behavior and second the
targeted party must have the ability to adopt the alternatives.
Of course this presumes that with respect to the CAFOs, we wish
to change their behavior regarding manure management rather
than eliminate them all together. If the purpose of the debate
regarding the further regulation of CAFOs is an indirect
attempt to deal with issues of structure in the animal
production and processing industry then I would submit that the
attempt is misguided and likely to lead to more concentration
rather than less.
Current Efforts--Most states are implementing animal manure
and water quality standards that exceed those established in
Federal law. These tighter standards are in response to
environmental conditions unique to areas within the state.
Certainly Oklahoma is no exception and has been actively
engaged in addressing issues specific to air and water quality
concerns resulting from animal manure. For instance;
In 1998, the Oklahoma USDA-NRCS revised their
Conservation Practice Standard, Waste Utilization (Code 633),
with a provision specifically for the Eucha/Spavinaw Watershed
to restrict poultry litter application on land with a
phosphorus index of 300 lbs/acre or greater.
In 2000, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board required
poultry producers in nutrient limited watersheds and nutrient
limited groundwater areas to test their soil prior to litter
application every year, rather than every 3 years as is
required for non-nutrient limited watersheds.
In 2001, the Oklahoma USDA NRCS published the Nutrient
Management standard (Code 590), replacing the Waste Utilization
(Code 633) standard from 1995 and 1998. The new standard made
phosphorus, rather than nitrogen, the limiting factor in all
nutrient management plans. In non-nutrient limited watersheds,
the phosphorus index has an upper limit of 400 lbs/acre, after
which no additional litter may be applied. In nutrient limited
watersheds, 300 lbs/acre is the threshold. The standard is
applicable statewide.\1\
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\1\Note that there is no scientific basis for this phosphorus
constraint. No upper limit on phosphorus has been found that limits
plant growth potential.
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The Food Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002
extended and expanded funding for the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program (EQIP). The program called for 60 percent of
funding to be spent on livestock operations. In order to reach
this goal, NRCS has developed the National Animal Agriculture
Conservation Framework (December 2003). This National Framework
is built from State and Basin Area efforts and presents a
vision for voluntary, proactive efforts to foster
environmentally sound and economically viable livestock and
poultry production. It envisions collaboration among Federal,
State, tribal, and local governments; producers; the public;
and the private sector to bring the initiative, resources, and
commitment to support environmental stewardship in animal
agriculture.
In 2003, The Office of the Secretary of Environment
issued a Coordinated watershed Restoration and protection
Strategy for Oklahoma's Impaired Scenic Rivers''.
In 2003, Oklahoma and Arkansas signed a ``Statement of
Joint Principles and Actions,'' outlining how the states would
work together to improve water quality in Oklahoma's scenic
rivers. The pact calls for ``The states of Arkansas and
Oklahoma, acting through their environmental agencies, to work
together in partnership with the Arkansas-Oklahoma Arkansas
River Compact Commission toward the goal of producing a
Watershed Plan.
In 2007, Oklahoma signed a $20.6 million cooperative
conservation partnership agreement between USDA and Oklahoma
that will create up to 9,000 acres (or 370 miles) of riparian
buffers and filter strips under the Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program or CREP.
In 2005 and 2006 NRCS spent just over 60 percent of the
EQIP funds on livestock operations but less than 20 percent on
CAFOs. However, the 20 percent includes transportation
subsidies and other cost-share assistance not directly tied to
changes in the operation of the CAFOs. This is important as the
impacts of animal manure more frequently occur at the land
applicationsite than at the CAFO. With both the Oklahoma CREP
and EQIP, funds have been targeted to produce buffers and
filter strip and to fence livestock out of these areas. Because
phosphorous readily attaches to soil particles most phosphorous
contamination of water is the result of soil erosion. Reducing
this erosion or reducing the ability of eroded soil particles
from entering the water will reduce phosphorous induced water
quality degradation. These fenced buffers and filter strips
offer the additional benefits of wildlife nesting habitat and
stockpiled forage for emergency use.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
In Oklahoma, about 16 percent of the 2006 EQIP funds were
spent on storage, composting, sprinkler systems and other
practices for CAFOs and another 8 percent was spent on
transport and application of manure. Another large portion of
the funds were used to produce and fence buffers and filter
strips.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Source: USDA/NRCS
These actions represent a timeline of involvement of CAFO
operators, State and Federal agencies, and conservation and
community groups in an attempt to pursue solutions to local
water quality problems posed by animal manure. Also important
are the education, research and extension efforts of the State
agencies and Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station in
addressing animal manure issues. This is not an exhaustive list
of all the activities of Federal, state, and local governments,
community groups and private and public research and education
efforts dealing with CAFOs in this decade. To list all these
efforts would fill several hundred pages. But these efforts
symbolize the engagement of the industry and community in
dealing with manure management issues.
Clearly, CAFOs are actively implementing the nutrient
management practices as per the NRCS technical guides. The EQIP
practices are provided with 50-75 percent cost share and the
transportation subsidies of $4 to $12.50/ton depending on the
distance between production and use sites. Current farm bill
proposals however, seek to reduce eligibility to EQIP cost
share assistance based on producer's gross income. As I will
show later, because of the low profit margins in many animal
feeding operations (particularly cattle) large gross incomes
are needed. The cost ?shared practices that NRCS provides
through EQIP are frequently part of other changes that must be
implemented simultaneously. Thus, the total cost of
implementing the practice often exceeds the cost-share.
Restrictions on payments based on income will reduce the
ability of EQIP to induce change.
are there clear alternatives?
The current emphasis is on containment and elimination of
animal manure from animal feeding operations. The most obvious
forms of containment are the manure ponds, lagoons, and holding
pits for manure storage and the elimination through land
application. Increased efficiency in land application would
alone solve many of the water quality issues. But as I stated
previously the current paradigm of contain and eliminate is at
the core of the problem. Are there alternatives for collection
and use?
This question can be broken into 1) are the technologies
available and 2) can they be implemented. Let's first consider
whether there are clear alternatives to current behavior.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource
Conservation Service (NRCS) is charged with providing technical
assistance to agribusiness to both improve production and
minimize the impacts of the production activities on the
environment. The NRCS has been active in assisting animal
agricultural by providing technical guides for every type of
production agriculture. With respect to the CAFOs, the USDA/
NRCS has a national technical guide for developing a
comprehensive nutrient management plan. According to the NRCS
National Planning Procedures Handbook (Subpart B, Part 600.51
Draft Comprehensive Nutrient Management Planning Technical
Guidance) ``a CNMP is a conservation plan that is unique to
animal feeding operations. It is a grouping of conservation
practices and management activities which, when implemented as
part of a conservation system, will help to ensure that both
production and natural resource protection goals are achieved.
A CNMP incorporates practices to utilize animal manure and
organic by-products as a beneficial resource. A CNMP addresses
natural resource concerns dealing with soil erosion, manure,
and organic by-products and their potential impacts on water
quality, which may derive from an AFO. A CNMP is developed to
assist an AFO owner/operator in meeting all applicable local,
tribal, State, and Federal water quality goals or regulations.
For nutrient impaired stream segments or water bodies,
additional management activities or conservation practices may
be required to meet local, tribal, State, or Federal water
quality goals or regulations.''
Many States have their own set of BMPs that are more
restrictive, have been in place longer, and provide their own
programs to assist in implementation. As we have more
experience with the management of animal manure in the various
feeding structures, in unique environments these BMPs may
change. A list of common list of BMPs is provided below,
divided into four categories, covering a specific operation or
management task: grounds, buildings, lagoons, settling basins
and holding ponds, and land application\2\.
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\2\http://www.epa.state.il.us/water/cafo/publications/pork-bmp.pdf
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Grounds--BMPs involving the grounds at pork production
facilities are basically common sense and being considerate of
your neighbors. Below are examples of BMP activities that you
may be able to implement at your facility:
locating the facility as far as possible from surface
water bodies
locating the facility in an area with sufficient soil
drainage
having wind breaks and buffer strips around the facility
diverting rain water away from areas where it could
become contaminated
maintaining proper gravel cover and landscape gradient so
that water does not stand in access roads and around the
production facility
scraping away manure in open feed lots to reduce buildup
of solids and to control odor and fly production
collecting runoff from lots through settling basins for
subsequent land application
immediately loading manure into a manure spreader and
directly applying to the field
removing spilled feed promptly
keeping feeder equipment in good repair
keeping watering devices in good repair
Buildings--Routine maintenance and good housekeeping
practices are the two easiest ways to prevent pollution in
buildings. Some ways that you can use BMPs in buildings are:
constructing interior surfaces with smooth materials to
reduce dust and grime accumulation and facilitate cleaning
maintaining adequate ventilation in the building to
prevent buildup of dusts, gases, moisture and heat
preventing liquids from collecting under animals and
watering equipment by using slotted floors or other
technologies
repairing leaking water lines immediately
maintaining clean and dry buildings
installing an under floor ventilation system in
confinement buildings where below floor manure storage is used
using a power washer when hosing down walls, dividers and
floors in order to reduce water usage
covering feeders and extending feed downspouts to
minimize dust
scraping off or flushing away manure in confinement areas
on a frequency which is adequate to minimize odors
covering sumps at lift stations
pumping manure from accumulation areas to storage areas
on a frequency which is adequate to prevent odors and overflow
Lagoons, settling basins and holding ponds--Undersized or
poorly designed lagoons, settling basins and holding ponds can
cause pollution. Below are some examples of ways to improve
your lagoons, settling basins and holding ponds:
locating lagoons, settling basins and holding ponds away
from valleys which can trap odors in low lying areas
constructing lagoons, settling basins and holding ponds
so that wastes do not overflow or leach into groundwater and so
that odor is minimized
covering the lagoon, settling basin or holding pond to
reduce surface odors being released
adding aeration
pumping or draining manure to a lagoon in small enough
quantities to avoid slug loadings, maintaining a stable
microbial population within the lagoon
maintaining sufficient storage capacity to prevent
overflow of lagoons, settling basins and holding ponds
using a pump and a solids separator to lower solids
loading
removing sludge from the primary lagoon frequently enough
to prevent overloading or carryover of solids to a second stage
lagoon
equipping lagoons and holding ponds with a free board
gauge that shows when it is time to pump out and land apply
supernatant, preventing overflows
dewatering lagoons only down to the minimum treatment
volume level as indicated on the lagoon marker
filling new or emptied lagoons with water to the minimum
treatment level before manure is introduced
Land application--Manure as a fertilizer can be
environmentally beneficial. However, there are additional
opportunities for reducing pollution when applying the manure
to the land. Some examples of BMPs in land application
practices are:
developing a manure management plan
scheduling application times that are compatible with
crop rotations
having sufficient land available to apply during various
times of the year so that the rate of application will be at or
below agronomic rates
applying manure early in the morning until early
afternoon
applying manure on days with low humidity and little or
no wind
applying manure at a site remote for neighboring
residences if manure is not injected or immediately
incorporated into the soil
applying manure on land which is not frozen or snow-
covered
preventing contaminated runoff by not applying manure to
land which is saturated or contains ponded water
preventing contaminated runoff by not applying manure
near a creek or river
preventing contaminated runoff by not applying manure
during precipitation or when precipitation is imminent
injecting manure
determining the necessary application rate and properly
calibrating your equipment
using injection equipment which leaves crop residue
intact and creates a level surface to plant crops without
further tillage
applying liquid waste at low pressure with little
agitation if spreaders or sprayers are used to land apply
fixing leaks in over-the-road manure hauling equipment
and cleaning tillage equipment used to incorporate manure if
travel on public roads is necessary
This list is both complete and reflective of the current
``contain and eliminate'' manure management paradigm. This list
is what the industry is being asked to implement and is engaged
in implementing. However, there are other less known
alternatives and research is underway to minimize the amount of
nutrients in the manure and the quantity of manure,
transportation and storage of manure, and more efficient
utilization of the manure in the production of alternative
products from fuel to food. Examples of successful alternative
manure management strategies include the Mason-Dixon Dairy in
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, S&S Aqua farms in West Plains,
Missouri and the Solar Aqua Farms in Sun City, California.
The Mason-Dixon operation produces 80,000 quarts of milk
daily from over 2,000 cows, designs and manufacturers its own
innovative equipment, producing energy, fertilizer and bedding
from the dairy cow manure in a nearly self contained operation.
Solar Aqua Farms raises 5 million pounds of tilapia in the
middle of the desert, in tanks under greenhouses. A patented
treatment and recycling system purifies the water and converts
fish waste to organic fertilizers. The process was developed
from efforts to turn human sewage into edible outputs and fresh
water.
S&S Aqua farms also uses a closed cycle, self balancing
system and the natural nutrients from a biological source to
grow safe, chemical-free, quality food.
These are all examples of farms that have moved from
monoculture production schemes to multiple product systems.
These farms have incorporated animal manure into the production
process-- ``collect and utilize''. There are many of these new
types of farming systems developing throughout the world but
they are still far outside mainstream thinking.
In addition, considerable research efforts are underway at
private and public universities and businesses. Some examples
of these research thrusts include;
Improving nutrient content of feeds (e.g. high oil corn)
and better animal genetics will reduce the total quantity of
manure while improved feed additives may enable more efficient
uptake of feed nutrient.
New collection systems to move manure from feed pens to
storage facilities.
New storage facilities that actively process manure for
incorporation into new products (e.g. feed, fertilizer, soil
additives, fuel)
Use of manure as an input into fuel production (e.g.
heat, methane, ethanol), food production (e.g. aquatic plants
and animals, land based crops)
Prior to the 1980's research in all these areas received a
great deal of Federal support but today are almost exclusively
funded through private industry. Currently, some $7.5 billion
is provided to the ethanol industry through the $0.52 per
gallon ethanol subsidy. Perhaps this level of funding on manure
management could also induce more efficient use of the
resource.
can the alternatives be implemented?
The animal feeding industry is actively seeking new
technologies for manure management and use, and implementing
the currently available BMPs. However, they face financial
constraints in the adoption of new technologies.
Livestock producers typically exhibit extremely high levels
of gross profitability although recent increases in energy and
feed prices has severely reduced the profitability of poultry
and hog production enterprises. Except in drought areas beef
and dairy producers have been somewhat successful in
maintaining high levels of gross profitability through the
substitution of forage for feed. Gross profitability, defined
as cash sales less cash expenses divided by cash sales (profit
margin) has been consistently maintained at 15-30 percent from
2000 to 2005. However, because the amount of sales generated
per dollar of fixed assets has been low (due to land prices),
the return on investment has been low relative to other
businesses with equal risk.
The beef feedlots, poultry processors and other similar
downstream agribusinesses tend to have similar returns on
investment. However, the low return on investment is the result
of low profitability and high rates of sales per dollar of
assets (Asset Turnover). The return on investment represents
the potential income available to management for salaries and
new investment, the funds available for constructing new
structures and adopting new practices. The numbers provided
below are averages and do not reflect the variation between
years or within the industry. For example, the typical 30,000
head feedlot had losses of nearly $1 million and profits of
$600 thousand over a 10 year period from 1997 to 2006. Poultry
production operations had negative incomes over the last 2
years as a result of the high energy costs associated with
heating and cooling and higher than normal feed costs.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Thus, while some funds are available for the adoption of
new technologies, the amount of funds in a given year are
highly variable and will reduce ownership's income. Because the
return to investment is often below the returns to limited risk
investments such as Certificate of Deposits, the decision to
continue the operation is frequently not a good business
decision but rather a decision that includes non-business
factors such as desired lifestyle. Increased regulations that
required the adoption of costly new technologies may lead to a
relocation of the firm (to avoid the regulations) or exit from
the industry. In most cases the exit is by smaller firms less
able to spread the cost of new technologies over larger numbers
of production units. The smaller operations assets are then
acquired by larger firms, increasing industry concentration.
should new regulations be imposed?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Final rule: 40
CFR Parts 122 and 412) extended certain compliance dates in the
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)
permitting requirements and Effluent Limitations Guidelines and
Standards for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) as
a result of the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit in Waterkeeper Alliance et al. v. EPA, 399 F.3d
486 (2d Cir. 2005).
The final rule revised the dates established in the 2003
CAFO rule by which facilities;
newly defined as CAFOs
defined as CAFOs after April 14, 2003, due to operational
changes
and permitted CAFO's required to develop and implement
NMPs
must seek permit coverage and develop and implement their
nutrient management plans from July 31, 2007, to February 27,
2009
Major changes made by EPA in its revised CAFO Rule include:
All large CAFOs must apply for an NPDES permit, or
demonstrate that they have no potential to discharge into
waters of the United States.
Large poultry operations using dry waste management
systems are now covered by the CAFO Rule.
New source poultry, swine, and veal operations, as
defined by EPA in the Rule, must meet a ``no discharge''
standard. This standard only allows for discharge from the
production area in the event of a 100-year, 24-hour storm or
greater.
EPA proposed to require only owners or operators of those
CAFOs that discharge or propose to discharge to seek
authorization to discharge under a permit. Second, EPA proposed
to require CAFOs seeking authorization to discharge under
individual permits to submit their NMPs with their permit
applications or, under general permits, with their notices of
intent. Permitting authorities would be required to review the
NMP and provide the public with an opportunity for meaningful
public review and comment. Permitting authorities would also be
required to incorporate terms of the NMP as NPDES permit
conditions.
This rule follows the 1999 USDA/EPA United National
Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations. This National Strategy
is based on a national performance expectation that all Animal
Feeding Operations should develop and implement technically
sound, economically feasible, and site-specific CNMPs to
minimize impacts on water quality and public health.
This regulation requires that CAFOs have NMPs in place by
2009 and that these NMPs will incorporate the best management
practices as indicated in the NRCS National Technical Guide.
Thus, by 2009, CAFOs will have plans in place for implementing
best available technology.
Some have suggested that we move animal manure under the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). Will this improve upon the
results obtainable under the EPA NPDES rule?
CERCLA Overview:
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, was
enacted by Congress on December 11, 1980. This law created a
tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided broad
Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened
releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public
health or the environment. Over 5 years, $1.6 billion was
collected and the tax went to a trust fund for cleaning up
abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.
CERCLA:
established prohibitions and requirements concerning
closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites;
provided for liability of persons responsible for
releases of hazardous waste at these sites; and
established a trust fund to provide for cleanup when no
responsible party could be identified.
The law authorizes two kinds of response actions:
Short-term removals, where actions may be taken to
address releases or threatened releases requiring prompt
response.
Long-term remedial response actions, that permanently and
significantly reduce the dangers associated with releases or
threats of releases of hazardous substances that are serious,
but not immediately life threatening. These actions can be
conducted only at sites listed on EPA's National Priorities
List (NPL).
CERCLA also enabled the revision of the National
Contingency Plan (NCP). The NCP provided the guidelines and
procedures needed to respond to releases and threatened
releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants.
The NCP also established the NPL.
Does the suggestion to move animal manure under CERCLA mean
that a tax will be levied on the animal feeding industry, the
animal industry, or agriculture in general? Do the proponents
of this move intend that we fund the oversight agency with
personnel sufficient to define manage each CAFO in the United
States as a hazardous waste site?
Are we prepared to fund the economic assessment of
implement such a far reaching policy as required by statute?
While the answers to these questions are important to determine
the feasibility of redefining animal manure as a hazardous
material, that fact that we already have regulations that have
yet to be fully implemented makes the questions moot.
summary
The fact that we are here today discussing the animal
manure issue conveys the importance of the issue. Animal manure
has too long been treated as a waste to be contained and
eliminated rather than as a valuable resource that should be
collected and utilized. The ``contain and eliminate'' paradigm
has led to environmental issues of great concern to those
individuals and communities near and downstream from the animal
feeding operations. In response, State and Federal Government
regulations have been promulgated to address these concerns and
have not as yet been fully implemented.
The new regulations will require many operations to make
major investments in plant and operational changes that were
not part of the original operation plans. We are currently
unsure if the costs of implementing these strategies is
exceeding by the benefits of doing so. BMPs developed to
incorporate animal manure into fuel and food production may
provide added benefits and increase the economic feasibility of
both private and public support of adoption.
CAFO initial operation plans contained the best
technologies of the time. As we learn more about how animal
manure interacts with the environment through different
operations and in unique ecological systems, the best
management practices of today will be changed. The animal
feeding operations have limited funds to incorporate new
technology and of course technological economies of size exist
in the industry. Thus, requirements to adopt new technologies
puts a greater burden on smaller operations. In response to
financial constraints Federal and State governments have
provided cost-share assistance and adequate timelines and
consideration for financial burden.
The industry is engaged in developing NMPs and implementing
BMPs but these efforts won't be fully realized for several
years. After full implementation of the new EPA National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting
requirements and Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards
rule we can revisit the environmental concerns related to
animal feeding operations and determine a future course of
action. However, until we change to a paradigm of collect and
utilize we will never truly address the issues surrounding
animal manure.
Senator Boxer. Thank you, sir.
Our last speaker is Rick Dove who is a community
representative from North Carolina, who works as a volunteer
for Waterkeepers is my understanding, and other clean water
organizations.
Welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF RICK DOVE, COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVE
Mr. Dove. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Committee
members. It is a pleasure to be here today.
I am from North Carolina. I am here, as you stated, as an
individual representing my family, my grandchildren and the
many citizens of North Carolina who share my thoughts on the
matter before this committee.
When I retired from the Marine Corps in 1987, I walked out
the front gate of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and headed for
my home on the Neuse River in North Carolina just below New
Bern. I immediately traded my uniform and spit-shined shoes for
a pair of waterman's boots and some old clothes. Then, with my
son, Todd, I became a waterman, a fisherman, on the Neuse
River.
It was a childhood dream that I had to be a fisherman. For
the first few years on the Neuse, things were fine. We were
having a great time. My son and I owned a seafood store, three
boats and 800 crab pots; life was good.
Then, all of sudden, things changed. The fish began to die.
My son and I began to get sick. We had sores on our bodies. I
began to suffer memory loss. We didn't know at the time that
all of what was happening to us was attributed to working on
the river, but we knew was not healthy.
My dream had turned into a nightmare. We had to walk away
from the seafood business.
During the next 8 years, the environmental transition in
North Carolina was dramatic. In 1991, 1 billion fish in a 40-
square-mile area died in the Neuse River. Most had open,
bleeding sores all over their bodies. Pictures of this are in
my written statement, a copy of which I ask to be attached to
the record.
It wasn't just the dead fish. Algae was also covering the
streams and creeks to the point where people couldn't get out
on the water and use their boats. Some of these people lived on
these waters in multi-million dollar homes.
In 1995, another 20 to 200 million more fish died. And the
algae continued to be a problem. I don't have time to cover all
the bad things that were happening but it's all discussed in my
prepared statement.
Eventually, a large portion of the river was shut down.
Signs were posted warning people not to go near the river. Some
fishermen working on the water were breathing neurotoxins
present in the air. As a result, they suffered memory loss and
were unable to find their way back to the dock. When they got
out of the water, they couldn't find their way home. These
stories were all documented in North Carolina. Very similar
accounts were reported and documented on the Pocomoke River in
Maryland.
We knew what was causing these problems and so did State
authorities. It was nutrient pollution; too much fertilizer
being discharged in the rivers. The Neuse River and many of the
other waters in North Carolina were so polluted with nutrients
they were declared nutrient-sensitive beginning as far back as
1993 or 1994.
After being driven from the river, I was fortunate to get a
job with the Neuse River Foundation. I was hired as their
Riverkeeper. For the next 7 years, I patrolled the Neuse to
find and eliminate all sources of pollution. After my
Riverkeeper assignment ended in 2000, I continued working as a
volunteer for the Neuse River Foundation and its umbrella
organization, the Waterkeeper Alliance.
Working on the Neuse River, I got the chance to find out
exactly what had happened to the river and who was polluting
it. Many contributed but none more than the swine industry.
When I got in an airplane and viewed the watershed from the air
at a thousand feet, I could count 100 lagoons. At 2,000 feet, I
could often smell the hog waste. There were so many hog
lagoons. They were everywhere next to wetlands, streams, creeks
and rivers.
Often, especially during periods of heavy rain, the lagoons
were full and the fields where they sprayed the waste were
ditched. Most of these fields have pipes under them to carry
the swine waste and rainwater directly to ditches and streams.
The bottom line was that often this hog waste was being applied
to fields not to grow crops, but to simply get rid of it by
dumping.
Let me give you an idea of just how much waste is produced
in eastern North Carolina. Imagine I-95 cuts down through the
State and divides the State. East of I-95 is the coastal plain
of North Carolina. In the coastal plain of North Carolina, an
environmentally sensitive area, there are 10 million hogs
producing more fecal waste each and every day than would be
produced by all the people in the States of North Carolina, New
York, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and North
Dakota.
It is stored in eastern pits called lagoons. Imagine if
that were human waste. There is not a lot of difference between
pig waste and human waste. Fecal waste is fecal waste
regardless of where it comes from, and it is being slopped on
fields under the pretext of growing crops.
In North Carolina, when it rains, everything just goes
crazy. The lagoons fill with rain and swine waste. Often, the
fields are so wet they shouldn't be spraying but they do it
anyway.
Waste management plans are suppose to prevent this, but
those plans are not worth the paper they are written on. Once
the rain starts filling those lagoons, the pig waste is applied
regardless of the weather.
In North Carolina, some fear these sprayfields are so
poorly suited, and you are going to have a hard time believing
this, many swine producers simply turn their lagoons into
fountains. They spray their waste into the air for the purpose
of lowering the lagoon by misting the swine waste into
surrounding communities where people live.
I ask you to please play this little DVD, entitled, . . .
the Rest of the Story. It is a14-minute video produced by the
Environmental Justice of North Carolina. This video can be
viewed on at http://www.riverlaw.us/healthissues.html In this
video, you will see the suffering of the people in North
Carolina. Listen to the people whose kids are breathing these
harmful gases, people who live near these facilities. Most of
these people were there before the swine factories moved in
around them.
My time is running out. I want to move along.
Senator Boxer. You are going to need to just summarize in
10 seconds. I know that is terrible.
Mr. Dove. OK, in 10 seconds, I will. Senator, thank you.
What is the hurry in addressing the exemption? We have had
the CERCLA and EPCRA laws on the books for 30 years, and it has
not impacted the CAFO industry. Why is the industry, now, all
of a sudden, worried about this? Why is a preemptive strike
necessary?
The Congress does not have to be in a hurry to address
this. In the testimony before this committee or in the record
overall, is that any evidence that CERCLA or EPCRA has ever
been misused so far as the CAFO industry is concerned? Why
should relief be given if there is no misuse of the law? We
need this law in North Carolina to help protect the people.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dove follows:]
Statement of Rick Dove, Community Representative
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Committee on
Environment and Public Works for the opportunity to testify
today.
introduction
My name is Rick Dove. I reside at 427 Boros Road, New Bern,
NC 28560. I am a thirty-two year resident of North Carolina. I
am here today speaking on behalf of myself, my family,
especially my four grandchildren, and the many other citizens
of North Carolina who share my view on the present and imminent
dangers posed by industrial meat production in Confined Animal
Feeding Operations (CAFOs). My short biographical sketch is
attached as Exhibit 1.
background
After retiring as a Colonel from the Marine Corps in 1987,
I settled down with my family in eastern North Carolina on the
south shore of the Neuse River below the city of New Bern.
There, I worked to fulfill a childhood dream of becoming a
commercial fisherman. At first, my business flourished, and
with a small fleet of boats my son and I crabbed and fished a
forty square mile area of the Neuse estuary. Part of our catch
was sold at a local seafood store we owned. The remainder was
sold on the wholesale market.
In the mid 1980's, the Neuse was a much different river
than it is today. The fish were healthy and plentiful. There
were some water quality problems caused by failing waste water
treatment plants and unsustainable development, but water
quality was more than sufficient to safely support a high level
of fishing and recreation. By the mid 1990's, this all had
changed.
In September 1991, more than a billion fish died in the
area where my son and I fished. These dead and dying fish were
covered with open, bleeding lesions on their bodies. Some fish,
both alive and dead, had holes completely through their bodies.
The stench was unbearable. There were so many dead fish that at
one place on the north shore, the fish had to be buried with a
bulldozer.\1\ Historically, small numbers of fish had always
died on the Neuse during the hot summer months. But this fish
kill was different. Never before had so many fish died in this
manner.
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\1\http://www.abe.msstate.edu/csd/references/pfiester.htm
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At the same time as the fish were dying, my son and I both
suffered the same type of lesions on our bodies that appeared
on the fish. There were other symptoms. I experienced memory
loss and respiratory problems. It would take years for doctors
and scientists to medically link those symptoms to river
pollution. Nevertheless, for my son and me, the consequence of
what surrounded us was immediate. We had to stop fishing.
Giving up on this long held dream was a tough decision, but
there was no other choice. Not only did we have serious
concerns for our health, we also worried about the safety of
what we were catching and selling.
Since 1991, fish have continued to perish in large numbers
in the Neuse and other coastal waters of eastern North
Carolina. Depending on conditions, such as when rainfall causes
runoff, these kills quickly climb into the millions. In the
Neuse, nearly all these kills were located in an area near New
Bern. This area is the receiving and settling place for
upstream waters, much of which originates and flows from the
state's farmlands and cities.
By the mid 1990's, the cause of these fish kills on the
Neuse and other coastal rivers of North Carolina was identified
by State officials as resulting from nutrient pollution, much
of which, according to State officials, was coming from CAFOs.
In fact, by 1993, the entire Neuse River watershed was listed
by the State as nutrient sensitive, a designation it richly
deserved. Normally, nutrient pollution simply deprives the
water of oxygen and the fish suffocate. However, in 1995,
nutrient pollution led to another, far more dangerous,
consequence--Pfiesteria. Pfiesteria is a one-celled animal so
tiny 100,000 could fit on the head of a pin. It produces a
neurotoxin that paralyzes fish and sloughs their skin in order
to devour the fish's blood cells. Simply put, it is a vampire
organism. Once the news of these fish kills reached the public,
the economic consequences that followed were swift and severe.
After the 1995 fish kill, the tourism and fishing industries
suffered substantial financial losses. So too did the real
eState and development sectors of our community. Many of these
consequences linger today.\2\
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\2\http://www.riverlaw.us/fishkills.html
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From April 1993 until July 2000, I served as the Neuse
Riverkeeper. This was a full time, paid position funded by the
Neuse River Foundation, a grassroots, non-profit environmental
group. As the Neuse Riverkeeper, it was my responsibility,
assisted by a corps of more than 300 citizen volunteers, to
patrol the 6,100 square mile Neuse watershed by water, land and
air. Importantly, it was our job to find, investigate, document
and eliminate sources of river pollution. Over that period,
more than 30,000 pictures and hundreds of hours of video were
taken. In addition to boat and boot patrols, I personally spent
more than 1,000 hours in the air locating and documenting non-
point sources of pollution, most of which involved CAFOs.
During this period, I also had the good fortune of working with
a number of dedicated State officials and renowned scientists
whose peer reviewed research into water quality and CAFO
related issues were extensively published. These include but
are not limited to Drs. JoAnn Burkholder and Viney Aneja of
North Carolina State University; Lawrence Cahoon and Michael
Mallin of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington; Stanley
Riggs of East Carolina University and Steve Wing of the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Since stepping down
as the Neuse Riverkeeper in 2000, I have stayed current on CAFO
issues by volunteering my time with environmental and community
groups monitoring CAFO issues.
industrial animal production in eastern north carolina
Nationally, North Carolina is the No. 2 producer of
swine.\3\ Two eastern North Carolina Counties, Duplin and
Sampson, rank one and two as having the highest concentrations
of swine to be found anywhere in the United States.\4\ Other
counties in eastern North Carolina rank in the top ten. Most of
these CAFOs are located in poor communities, often of African-
American descent. CAFO confinement buildings, lagoons and
sprayfields are routinely situated within a few feet of the
houses of local residents. In most cases, these residents were
there first. It was the CAFOs that moved into their
neighborhoods.\5\ Overall, in the coastal plain of North
Carolina, a tiny area located east of where I-95 divides the
State, there are now approximately 2,500 industrial swine
facilities with approximately 4,000 lagoons raising 10,000,000
hogs.\6\ These lagoons are so concentrated that from an
airplane flying at 1,000 feet over Duplin and other counties,
more than 100 lagoons can be counted from a single spot in the
air.
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\3\http://www.ncagr.com/stats/livestock/hoginv.htm
\4\http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/agoutlook/sep2000/
ao274g.pdf
\5\hhttp:// www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar99/wing2.htm
\6\http://www.riverlaw.us/consequences.html; http://
www.enr.state.nc.us/files/hogs/hogplan.htm
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This is a radical change from conditions that existed prior
to the mid 80's. Then, there were 24,000 family farmers raising
2.000,000 swine.\7\ It was a time in North Carolina's history
when family farmers raised their livestock in close proximity
to their neighbors without complaint. It was also a time when
the waters and air of North Carolina safely supported the needs
of its citizens.
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\7\http://www.riverlaw.us/
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That situation changed in the late 1980's, when North
Carolina State senator, Wendell Murphy, along with the
Smithfield Foods' slaughterhouse operations, helped invent a
new way to produce pork. Thousands of genetically enhanced hogs
would be shoehorned into pens and tiny cages in giant metal
warehouses, dosed with sub therapeutic antibiotics and force-
fed growth enhancers in their imported feeds. Their prodigious
waste would be dumped, sprayed, spilled and discharged onto
adjacent landscapes, waterways and into the air.
The amount of fecal matter produced by industrial swine in
eastern North Carolina is staggering. Based upon a study by Dr.
Mark Sobsey, professor of environmental sciences and
engineering at the University of North Carolina School of
Public Health\8\ that compared hog to human waste, the
10,000,000 hogs in eastern North Carolina produce more fecal
waste each day than is produced by all the citizens (combined)
in North Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas,
New Hampshire, and North Dakota.
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\8\http://www.riverlaw.us/realhogfacts.html
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In North Carolina, this incredible amount of fecal matter
is constantly being flushed from the confinement buildings
where these animals are kept. Once flushed, the feces and urine
from these animals is stored in the open environment in huge
earthen sewage pits called lagoons. These lagoons constantly
discharge to the surrounding environment by leaking into the
groundwater and vaporizing their compounds through the air. As
the lagoons fill up, the waste is sprayed onto fields
frequently tiled with drainage pipes that promote direct runoff
to nearby ditches. Most all of these ditches are connected to
public trust waterways.\9\ Since many CAFO sprayfields are
located in areas with extremely high water tables and sandy
soil, applied swine waste to fields at agronomical rates is
literally ``thrown to the wind.'' Under these conditions the
swine waste is not used to fertilize crops. Instead, CAFO
owners simply spray the liquefied swine feces and urine into
the air in order to lower lagoon levels through vaporization.
It is a process that breaks the liquefied swine waste into
small particles so it can be misted into surrounding areas.
CAFO owners have no control over this swine waste as it is
indiscriminately deposited throughout the surrounding
community. This practice is growing in popularity among CAFO
owners in North Carolina. State officials are aware of the
process. They have advised me that they can find nothing in the
law to prevent this from happening.
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\9\Impacts of Waste from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations on
Water Quality Volume 115 number 2, February 2007, Environmental Health
Perspective
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The lagoon and sprayfield method of swine waste disposal is
best characterized as an ``outhouse'' system. It causes
substantial runoff to the public trust waters and pollution of
the air in neighboring communities. It is especially
problematic during periods of above average rainfall, which
occur approximately one-half the time. It is a major polluter
of both air and water through the release of ammonia, hydrogen
sulfide and methane gases.
North Carolina is also heavily populated with poultry
operations. Each year, in CAFOs, more than 700,000,000 chickens
and 40,000,000 turkeys are produced.\10\ Like swine waste, the
feces and urine produced by these animals is overwhelming. It
is also disposed of in a similar manner, except that there are
usually no lagoons. Instead, poultry waste is composted prior
to being applied to fields. As with swine CAFOs, most of the
fields where poultry waste is applied contain drain tiles
(pipes) and ditches to promote runoff to surface waters.
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\10\http://www.ncagr.com/stats/livestock/broilerprod.htm
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Please see Exhibit 2 for pictures that pertain to the
testimony provided above.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
broken promises--lessons learned
In the late 1980's and early 1990's, as the swine industry
was busy setting up its CAFOs in eastern North Carolina,
industry leaders told concerned citizens and political leaders
that there would be no problems resulting from the use of
lagoons and sprayfields. They claimed that as swine CAFOs were
built, everyone would prosper; that new, good, high paying jobs
would be created; and that local crop farmers would benefit as
they produced crops needed for animal feed. They also calmed
neighbors' fears by stating that the odors would be nonexistent
or minimal and that infestation of flying insects, such as
black flies would not occur. When health concerns were raised,
swine CAFO promoters were quick to deny any possible link
between human illnesses and hog waste, including the gasses
emitted from that waste. They also boldly claimed that their
operations would not adversely impact the environment because
they were regulated as ``Zero Discharge Waste Facilities.''
These were claims and promises that could not and would not be
kept. This is what followed:
JOBS:
The new jobs that were promised turned out to be low paying
and undesirable. Moreover, it is an absolute falsehood that
converting from traditional farming practices to CAFOs creates
jobs. In fact, it destroys them. The very basis of CAFO
production is to produce meat by reducing cost. Everything is
consolidated and concentrated. CAFOs employ the fewest possible
workers. The number of hog producers in the United States was
more than 1,000,000 in the 1960's. By 2005, it had dropped to
67,000.\11\ While some new jobs may have been created in North
Carolina as the industry consolidated its production in the
state, those gains clearly came at the expense of traditional
family farmers throughout the United States. New jobs are not
being added due to the need for increases in hog production.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of
hogs in the U.S. inventory today is nearly the same as it was
in 1915.
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\11\Community Health and Socioeconomic Issues Surrounding
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Environmental Health
Perspective, Volume 115 number 2, February 2007
ODOR AND INSECTS:
Of all the statements made by CAFO owners, the one that
claimed that there would be no offensive odors and no increase
in flying insects, like black flies, is most reprehensible.
Citizens throughout eastern North Carolina where CAFOs are
located have complained about these problems since the CAFOs
first arrived. Today, when questioned about the problem, the
best swine industry officials offer is that ``odor is in the
nose of the beholder.'' While the problem with odor and insects
is well documented in scientific reports and the complaints of
citizens, nothing of real substance has been done to alleviate
the problem.\12\
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\12\ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks--
dirty--secret--the--nations--top--hog--producer--is--also--one--of--
americas--worst--polluters/4
THE HUMAN HEALTH COSTS OF CAFOs:
Like similar operations across the country, North Carolina
swine and poultry CAFOs emit significant amounts of particulate
matter (fecal matter, feed materials, volatile organic
compounds, skin cells, bioaerosols,etc.), ammonia, hydrogen
sulfide, sulfur dioxide and other harmful contaminants into the
air. Air pollution from CAFOs has been directly linked to
increased respiratory diseases (such as asthma,
hypersensitivity pneumonitis, industrial bronchitis)
cardiovascular events (sudden death associated with particulate
air pollution), and neuropsychiatric conditions (due to odor as
well as delayed effects of toxic inhalations). People working
in and near CAFOs have experienced increased headaches, sore
throats, excessive coughing, diarrhea, burning eyes and reduced
quality of life compared to more distant residents. CAFO air
pollution is especially problematic, because residents close to
these facilities are exposed on a near constant basis.\13\
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\13\For information on these pollutants and the human health
impacts identified in this paragraph see the following: Iowa State
University and The University of Iowa Study Group, Iowa Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations, Air Quality Study, Final Report (2002)
(``Iowa Air Quality Study''), http://www.publichealth.uiowa.edu/ehsrc/
CAFOstudy.htm; Minnesota Planning Agency Environmental Quality Board,
Final Animal Agriculture Generic Environmental Impact Statement (2002),
(``Minnesota EIS for Animal Agriculture''), http://www.eqb.state.mn.us/
geis/ for information concerning health impacts of particular AFO air
pollutants; North Carolina Residents, 108 Envtl. Health Persp. 223-38
(2000); S. Wing & S. Wolf, Intensive Livestock Operations, Health, and
Quality of Life Among Eastern K. Thu et al., A Control Study of the
Physical and Mental Health of Residents Living Near a Large-Scale Swine
Operation, 3 J. Agric. Safety & Health 1, 13-26 (1997)
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Ever since the hog industry established CAFOs in North
Carolina, citizens have been complaining and expressing their
health concerns as hog waste was being sprayed on their persons
and property, odors and black flies invaded their houses and
their wells became contaminated. They also complained about the
lack of redress on these matters from State officials and CAFO
owners. Recently, a number of these citizens from across
eastern North Carolina recorded their concerns and feelings in
a locally produced documentary entitled:. . . .the Rest of the
Story: Corporate Hog Farming in North Carolina. This 14 minute
documentary more appropriately presents the environmental
injustice these citizens suffer far better than I could
possibly do through my testimony. A copy is attached as Exhibit
3. Your review of this material is highly encouraged.
THE SAD TRUTH:
In North Carolina, like the rest of the country, none of
the air pollution emitted by CAFOs is regulated or controlled
by State or Federal agencies. None of these operations has
Clean Air Permits or anything equivalent under North Carolina
law. As a result, there are few, if any, regulatory
requirements to address air and odor pollution from swine and
poultry factories and citizens have little legal recourse when
they experience these afflictions. As Pickle Robins, a local
farmer living next to a swine CAFO once told me, ``They can
just put the stink on you and there isn't anything you can do
about it and that's the sad truth.''
DRINKING WATER CONTAMINATION:
Throughout eastern North Carolina, residents depend heavily
on private wells to supply drinking water for their families.
Due to widespread concerns voiced by these citizens that their
wells might be contaminated with nitrates from animal waste, in
his second term, Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., made free well
water testing for nitrates available to all North Carolina
citizens living adjacent to industrial swine facilities. During
the next 2 years, a total of 1,595 wells in 57 counties which
were adjacent to swine facilities had been tested for nitrates.
The results were alarming. Of the tested wells, 163 (10.2
percent) showed nitrate contamination at or above the drinking
water standard of 10 mg/L. In some counties, the percentage of
contaminated wells was near 50 percent.\14\ Contaminated wells
continue to be discovered and the North Carolina General
Assembly has been pressed by local citizens to address the
problem
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\14\http://www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/mera/ilocontamination.html
CAFOs POLLUTE OUR WATERWAYS:
Nutrient pollution from swine CAFOs has been scientifically
linked to the fish kills previously mentioned in this testimony
and the growth of algae and other aquatic vegetation that
clogged North Carolina waterways. Along the Trent River, a
major tributary of the Neuse, more than 71 miles of waterway
was identified as impaired by State officials as a direct
result of nutrient pollution from CAFOs.\15\ As a result of
these fish kills and the dangers presented by Pfiesteria
outbreaks, State officials posted the Neuse River estuary with
signs warning citizens not to go in or near the water when fish
are distressed and/or dying.
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\15\http://H2O.enr.state.nc.us/list--303d/listnar.pdf
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What impact has pollution from swine and other CAFOs had on
the Neuse River? In 1995, 1996 and 1997, due to nutrient
pollution from CAFOs and other sources, the Neuse was listed as
one of the most threatened rivers in North America. That
listing, coupled with media attention and lawsuits brought by
the Neuse River Foundation, forced State officials to take
affirmative action aimed at reducing nutrient loading to the
Neuse. Unfortunately, these efforts have only been partially
effective. What success has been achieved in nutrient reduction
has been credited more to drought conditions and the
corresponding lack of runoff than anything the State has done,
especially as it relates to pollution from CAFOs.
In 2006, a number of internationally renowned North
Carolina scientists (Dickey, Burkholder, Reed, Mallin, Cahoon
et al) released the results of a 10-year data collection and
analysis project undertaken for the purpose of determining
water quality trends in the Neuse River estuary. The study
period was from May 1993 to June 2003. All sampling and
analytical procedures were recognized by both State and Federal
regulatory agencies, and any modifications were sanctioned by
the Environmental Protection Agency. The study found that the
loading of nutrients, especially nitrogen, should have been
substantially reduced over the period due to a reduction goal
legislated by the North Carolina General Assembly. This goal of
attaining a 30 percent reduction in nitrogen arriving at the
Neuse estuary required major adjustments by nearly all major
contributors. Based upon the actions taken, a substantial
reduction should have resulted. Many crop farms have ceased
production and those remaining have cut their use of fertilizer
by as much as 40 percent. Industrial and municipal wastewater
treatment plants substantially upgraded their facilities to
reduce nutrient discharges. At the Neuse estuary and upstream
to Goldsboro, 11 wastewater dischargers committed to the
removal of their river discharges (most now removed).
Additionally, mandatory buffer protections were enacted along
with rules substantially restricting the discharge of sediments
and stormwater. Unfortunately, there was no reduction. To
everyone's dismay, the report noted an alarming increase in
ammonia levels found in the Neuse estuary. It also revealed
that concentrations of ammonium, the most destructive form of
nitrogen, dramatically increased by 500 percent. Ammonia not
only stimulates prolific alga blooms, it is also the agent that
promotes fish kills. Where is all that ammonia coming from?
According to State authorities, ``Approximately 2/3 of the
nitrogen in the swine excretions is emitted to the air in
accordance with the design of a lagoon and sprayfield system. A
DENR study estimates that swine facilities produce 20 percent
of North Carolina's total atmospheric nitrogen compounds which
react with other constituents in the air and is deposited to
land, vegetation, and water bodies. This figure is 53 percent
for just Eastern North Carolina''\16\
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\16\http://www.enr.state.nc.us/files/hogs/hogplan.htm (originally
publish at this site--no longer available) Excerpts available at
www.riverlaw.us
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The Neuse is not alone in the degradation suffered from
CAFO pollution. In a related set of trend analyses, a
significant increasing trend in ammonium concentrations was
also found for an adjacent, more rapidly flushed system, the
Cape Fear Estuary.\17\
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\17\Burkholder, J.M., D.A. Dickey, C. Kinder, R.E. Reed, M.A.
Mallin, G. Melia, M.R. McIver, L.B. Cahoon, C. Brownie, N. Deamer, J.
Springer, H. Glasgow, D. Toms and J. Smith (2006) Comprehensive trend
analysis of nutrients and related variables in a large eutrophic
estuary: A decadal study of anthropogenic and climatic influences.
Limnology and Oceanography, volume 51, pp. 463-487.
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Millions of fish died in other rivers as well. Many had
open, bleeding lesions on their bodies similar to those in the
Neuse. In 1995, the New River near Jacksonville, North Carolina
was severely impacted when a CAFO lagoon broke through its
earthen wall. More than 20,000,000 gallons of swine waste
spilled into the river killing millions of fish.\18\ Large fish
kills related to nutrient pollution have also been reported in
the Tar-Pamlico River and the Pamlico Sound and in other waters
across North Carolina.\19\
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\18\http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/
vp950626/06260030.htm
\19\http://www.esb.enr.state.nc.us/Fishkill/fishkill.htm
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It is not surprising that in 2007, in large measure due to
CAFO pollution, the Neuse was placed back on the list of the 10
Most Endangered Rivers in America.\20\
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\20\http://www.americanrivers.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AR7--
MER2007--Neuse
WIND, RAIN AND FLOODS:
When hurricanes, tropical storms and heavy rains routinely
threaten to flood North Carolina, pollution discharges from
CAFOs substantially increase. In aerial flights over swine
CAFOs immediately preceding heavy rain events, large numbers of
CAFOs are observed dumping animal waste just hours before the
storm's scheduled arrival. The number of CAFOs spraying waste
under these conditions far exceeds what would be observed on a
normal day. Clearly, these operators understand that what they
are applying on their fields will, for the most part, be washed
into the wetlands, streams and rivers once the heavy rains
arrive. For these operators, it doesn't matter. Their only
objective is to do everything they can to lower their lagoon
levels in advance of the storm.\21\ North Carolina is often
referred to as ``hurricane alley.'' It is a well deserved
label. Unfortunately, the swine lagoons in eastern North
Carolina lay directly in the path of these storms. The results
are often catastrophic. In 1999, when hurricane Floyd made its
way across North Carolina's coastal plain, more than 50 lagoons
were flooded. So much hog waste was spilled that its pinkish
color could be clearly observed running down the river.
Thousands of hogs, both alive and dead, were also observed in
the river, on the tops of flooded confinement buildings and in
piles waiting to be buried. Estimates of dead hogs ranged
widely between 30,000 and 400,000. The correct number may never
be verified. After the storm, Governor Hunt promised that all
of the flooded lagoons as well as those in the flood plain,
would be shut down. Later, he changed his mind and proclaimed
that only those CAFOs that were damaged by more than 50 percent
would be eliminated. In the end, only a handful were shut down.
Most still remain in harms way waiting for the next storm and
new promises of corrective action.\22\
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\21\http://www.riverlaw.us/hurricanefloyd/hurricaneisabel.html
\22\http://www.riverlaw.us/hurricanefloyd.html http://www.mhhe.com/
biosci/pae/es--map/articles/article--53.mhtml
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Some years the State experiences excessive rainfall. This
last occurred in 2003 when rainfall exceeded 100 year record
levels. The rains began in January and continued through
October. The fields were so saturated that farm tractors were
unable to plow many of the fields. On many farm fields, what
crop was able to be planted, drowned under the onslaught of
water. Meanwhile, the rains continued to fill the lagoons. This
situation was exacerbated by the inability of swine CAFO
operators to apply swine waste to fields at agronomical rates
as required by law and their waste management plans. As the
hogs kept eating and defecating, the lagoons filled even
faster. One solution would have been to reduce the size of the
swine herd. That didn't happen. The swine inventory at the
beginning of the year was reported at 9,000,000. At year's end,
it was recorded at 10,000,000. Under these conditions, it was
impossible for most CAFOs to follow the law and apply their
swine waste at agronomical rates. So where did all that waste
go? No doubt--it went down the river. This is clearly
documented in the pictures and video that were taken during the
year.\23\
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\23\http://www.riverlaw.us/enforcement.html
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As a result of the developing problems in CAFO operations,
since 1997, the North Carolina General Assembly has imposed a
moratorium on the construction of new hog lagoons and
sprayfields (except for those obtaining permits before the
effective date of the moratorium).
ANTIBIOTICS AND CAFOs:
Industrial meat producers routinely dose their animals with
sub-therapeutic antibiotics for non-medical purposes, primarily
to stimulate unnaturally rapid growth in hogs. The excessive
use of antibiotics is an integral part of the production system
both to bring them to market faster and to keep them alive in
otherwise unlivable conditions. Many of the antibiotics given
to livestock, such as tetracycline, penicillin, and
erythromycin, are important human medicines. Up to 80 percent
of antibiotics administered to hogs pass unchanged through the
animal to bacteria rich waste lagoons. This soup is then spread
on sprayfields, allowing the antibiotics to enter groundwater
and run off into surface waters.
Routine administration of sub-therapeutic antibiotics
endangers public health by contributing to drug-resistant
pathogens with which humans and animals may come in contact
through groundwater, surface water, soil, air, or food
products. Once antibiotics have entered hog factory effluents,
they can enter waterways and spread through the environment in
low concentrations--killing susceptible bacteria and leaving
resistant survivors to multiply. Resistant bacteria can then
infect people who swim in lakes and rivers or drink well water.
The Environmental Protection Agency has found antibiotics
administered to swine, in lagoons, groundwater, air above
sprayfields, adjacent waterways and the main stream of the
Neuse River.
In January 2001, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a
report that included the following shocking statistic: 84
percent of all antibiotics consumed are used in livestock, the
vast majority for non therapeutic purposes! The hog industry
uses 11 million pounds of antibiotics annually while a
comparatively modest three million pounds are used in human
medicine.\1\
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\1\NRDC, Cesspools of Shame, How Factory Farm Lagoons and
Sprayfields Threaten Environmental and Public Health, 2001.
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Antibiotics administered to hogs are now making their way
into the air, groundwater and our rivers and streams .At one
North Carolina CAFO, swine antibiotics have been found in the
tap water. The EPA has also reported finding antibiotics used
in swine production in the main stream of the Neuse River.\2\
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\2\http://www.factoryfarm.org/docs/CivEngSeminarPresentation.pdf
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the governors speak out
Having credibility on CAFO issues is critically important.
The industry works hard and spends a great deal of money on
lawyers and lobbyists who attack critics in an effort to
confuse the issues. While there are countless peer reviewed
scientific studies that clearly support my testimony, some of
the strongest support for what I have stated comes from two of
North Carolina's leading State officials who served as Governor
during the establishment of CAFOs and the aftermath that
followed. These were: Governors Hunt (1993--2001) and Easley
(2001--). Their positions on swine CAFOs are set forth below:
Governor James B. Hunt, Jr. (1993--2001)
In the late 1990's, then North Carolina Governor James B.
Hunt, Jr's administration strongly condemned the pollution
practices of swine CAFOs.
Here are some excerpts from his State sponsored website:\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\http://www.enr.state.nc.us/files/hogs/hogplan.htm (originally
publish at this site--no longer available) Excerpts available at
www.riverlaw.us
``Background''
Swine production has mushroomed over the last decade.
Despite a decreasing number of swine facilities, the number of
hogs has increased threefold to ten million. . . .There are
approximately 2,400 major swine facilities in North Carolina
with approximately 4,000 active anaerobic lagoons, and there
are about 650 inactive swine lagoons. . . ..
Economic Impacts
. . . .swine production in North Carolina can produce
significant odor, reduce neighboring property value, and harm
tourism.
Environmental and Public Health Impacts
. . . .the environmental and public impacts of the swine
industry demand further action by the State and the swine
industry. Swine production impacts to the environment and
public health are listed below.
Surface Water. Surface water can be contaminated by
discharges from the lagoons or run-off from sprayfields. In
1998, there were 107 documented discharges from swine
facilities with 31 of these reaching the surface waters.
Groundwater. Groundwater can be contaminated either
through leaking lagoons or leaching of sprayfield applied
waste. An NCSU study showed that waste from 38 percent of
older, unlined anaerobic lagoons leaked nitrogen compounds into
the groundwater at ``strong'' or ``very strong'' levels, while
preliminary estimates of a Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR) study indicate that 25 percent of
lined facilities may leak to contaminate groundwater. DENR data
show that conventional sprayfields seem to be just as
problematic as lagoons.
Odor. Odors are generated from lagoons, sprayfields, or
swine houses. When odors are not confined to the property of
the operations, they have the potential to cause health
problems, heightened community tensions, and losses in property
values. . . .
Atmospheric Deposition. Approximately 2/3 of the nitrogen
in the swine excretions is emitted to the air in accordance
with the design of a lagoon and sprayfield system. A DENR study
estimates that swine facilities produce 20 percent of North
Carolina's total atmospheric nitrogen compounds which react
with other constituents in the air and is deposited to land,
vegetation, and water bodies. This figure is 53 percent for
just Eastern North Carolina.
Nutrient Imbalance. The rapid growth of the swine
industry has resulted in a nutrient imbalance in parts of North
Carolina. The feed imported to swine facilities generates more
nutrients than receiving plants, land, and waters can absorb.
For example, 95 percent of the nitrogen in manure produced in
the Neuse River Basin is imported from outside the basin.
Public Health. Swine waste is a source of nitrates in
groundwater and pathogens in the ground and surface waters
which can directly impact human health. Odors too can adversely
impact human health as they can cause coughing, nausea,
dizziness, headaches, and burning eyes as well as psychological
effects. . . .''
Governor Michael F. Easley
In 2000, while campaigning for Governor, Michael Easley,
the current Governor of North Carolina, published a White Paper
containing the following commitments to rid the State of swine
CAFO lagoons and their pollution.\4\
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\4\http://www.riverlaw.us/thegovernors.html
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``My comprehensive clean water plan starts with the obvious
point that the anaerobic swine waste lagoon and spray field
system has proved to be too risky. It must go. As Governor, I
will lead a broad, consistent effort to address the
environmental degradation caused by large-scale, factory hog
farming. Certainly, the companies that own and profit from the
hog industry must bear their fair share of legal liability when
the people they hire break our water quality laws. Those who
enjoy direct financial benefits from hog production must have
an economic incentive to promote compliance with State
environmental rules. Therefore, my Administration will make
sure that major hog companies, and other ``integrators'' of
small farmers into large-scale hog operations, share liability
for water quality violations at their contract farms.
Moreover, a lagoon phase-out, starting with those abandoned
and in flood plains or other at-risk locations, is also
critical. Hog lagoons have spilled into our waterways too
often, and the issue of damage from atmospheric nitrogen and
ammonia falling as rain is too serious to continue with
``business-as-usual.''
As a result, the phaseout of hog waste lagoons must begin
immediately, and be subject to a strict timetable. Demanding
compliance with this timetable will force the development of
new, environmentally friendly technologies to control hog
waste. As such technologies develop, the timetable can be
accelerated. But mandatory deadlines are necessary to continue
the pace of research and development, and to force
implementation. Specifically, as Governor, I will insist on the
following timetable:
(1) Large scale, on-farm installation of testing and new
technologies, at the expense of integrators, to begin
immediately;
(2) Testing, evaluation, and oversight of new waste
facilities, by independent scientists, beginning in year one;
(3) Full scale installation of the technologies found most
effective, no later than years three and four; and
(4) Completion of phaseout and total elimination of the
lagoon system no later than year five, and substantially sooner
if the independent scientists determine that faster
implementation is possible.
Whether by the initiative of the elected branches or by
court order, the outmoded lagoon system will be replaced. The
real question is what will take its place. Converting to
cleaner, safer waste technologies will come at a price. We must
be sensitive to independent family farms, so many of which have
attempted to operate responsibly. These farmers simply played
by the rules set by the General Assembly. Still, they must
convert and, as Governor, I will see that they do so. While the
conversion is underway, large-scale farms must make operational
improvements, including buffers, biocovers, and windbreak
walls, to minimize dangers to our waters, as well as our air''
north carolina 2007--hope turns to despair
In 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly was poised to
pass legislation mandating a plan to rid the State of the
lagoons and sprayfields used by CAFOs . Several pending bills
would have accomplished the following:\5\
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\5\http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/BillLookUp/
BillLookUp.pl?Session=2007&BillID=s1465
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Set a date certain after which the use of lagoons and
sprayfields would no longer be authorized for use by swine
CAFOs.
Ban the construction of new lagoons
Establish new standards required for the treatment of
swine waste
Provide some State funding to help small swine producers
make the transition from lagoons to the newly approved
technologies.
Provide some limited funding to help private citizens
with contaminated wells obtain other sources of drinking water.
By the time the legislative session ended in August 2007,
little remained of what was originally proposed. The date
certain legislation was turned into a study bill and the
legislation to prohibit new lagoons was totally compromised. A
bill was passed that did ban the construction of lagoons on
newly constructed facilities. However, through intense lobbying
of the swine CAFO industry, a compromise brokered by Governor
Easley provided for the repair of existing lagoons and
replacement of those lagoons with new lagoons when they could
no longer be repaired and imminently threatened public health.
Swine lagoons have a useful life of approximately 20--25 years
and at some point they will all have to be replaced. In this
regard, there is little doubt of where the industry is headed.
Lagoons and sprayfields represent the cheapest method for
disposing of hog waste. Regardless of their harm, operating
lagoons is profitable and that is the industry's bottom line.
Making matters worse was another amendment that encouraged
the continued use of existing lagoons and sprayfields by swine
CAFOs through the capture of methane gas. What this legislation
authorized was the partial covering of existing lagoons with a
tarp to capture methane gas. The intended outcome is for CAFO
owners to be able to sell that methane to utility companies for
up to four times its true market value. Utility companies
participating in the methane capture program would be permitted
to pass these additional costs to their ratepayers. The capture
of methane gas is a laudable objective, but it must incorporate
the newly approved technologies that move the industry away
from lagoons and sprayfields that massively pollute.
why cafo pollution must be brought under control
By illegally polluting, industrial hog producers gained a
critical advantage over their competitors--the traditional
family farmer--in the marketplace. These are not businessmen
making an ``honest buck.'' Instead, they are lawbreakers who
make money by polluting our air and water and violating the
laws with which other Americans must comply.
Environmental lawbreaking is an integral component of
factory pork production. Records of State environmental
agencies in over a dozen states demonstrate that factory hog
producers are chronic violators of State and Federal law. For
example, North Carolina's Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (``NCDENR'') records show thousands of violations of
State environmental laws by Smithfield's facilities During
periods of above average rainfall, violations are significantly
increased. NCDENR officials readily admit that at critical
times they do not have the resources to enforce the law. As a
result, enforcement is virtually non-existent except for what
private citizens are able to do pursuant to the provisions of
the Federal Clean Water Act. The number of violations is
believed to be considerably greater since, prior to 1995, the
environmental agency was not even allowed to know the locations
of the hog factories, or to inspect them unless `invited' to do
so by the operators or owners. Even today, State water quality
inspectors and State and local county health officials are not
permitted to go inside swine CAFO confinement buildings. That
is the sole responsibility of the State Veterinarian who works
under the North Carolina Department of Agriculture--a CAFO
friendly agency. The massive and persistent drumbeat of
violations recorded in these documents prove that hog factories
and their facilities are chronic, deliberate and habitual
violators of State laws designed to protect the environment and
minimize discharges of swine waste.
Indeed, without breaking the law, pork factories cannot
make money and produce hogs as efficiently or cheaply as family
farmers. Industrial pork producers instead rely on rare
inspections and small fines by State regulators. The rare
penalties and small dollar amounts occasionally dispensed by
State enforcers never provide sufficient incentive for the
industrial pork barons to stop their lawbreaking. These fines
amount only to a trivial cost of doing business.\6\
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\6\www.riverlaw.us; http://www.senate.gov/?gov--affairs/
031302dove.htm
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alternatives
There are myriad alternatives to the CAFO lagoon and
sprayfield system, but the industrial hog producers refuse to
adopt innovations that might cut profit margins. In 2000,
Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, entered
into an agreement with the Attorney General of North Carolina
that funded the evaluation of environmentally superior waste
management technologies for use on North Carolina swine farms
owned by them. Later, Premium Standard Farms and Front Line
Farmers, joined in the agreement. Smithfield and Premium
Standard provided all the funding for this effort.. Dr. Mike
Williams, Director of the Animal and Poultry Waste Management
Center at North Carolina State University was designated to
oversee the project. As a result of this effort, a number of
technologies were developed that would, when fully implemented,
eliminate the use of CAFO lagoons and sprayfields. One approved
system was, Super Soils. Unfortunately, the Smithfield
Agreement provided that any new technology had to be
economically feasible. This provision, by measuring the cheap
cost of constructing and operating a lagoon system against any
new technology, made it impossible to meet economical
objections from swine CAFO owners. However, one study concluded
that while costs were higher for Super Soils systems, there
were benefits that dramatically outweigh these costs.
The result of one study reported by the Charlotte Observer
on July 15, 2007, stated:
``our State could gain the economic equivalent of 7,000
jobs and enjoy a $10 billion economic boost if the industry
adopted technology that produced usable by-products from hog
wastes. The Super Soils technology identified by researchers at
N.C. State University would provide one effective alternative.
Farmers could produce container mix for use in nurseries and
other plant growers and boost employment. Over a 20-year period
that could generate thousands of jobs and produce up to $1.1
billion in farm revenue. It also would reduce air pollution and
dangers to health and avoid accidental lagoon breaches that can
pollute waterways''
So why would CAFO industry leaders refuse to give these new
technologies a chance in North Carolina where they are so
desperately needed? The answer to that question probably has
less to do with North Carolina than it does with the swine
industry's operations across the rest of America's farmlands.
When new innovative technologies are successfully adopted and
proven to work in this state, their use will be demanded
wherever lagoons and sprayfields are in use. The record of this
industry clearly reflects that regardless of the public need
and benefit, industrial bottom line financial considerations
will always prevail.
Does the industry have the financial ability to make the
switch to cleaner technologies? They do! Smithfield Foods, the
world's largest swine producer and owner of most all hogs in
North Carolina, has doubled its net earnings over the past 5
years to 11.5 billion dollars. Their CEO and other top
executives are rewarded annually with millions in bonuses.\7\
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\7\http://www.changetowin.org/why-organize/corporate-hall-of-shame/
smithfield-foods.html
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Another alternative to swine and other CAFO production is
traditional family farming where hogs and other livestock are
raised without lagoons and confinement buildings. No one has
ever stood in line to buy pork in America. Traditional family
farmers have always been able to keep the shelves full.
Industrial farming practices do have a serious downside. Too
often, corporate profits take precedence over all other
considerations, including animal welfare, environmental
protection, social responsibility and the safety of residents
living of neighboring communities. CAFOs represent a race to
the bottom. It is not sustainable and it will fail. Clearly,
these facilities operate outside the laws of nature. To believe
that raw animal waste can be safely contained in 4,000 thousand
earthen pits left baking under the hot summer sun in a
concentrated and environmentally sensitive area of the state--
is nothing short of insane. There will be consequences. The
question is--how bad and when?
conclusion:
North Carolina's experience shows that the environmental
laws which limit pollution from factory farms need to be
strengthened, not weakened. Any effort to amend CERCLA and
EPCRKA to exempt CAFOs would be a significant reversal,
eliminating much needed protection for our communities and the
environment while rewarding known polluters with an ill-
deserved amnesty. CAFO owners, especially the large
integrators, contend that they are not a part of the problem.
After all, it's just manure. And if, as they claim, there is no
problem, why are they seeking relief from laws that support
public safety and protect our air and water?
Farm industry lobbyists and supporters claim that CAFOs are
already extensively regulated under the Clean Water Act, the
Clean Air Act, and that CERCLA and EPCRKA add unnecessary
regulatory burdens. In fact, no swine or poultry operations in
North Carolina are regulated under the Clean Air Act, and only
swine operations are covered by Clean Water Act NPDES permits.
In the wake of the 2002 Waterkeeper Alliance v. EPA court
decision, the North Carolina poultry operation successfully
lobbied State agencies to exempt most poultry CAFOs from the
requirement to obtain an NPDES permit. As a result, in North
Carolina an entire industry, one now seeking an exemption from
CERCLA, is unregulated by any environmental law.
North Carolina's NPDES permits, like nearly every other
CAFO permit in the Nation, rely on the calculation of agronomic
rates that let swine producers apply as much waste to fields as
crops can take up. Unfortunately, this method has failed to
prevent discharges of excess nutrients to our streams and
rivers, and of course, there is no agronomic rate for
pollutants such as fecal coliform and other pathogens. In
short, current research indicates that the Clean Water Act
regulatory program is insufficient to protect our surface
waters and groundwater drinking supplies.
It is important to recognize that the solution to many of
the pollution problems caused by factory-style livestock
operations may be solved by sustainable family farmers. These
farmers, historically the bedrock of American agriculture, are
not subject to the requirements of CERCLA and EPCRKA and would
not benefit from the proposed exemption. Indeed, Congress had
this community in mind in 1986 when it originally drafted
CERCLA to have an exemption for the ``normal field application
of fertilizer.'' The proposed changes to CERCLA and ECPRKA
amount to a legislative bail-out that would only aid large
factory farm operators who are unable to manage responsibly the
large quantities of manure they produce. Some operations have
polluted groundwater and surface water with excess nutrients
and dangerous pathogens, arsenic and other toxic metal
compounds and antibiotics.
The scale of this pollution can be truly shocking. There is
evidence that some large animal confinements can release
enormous quantities of toxic chemicals--comparable to pollution
from the nation's largest manufacturing plants. For example:
Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman, Oregon, reported that
its 52,300 dairy cow operation emits 15,500 pounds of ammonia
per day, more than 5,675,000 pounds per year.\1\ That's 75,000
pounds more than the nation's No. one manufacturing source of
ammonia air pollution (CF Industries of Donaldson, Louisiana)
reported according to the 2003 Toxics Release Inventory.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Letter from Tom Lindley on behalf of Threemile Canyon Farms to
EPA Region X, April 18, 2005
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buckeye Egg's facility in Croton, Ohio, had ammonia
emissions of 1,600,000 pounds in 2003.\2\ This amount
corresponds to roughly 4,400 pounds per day, or about 44 times
the reporting threshold that EPA set based on health
considerations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\United States v. Buckeye Egg Farm, L.P. et al, Civil Action
No.3:03 VC7681,
CERCLA currently provides a much needed avenue of response
for community officials. In an often-cited example, the city of
Waco, Texas is spending more than $54 million for capital
improvements specifically to deal with taste and odor problems
caused by excessive phosphorus pollution from dairy cow waste.
Facing what appeared to be ever-increasing water treatment
expenditures to eliminate ever-increasing nutrient loadings
from agricultural operations, the City urged upstream feeding
operations to adopt better manure management techniques. When
that effort failed, they used the most effective legal tool
available: a CERCLA cost recovery suit. The suit--against 14
operations that had a history of problems--was used not to shut
down dairies or collect moneys from farmers, but to leverage
new, enforceable agreements for better manure management at
these facilities.
If Congress amends Superfund with a special exemption for
livestock waste, it will deny the city of Waco and others
American communities a critical legal tool for protecting their
invaluable water supplies from pollution by large-scale
agricultural operations that fail to properly manage their
waste. Such an amendment would declare that water users, not
polluters, must bear the burdens of pollution, a radical shift
from the ``polluter pays'' principle enshrined in CERCLA and in
our common sense of right and wrong.
Another impact of the proposed exemptions would be to
prevent Federal, State and local emergency responders from
accessing information about toxic releases from these
facilities. As discussed above, many of the large feeding
operations release large volumes of hazardous air pollutants,
such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide and an increasing number
of studies have found a variety of health problems among animal
feeding operation workers and residents who live near these
operations, including bronchitis, asthma, and antibiotic-
resistant bacterial infections. These findings are of great
concern to many rural communities, and action by Congress to
ban reporting by these facilities would do a great disservice
to those who are working hard to develop a better understanding
of the full impacts of these releases.
Representatives of some large-scale agriculture operations
have argued to Members of Congress and to farming communities
that such an amendment is urgently needed to protect family
farms from frivolous lawsuits and allow farmers to continue to
use manure as fertilizer for crop production. These assertions
are simply untrue, and grossly misrepresent both remedies
available under the statute and current legal trends. There are
three key points correcting this misinformation. First, as
indicated above, CERCLA's cost recovery and reporting
requirements do not threaten responsible operators who manage
manure as a valuable fertilizer. Second, neither CERCLA nor
EPCRKA contain ``citizen suit'' provisions similar to those in
the Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act. In fact, only municipal,
State and tribal governments can bring the type of cost-
recovery actions brought by the city of Waco and State of
Oklahoma. Third, there is no rash of frivolous lawsuits
currently clogging the courtrooms of America and forcing
farmers into bankruptcy. In fact, in the 25-year history of
CERCLA, there have been only 3 cost-recovery lawsuits against
animal feeding operations to address manure-related
contamination.
City of Tulsa v Tyson Foods targeted several large
chicken operations and attempted to recover costs for water
treatment incurred by the City and the Tulsa water utility. The
case was settled in 2003.
In 2004, the city of Waco sued 14 dairy operations for
water quality problems with Lake Waco, the City's drinking
water supply. Settlements were reached with all 14 defendants.
In 2005, the State of Oklahoma sued large-scale poultry
producers for redress of water quality problems in the Illinois
River watershed. This case is still pending.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\Civil Action No. 4:05-cv-000329 JOESAJ, United States District
Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These lawsuits involved large-scale animal operations or
operations that had a history of problems with manure
management. In each case, the lawsuit followed long controversy
and attempted negotiations regarding waste management
practices. Lawsuits were filed after previous negotiations
failed and water quality conditions worsened. Settlements
involved plans for improved manure management, not penalties.
As indicated by the scope of the pollution problem caused
by factory farms, we need strong, broad, and effective
environmental laws to protect natural and human resources from
the ill effects of industrial-scale livestock pollution.
While CERCLA's cost recovery provisions are important for
governmental responses to hazardous conditions, for advocates
like myself, the real value of the law, and of EPCRKA's
parallel provisions, lies in the right-to-know reporting
provisions of CERCLA Section 103 and EPCRKA Section 304.
Information about chemical releases enables citizens to hold
companies and local governments accountable in terms of how
toxic chemicals are managed. Transparency also often spurs
companies to focus on their chemical management practices since
they are being measured and made public. In addition, the data
serves as a rough indicator of environmental progress over
time. The amendment proposed by the livestock industry's allies
would deprive Americans of this much needed resource, and
prevent them from playing meaningful roles in the democratic
process.
The answer to the current situation, one in which rural
residents are forced to endure sickness and nuisances, is more
reporting of air emissions as required by CERCLA and EPCRKA,
not a reprieve for those responsible for creating such misery.
CERCLA and EPCRKA create an obligation for large livestock
producers to share information with their neighbors,
information that is vital for identifying, treating, and
preventing illnesses; information that allows community leaders
and health officials to develop protective placement and
response plans; information that reveals the truth about this
industry and inspires reforms in its practices. In North
Carolina and across the Nation, we need more of this
information, not less.
Very respectfully submitted
Rick Dove
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much.
Let me take my 5 minutes. I think I'd like to take 7
minutes, then give 7 minutes to Senator Inhofe.
Let me just say, Mr. Dove, I thank you so much for your
testimony because you speak for me here. We are not asking to
pass new regulations or anything of that sort. When I say we,
those of us who believe that we shouldn't make an exemption for
this kind of waste.
We are just saying keep the law the way it is. The clean
actors, and I would ask Mrs. Chinn, you have not been sued,
have you, under this law?
Mrs. Chinn. It is my understanding that my farm does not
fall underneath CERCLA.
Senator Boxer. Right, good.
Mrs. Chinn. But my family has a comprehensive nutrient
management----
Senator Boxer. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't have time. You
have never been sued under the laws, right?
Mrs. Chinn. No, because we abide by the laws. There are bad
actors, and they should----
Senator Boxer. That is my point, Mrs. Chinn, if you might.
You were very eloquent. I need some time here to make my point.
I think that is the point. There are wonderful good actors,
families like yours, that we all support.
Look, I come from the largest ag State in the union. Our ag
industry is not only a plus; it is our heritage. It is our
heritage. So our people want to keep it that way, and they want
to keep a good name for ag. That is why our attorney general
along with many others have stated, please don't exempt these
big concentrated animal farm organizations from the law.
What is happening, just to put it on the table, is there
are those who are trying to do that in the Farm Bill. The
reason I called this hearing is my concern. I certainly don't
speak for everybody on the Committee. I haven't even polled the
Committee, but I wanted to have this hearing to make the point.
Now, Mr. Dove spoke about the bad actors, what is
happening. We have a picture. We actually took it off your
website. We will show you.
First of all, if we could put up again the beautiful of
Mrs. Chinn's operation which speaks for itself, and we will
show you a lagoon in one of these bad actors' back yards. There
you go. You can see the holding ponds, how clean they are,
right?
Well, take a look at this. This is from a concentrated
animal feed operation. It is not a family farm. It is
industrialized agriculture, and the color pink comes about from
the combinations of the bacteria and the poisons here. Indeed,
the spraying, you can see the sprays going on.
Why, in God's name, would we ever want to expose the people
to this kind of situation? It is just terrible.
The beautiful, idyllic picture that was painted by Mrs.
Chinn is one I agree with. I have seen it in farm after farm,
in operation after operation in my State, the good actors. God
bless them, and we will protect them from any damaging kind of
regulation.
But these bad guys or these corporate farms that have no
heart and soul, that could care less, let me tell you what
happened in the Midwest, your neck of the woods. At least 24
people in the Midwest have died.
I quoted you. It was a very beautiful quote about how from
the farm to the fork, I think you said, it is the greatest.
Well, it is usually the greatest, but it isn't the greatest
here. Twenty-four people in the Midwest died from inhaling
hydrogen sulfide and methane from manure since the seventies
including fifth generation Michigan dairy farmer, Carl
Theuerkauf, and four members of his family who collapsed one by
one in 1989 after breathing methane gas.
But the death toll from manure may be much higher.
Cryptosporidium, a microorganism found in animal waste, killed
104 people and sickened 403,000 in Milwaukee in 1993 in an
outbreak, some blamed on manure from nearby livestock farms.
A local health department and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention suspected manure caused seven
miscarriages in a small farming community in Indiana between
1991 and 1993 by contaminating wells. ``I thought the water I
was drinking was good water,'' said Melissa Dickerson, who was
22 and pregnant at the time.
So, from my standpoint, we have a problem here. We have the
supersizing of America's livestock farms.
We have a good law that says for the normal application of
manure, you are fine. You just do that. But when it gets to be
25,000 animals, 1,000,000 animals, it causes a different
situation, and people are dying.
This isn't some romantic notion about let our farmers farm.
This is about big corporate industrial size farms. No one wants
to go after the good actors.
Professor Dicks, my question for you is because I agree
with you very much that we need to treat manure as a valuable
resource. I think methane digesters are one great example of
this type of technology that helps to reduce pollution while
increasing a farm's bottom line.
Do you agree that CAFOs should be making better use of
manure as a resource and should stop treating manure like a
waste and disposing of it by simply dumping it on the ground?
You said it shouldn't be looked at as a waste, and I agree
with you. Don't you think they should stop dumping on the
ground in excess amounts so that it contaminates our lakes, our
rivers, our streams and our groundwater?
Wouldn't that be the solution to all of this, sir?
Mr. Dicks. Well, Senator, I am not going to agree or
disagree with you. What I will say is that----
Senator Boxer. Well, I quoted you. You said it should be
treated as a resource.
Mr. Dicks. I will say that most of these operations are
going to do what is in their best interest, and they are going
to go the universities. They are going to go to the government,
and they are going to look to them for guidelines on what they
should do.
They are going to ask the Natural Resource Conservation
Service what they should be doing with the nutrient. If the
best management plan that they give them is to spread it or to
land applicate it, that is what they are going to do.
Senator Boxer. Yes, and if it winds up looking like this
and getting people sick, that may not be the right thing, and
that is why we need this law, this Federal law to underscore
that we hold people accountable. This Superfund is not a
regulation. It simply gives people the right to know and the
right to take action if a member of their family dies or they
get sick.
For the life of me, I don't get how people who say they are
fans of agriculture could be against that when it could
undermine the faith that this Country has in its food.
The last thing I want to do is put into the record an
editorial from the Idaho Statesman. This is a part of our
Country that couldn't be more conservative. The Barbara Boxers
of the world simply don't seem to get many votes in that part
of the world.
Let me tell you what they said. As the dairy industry
continues to grow, the U.S. Department of Ag estimated the June
dairy cow count at 486,000. The larger operations should be
required to report their environmental impacts.
They quote a woman, Courtney Washburn of the Idaho
Conservation League: Public health doesn't distinguish between
the source of the pollution. Large livestock operations
described by critics, accurately enough, as factory farms--and
this is the paper talking--can release tons of ammonia among
other pollutants.
This very conservative part of the Country, in the Idaho
Statesman's words, says: Critics rightly want ag operations
covered by the comprehensive Environmental Response
Compensation and Liability Act, known as Superfund and the
Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act which
require large industries to report pollution to Federal and
local agencies.
[The referenced material can be found on page 147.]
Senator Boxer. For me, this hearing has been tremendous
because I have heard the opponents of keeping the law the way
it is; I have heard the proponents.
In my view, I have always said, the best road to follow is
protecting public health because when you do that, everybody
wins. Agriculture wins. The people win. We don't have stories
like yours, Mr. Dove, of sadness in families that can no longer
use the resources.
So I thank you very much, and I would add a couple minutes
on, giving Senator Inhofe 9 minutes.
Senator Inhofe. That is fine. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
You know one thing about this Country, there is such a
plethora of publications around that you can always find
extreme examples to use. I have done it myself.
But I look upon these hearings as more hearings, hearing
from you guys. So that is why I am pleased that we are having
this second panel. Again, I thank you for your patients in
coming back.
Mrs. Chinn, Mr. Dove raises questions about property
values, and you heard his testimony. I think Mr. Nemec spent
about 5 minutes talking about how lousy some of the life is in
some of these areas.
I would ask you first, do you live on your farm?
Mrs. Chinn. Yes, sir. All of my family lives on our farm,
and we are proud of that.
Senator Inhofe. I saw in the picture there, you have a boy
and a girl?
Mrs. Chinn. I have a son and a daughter.
Senator Inhofe. A son and a daughter, OK. Well, that is a
boy and a girl, yes.
[Laughter.]
Senator Inhofe. I would like to know. It sounds to me like
that you are a very conscientious person.
Now you are using land application, I would assume, aren't
you?
Mrs. Chinn. Yes, we do, sir.
Senator Inhofe. What about property values? You are in
northeastern Missouri?
Mrs. Chinn. Yes, we are in northeastern Missouri. In the
last 5 years around our farm, there have been six brand new
homes built, and these are people who have lived there all of
their lives. They know we are there. They are not afraid of us.
The farm that adjoins the farm you see in that picture was
up for sale last year. It sold for $300 an acre over the
appraised value, which was 18 percent above appraised value.
The farm that adjoins that one sold this last summer for over
$650 per acre over the appraised value, which was 33 percent
above appraised value. So we are not seeing property values go
down in our area because of our livestock farm.
The house that you see in that picture is where my husband
was raised. This year alone, the property value increased
$25,000 on that house.
Senator Inhofe. That is good.
You just heard Professor Dicks talk about the return on
investment for farmers and how at some point the costs of
complying with regulations will outweigh the income derived
from farming. Farmers, unlike many U.S. workers, have to invest
in their business and spend a great deal of their working lives
in debt, paying for their capital assets.
Without asking you to go into any detail about your
personal finances, can you speak about the return on investment
for farmers and how much of their income is actually invested
in their facility? Do you have anything off the top of your
head?
Mrs. Chinn. We have a very small return on our investment,
and everything that we have goes directly back into our farm.
The only thing we take out is what it costs us to live, to feed
our children and to provide a roof over their heads and clothes
on their backs.
Our entire life is what you see there in that picture, and
our dream is to some day be able to give that to my children.
So we invest everything that we have back into that operation,
but our operating margin is extremely small. It is tight.
Senator Inhofe. Professor Dicks, you have probably heard
this before, but you brought up something when talking about
the cost of regulations. You have heard my story of one of the
reasons I am here today is I spent 30 years out in the real
world, getting beat up.
Some of the over-regulation, I think it is very costly but
makes us non-competitive. I remember one time I was doing a
development in south Texas and I had to go to 26 different
governmental agencies to get a dock permit, and this is the
information age.
Do you have anything you would like to share with us? Let
us start off with the cost of regulations, anything you have
come here with?
Mr. Dicks. No. No, sir, I haven't in specific. I will tell
you that the cost of regulations is a major component of most
agricultural operations, whether it is with respect to time and
filling out forms.
Senator Inhofe. It is, and I think the best evidence of
that is that when I became Chairman of this Committee--before
the Democrats took control in January, I was Chairman of this
Committee for 4 years--most of the ag community would come in
and say what happens in this Committee is more significant than
what happens in the Ag Committee because this is where they
have a lot of these things.
I remember one time they were trying to make propane a
hazardous material. We would have another layer of bureaucrats
crawling all over every farm in my State of Oklahoma. The cost
is just unbelievable. In fact, there was testimony as to what
the cost would be to each family at that time just on that one
bill. It was $700 a year, oddly enough.
Is the group that you have represented, Chris, associated
with ag leadership?
Mrs. Chinn. Yes, we are. We do develop leaders in
agriculture.
Senator Inhofe. OK. I remember in this very room, a bunch
of people coming in, wearing red coats--I didn't know who they
were--just about the time that we killed the bill in the
Committee that would have had that application to propane, and
they stood up and they cheered.
Afterwards, they said, this is the first time we realized
what you are up against here in Washington.
Well, let me get to another thing. Professor Dicks, I am
very, very proud of OSU and all the research they have done,
what they are doing with sorghum and biomass, and you guys are
just light years ahead of many other research operations.
If you look past the manure as a waste product and you were
to eliminate as a land application, what would be the initial
consequences?
Mr. Dicks. Well, I think it would be devastating. There
simply isn't an option right now that is economical other than
land application.
You understand the problem is that we have developed all
these systems with that end in mind. So all the systems, all
the facilities have been designed and developed so that we can
eliminate that waste through land application. In order to move
to the next stage, we have to totally redesign those systems
and how we collect the manure.
Senator Inhofe. When you look at something like this, the
pink water up here, why is it that I don't see that in
Oklahoma?
Mr. Dicks. It has to do with how they manage that lagoon,
and it has probably not been managed well.
Senator Inhofe. Yes, and that can happen. It can happen in
Oklahoma. It could happen anywhere else. Maybe we are blessed
with people who are more concerned about their property and the
environment than maybe some of the others are.
Have you seen anything that extreme, Mrs. Chinn?
Mrs. Chinn. No, I have not. In Missouri, we have strict
rules and regulations that we must follow. Often, our State
rules are more restrictive than the Federal regulations upon
us.
Senator Inhofe. So you can continue to use a land
application of manure.
Mrs. Chinn. Yes, we do.
Senator Inhofe. And still have that level of pristine
results that you are getting.
Mrs. Chinn. Yes, we do. We follow all of our DNR rules and
regulations and our guidelines. We use best management
practices, and we don't have a problem like that.
Senator Inhofe. You use land application yourself and you
probably, with your operation, sell it to others too, is that
correct?
Mrs. Chinn. Actually, we are not fortunate enough to sell
it. We give it away to be a good neighbor because it is
important to us to reinvest in our community. If our row crop
farmers can't afford to produce corn, we can't afford to feed
our hogs. So we work in close partnership with all of our local
farmers, and we give that nutrient away to be a good neighbor
because we are in this together as a team.
The cost for labor in our area is high. We have 40
employees, and the average salary for our employees is $36,000
a year. The median salary in my county for a male is $25,900.
We have long term employee retention. We do not use
immigrant labor. It is all local community.
Senator Inhofe. What would you use to substitute the land
application of manure if that were taken away?
Mrs. Chinn. What would we use if we couldn't use manure?
Senator Inhofe. Yes.
Mrs. Chinn. Well, our grain farmers would be forced to buy
commercial fertilizers, and I have no idea what would happen to
my family farm if we couldn't do that anymore, what we would do
with our nutrients. Probably, we couldn't afford. I know we
couldn't afford to relocate to a foreign country, so we would
more than likely go out of business.
Senator Inhofe. Of course, about 90 percent of the cost of
fertilizer is natural gas. We see what is happening there.
Mrs. Chinn. Correct.
Senator Inhofe. Therefore, it gets passed on ultimately, I
suppose, to the customer.
Mrs. Chinn. Right, but we can't pass it on to our customer.
Senator Inhofe. I appreciate very much your coming all the
way from OSU. That is where I enjoyed an evening 6 days ago.
Dr. Dicks, is there anything else that you can think of
that you feel you would like to share in this hearing, perhaps
that was in your written statement that you didn't get a chance
to talk about?
Mr. Dicks. I think two things I want to touch on briefly.
One is this idea of the structure of agriculture that Senator
Boxer has brought up. If we have a problem with the size and
concentration of the industry, we should attack that head-on.
To have a regulation about waste or to have payment
limitations or any other means to try to deal with the
structure of the agriculture problem, that is going to produce
lots of downstream impacts that probably are unintended. If we
have a problem with the structure of agriculture, we need to
approach that problem directly and not through some sidebar.
My problem with having animal manure classified as a
hazardous material is exactly what Senator Bond said. Once you
do that, it puts stops on every other type of utilization of
that product. I am all about trying to figure out how to
utilize that, how to collect it, how to utilize it, how to make
valuable products out of it.
You make that a hazardous waste; you have a real problem
with doing that.
Senator Inhofe. That is a very good statement.
I appreciate the time of all of you.
Mr. Dove, I thank you for your service in the United State
Marines. I hope you are watching the successes we have had in
Fallujah where the Marines went door to door, World War II
style, and it is now totally under the ISR security right now.
Your Marines are still performing. Thank you very much.
Senator Boxer. Senator Inhofe, I am going to make some
closing statements. I am going to take about 5 minutes. Would
you like to make some additional closing statements?
Senator Inhofe. No, I don't think so. I do have a
commitment, that I have got to make a live address in 7
minutes.
Yes, I do have one last request here.
Senator Boxer. Go ahead, please.
Senator Inhofe. For the record, we have four things to ask
to be included in the record. One is a brief filed by the State
of Texas in the city of Waco lawsuit; second, a letter sent to
the Committee last year by a farmer sued by the city of Waco;
third, an executive summary of a study done by Lake Waco; and,
last, descriptions of agriculture programs in New York and
California.
I ask unanimous consent they be made a part of the record
of this Committee hearing.
Senator Boxer. They will be made part of the record,
Senator.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you.
[The referenced material can be found on pages 153, 183,
240, and 214.]
Senator Boxer. All right, so we are going to bring this to
a close, and I have a final statement.
I think that, Mrs. Chinn, of all of our witnesses, you
proved my point which is that the good actors aren't troubled
by our laws and shouldn't be. They go right ahead, doing the
right thing, and everyone is happy around them.
But the bad actors are troubled. They are troubled. Now
they can hide behind the good actors all they want, but we are
going to tell the truth about the situation. The truth will be
told, and it will be told here as I make sure that this record
is complete. It will be told to the members of the Ag
Committee, who may want to take some of our jurisdiction and
weaken our laws.
It will be told on the U.S. Senate floor, and if I have to
stand there through the night, telling the stories about this,
I will. So those people who want to weaken these laws, I hate
to say it, but I am ready. I am ready to take this on, and I
will have a lot of friends with me.
Some of those friends are the U.S. Conference of Mayors who
say don't weaken our laws, the National Association of Counties
who say don't weaken our laws, the National Association of City
and County Health Officials who say don't weaken our laws, the
American Public Health Association, the National League of
Cities, the American Waterworks Association, the Iowa
Department of Natural Resources, the city of Waco, the city of
Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Institute for Ag and Trade Policy, the
National Environmental Trust, the Sustainable Ag Coalition,
Food and Water Watch, attorneys general from eight States, the
National Association of Clean Air Agencies, the American
Metropolitan Water Agencies, the Natural Resources Defense
Council, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists,
Environmental Integrity Project, Earth Justice, the Humane
Society of the U.S., U.S. PIRG Environmental Working Group,
Western Organization of Resource Councils, Waterkeeper Alliance
who I think we heard a good voice from them, the Walton League
of America.
Here is the point. There are lots more, but this is just
what I have been able to pt together for today. This is going
to be a fight.
The hearing that I heard, the witnesses I heard from today,
all helped me and gave me information, starting with Mrs.
Chinn, the first panel and going through. All of you, wonderful
witnesses, really helped me today, and for that I am grateful.
This morning, I didn't have time to share with you an
article that appeared in the Kansas City Star. So I am going to
go and read some of that to you and for the record. This is not
10 years ago or 5 years ago or 1 year ago. This is August 3d,
2007, this article.
One winter day this year, Sandra Heasley was taking a
shower and suddenly the water turned to dark brown and a
revolting smell filled the bathroom.
I want everyone to think of this as a family. It turns out
her home in West Plains in southern Missouri is across the road
from a large indoor dairy farm where manure was piled several
feet deep outside.
The experience was a nightmare for Heasley who said she
took to her bed for a week.
Can you imagine getting in a shower and having cow manure
come through the shower head, the 62-year-old woman asked.
This week, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon filed a
lawsuit against the owners of the dairy, alleging violations of
the State's Clean Water Law. The lawsuit comes after years of
complaints from neighbors.
Manure was being stacked several feet deep in pastures and
dumped along Route K in a creek bed, according to the Missouri
Department of Natural Resources.
The farm used what is known as a traveling gun. This is
what you described to us, Mr. Dove.
This is all new to me. I am a city kid. I represent an ag
State, but I admit I grew up in the city.
They used a traveling gun to shoot the manure up into the
trees, the report says.
The flies are so terrible here. They line up on a wire in
the barn just solid, said Larry Swendener, a neighbor who says
his well is contaminated.
It is atrocious. These are good families too.
Neighbors soon complained to the Natural Resources
Department about the pungent odor of cow excrement and swarms
of flies. At least two neighbors told the State their wells
were contaminated.
Several neighbors said they didn't want to see the farm go
out of business, but they wonder why it has taken so long to
protect their health and their property values.
The Howard County Health Department says there is no doubt
the Heasley well is contaminated with E. coli.
Safe from the farm to the fork? E. coli and coliform,
bacteria that comes from fecal matter.
Justin Frazier, the Health Department's Environmental
Supervisor, tested Heasley's water in early February.
This story goes on and on. If anyone is interested, they
can finish reading it.
Then you have the Salt Lake Tribune, another area that is
not known for its Democrats. I don't think we have seen a
Democrat from that State in the Senate in a long time. This is
what they say.
Manure Factories Don't Rate Protection, Politics Stink,
Salt Lake Tribune: When is the fecal matter produced by
thousands of cows, pigs or chickens not an environmental
hazard? When Congress says it isn't, which is exactly what will
happen if the bill with the sickeningly sweet title of the Ag
Protection and Prosperity Act becomes law.
Always watch out when you see those titles.
While things like stopping nuclear waste in Utah draw the
press, environmentally destructive nonsense like this Cow Poop
Is Good For You Law move quietly forward.
The 1980 law known as Superfund scares the owners of giant
animal feeding operations because it allows government to go
after polluters after the fact and hold them responsible for
the stinking mess they or their corporate ancestors make.
Saying that manure isn't a pollutant is part of the usual
agribusiness scam, pretending that they are engaged in benign
animal husbandry and shouldn't be micromanaged by government.
But the stuff isn't supposed to flow out of huge protein
factors, but sometimes it does.
It is not fertilizer for the garden. It is an industrial
scale pollutant reeking with ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorus,
carrying antibiotics and synthetic hormones, fouling water
supplies and creating giant dead zones in coastal waters.
The environmental credentials of anyone who would exempt
this from environmental regulations are hardly credible.
So I am going to put that in the record, the Idaho
Statesman article in the record and there is the Plain Dealer
called Looking Out for the Farmer Who Lieth and the Register-
Guard, Unlovely Lagoons. I am putting that all in the record
for you to read.
[The referenced material can be found on pages 146 and
148:]
Senator Boxer. I think that the die is cast here. We have a
law that is working. It could work better. We certainly don't
want to weaken it.
We need to protect the public health and safety. If there
is one thing I care about, it is that. You know who is the most
impacted when we do the wrong thing, our children, because of
who they are, because their bodies are changing and they are
very sensitive. That is where they are like the canary in the
coal mine, and that is why you see asthma in our kids. It is
clear: they are impacted first.
What kind of people are we to turn away from what has to be
done which is making sure that our farms thrive but they do it
in an environmentally responsible way?
Look, I come from a State that is on the cutting edge of
environmental protection. Guess what? We are the most
prosperous State. Guess what? We have grown the most.
Guess what? We have a great ag industry, more specialty
crops than anybody, 200, 300 hundred different crops in our
State. We do fine. We have tough laws. We have tough rules. Our
attorney general says keep the Federal law. It is important.
So I would just urge all of you who have come out today,
who have said weaken these laws, to rethink what you are doing.
Ask yourself, deep in your heart, if you are doing it for the
right reason or you are doing it for the wrong reason.
The wrong reason is to exempt a whole industry for a reason
that makes no sense by redefining what a dangerous waste is.
That is not the way to go.
I had a hearing on infrastructure in my State. Actually,
there was an expert there who said: I have a way out of the
problem. Let us just change the language. Let us just say these
bridges we said are structurally deficient. Just change the
language and don't call them that anymore, and the problem will
go ahead.
I don't think so. I don't think if you call that bridge in
Minnesota something else, it wouldn't have collapsed.
Well, I don't think you stop people from getting sick, some
even dying and taking a shower in brown water and that is going
to go away if we suddenly redefine ourselves out of this
problem by saying, oh, well, yes this is a waste over here, but
it is not really a waste over there. This is dangerous when it
is over here, but it is not dangerous over there. We need to be
just frank and honest with each other here.
This is going to be a battle. I wanted to have this hearing
today to draw the lines of that battle. I hope maybe they will
go away, and they won't try to weaken these laws.
But I ask each and every one of you to think to yourself:
What would you do if you were in my shoes and your first
priority was to protect the health and safety of the people?
What would you do?
Think about that and know that all four of you have added
immeasurably to this debate, and I thank you all from the
bottom of my heart, and we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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