[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 11 (Thursday, February 12, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E170-E171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




INTRODUCTION OF THE FARM SUSTAINABILITY AND ANIMAL FEEDLOT ENFORCEMENT 
                                  ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 12, 1998

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce legislation 
to address the most important source of water pollution facing our 
country--polluted runoff. A major component of polluted runoff in many 
watersheds is surface and ground water pollution from concentrated 
animal feeding operations (CAFOs), such as large dairies, cattle 
feedlots, and hog and poultry farms. Under current Clean Water Act 
regulations, CAFOs are supposed to have no discharge of pollutants, but 
as a result of regulatory loopholes and lax enforcement at the state 
and federal levels, CAFOs are in reality major polluters in many 
watersheds. My bill, the Farm Sustainability and Animal Feedlot 
Enforcement (Farm SAFE) Act addresses these deficiencies. I hope my 
colleagues will join me in trying to address this significant threat to 
water quality and human health.
  Included for the Record is an article from the San Francisco 
Chronicle describing water quality problems caused by dairies in the 
San Joaquin Valley of California. Contaminants associated with animal 
waste have also been linked to this summer's outbreak of Pfiesteria in 
Maryland and the death of more than 100 people from infection by 
cryptosoridium in Milwaukee. Although considered point sources of 
pollution under the Clean Water Act, little has been done at the 
federal or state levels to control water pollution from CAFOs.
  In recent years, many family farms have been squeezed out by large, 
well capitalized factory farms. Even though there are far fewer 
livestock and poultry farms today than there were twenty years ago, 
animal production and the wastes that accompany it have increased 
dramatically during this period. And although farm animals annually 
produce 130 times more waste than human beings, its disposal goes 
virtually unregulated.
  Farm SAFE will require large livestock operations to do their part to 
reduce water pollution. The bill will lower the size threshold for 
CAFOs, substantially increasing the number of facilities that will have 
to contain animal wastes. It will require all CAFOs to obtain and abide 
by a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. 
The bill improves water quality monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting 
so that the public knows which CAFOs are polluting. Farm SAFE addresses 
loopholes in the current regulatory program by requiring CAFOs to adopt 
procedures to eliminate both surface and ground water pollution 
resulting from the storage and disposal of animal waste. The bill also 
directs EPA, working with USDA, to develop binding limits on the amount 
of animal waste that can be applied to land as fertilizer based on crop 
nutrient requirements.
  This legislation will restore confidence that we can swim and fish in 
our streams and rivers without getting sick. It will do much to address 
our number one remaining water pollution problem--polluted runoff. I 
hope the House will join me in the effort to clean up factory farm 
pollution.

            [From the San Francisco Chronicle, July 7, 1997]

      Page One--In Central Valley, Defiant Dairies Foul the Water

              (By Elliot Diringer, Chronicle Staff Writer)

       Central Valley dairies routinely defy pollution laws--
     fouling rivers and groundwater with waste from their cows--
     and state regulators say there is little they can do about 
     it.
       California is now the nation's leading dairy state, and 
     most of the cows are in the Central Valley, creating as much 
     natural waste as a city of 21 million. Yet the state agency 
     that is supposed to make sure they don't pollute the water 
     has just one man on the job.
       There is no telling how many miles of creek are being 
     ruined, or how much drinking water could be lost to 
     contaminants spreading silently underground. Regulators 
     themselves are the first to admit that the situation is going 
     from bad to worse.
       While dairy herds keep growing, officials at the Central 
     Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board say that most of 
     the valley's 1,600 dairies have never been inspected and that 
     probably fewer than half follow the law.
       ``Individually and cumulatively, (dairies) pose a 
     significant threat to surface and groundwater,'' concluded a 
     1995 report to the board urging a sixfold increase in 
     regulatory staff.
       ``We were barely scratching the surface,'' said Larry 
     Glandon, a dairy inspector who has since retired, leaving 
     just one. ``We knew it. Everybody knew it.''
       The unchecked pollution attests to the considerable muscle 
     of California's leading agribusiness.
       Statewide, a million-plus cows churn out $3 billion worth 
     of milk and cream a year, nearly twice the earnings of the 
     state's No. 2 crop, grapes. In the past six years, dairy 
     groups have contributed more than $700,000 to state election 
     campaigns, most of it to incumbents in the Legislature.
       ``Dairies have been rather untouchable,'' said Glandon, who 
     was with the board for 16 years. ``They have a lot of 
     political significance in Sacramento. It's kind of 
     understood.''
       Some dairies do their best to contain their wastewater--a 
     rich brine of manure, urine and water that is supposed to be 
     stored in a leak-resistant lagoon, then used to irrigate 
     crops.
       The idea is to recycle the wastes right on the farm. As 
     long as there is enough cropland, and not too many cows, 
     potentially harmfull nutrients in the wastewater can be 
     captured by the plants. In the right quantities, the 
     nutrients don't harm the crops, but help them grow.
       But all too often, regulators say, there are too many cows 
     or not enough crops. Then, dairies simply let their wastes 
     overflow--onto neighbors' fields, into roadside ditches, into 
     creeks that feed rivers already degraded by other pollutants.
       Perhaps a greater worry, they say, are findings not yet 
     released suggesting a steady but invisible poisoning of water 
     underground.
       Industry spokesmen deny that violations are widespread.
       ``If they're saying they don't have the staff to go out and 
     monitor, how can they make the statement that half are not in 
     compliance? I question the accuracy of that statement,'' said 
     Gary Conover of Western United Dairymen, the state's biggest 
     dairy lobby.
       ``Over the last 20 years, the industry has come a long way 
     to meeting its obligations under the law,'' Conover said. ``I 
     think all in all, the dairy has done a very good job of 
     controlling their wastes.''
       Yet some dairy owners readily concede that in the grueling 
     seven-day-a-week business of raising and milking cows, what's 
     coming off the back end of the dairy is often little more 
     than an afterthought.
       ``There's no way with the price of milk we get that we can 
     afford to meet these rules,'' said one. ``If they made all 
     dairymen in California do that, I think milk prices would 
     skyrocket.''
       The real problem, insist regulators, is power and money.
       In 1988, when the Legislature set annual waste fees for 
     factories, sewage plants and other dischargers, dairies were 
     granted an

[[Page E171]]

     exemption. Instead, they pay a one-time fee of no more than 
     $2,000. As a result, there is little in the budget for 
     regulating them.
       In the years since, the volume of waste has kept growing as 
     dairies relocate from fast urbanizing Southern California or 
     try to boost profits with bigger herds. Last year, there were 
     891,000 milk cows and heifers in the valley, up 42 percent 
     from a decade before. A cow typically produces as much waste 
     as 24 people.
       Pollution authorities have concerns about other ``confined 
     animal facilities'' raising beef, poultry and swine, but in 
     the Central Valley they are far outnumbered by dairies.
       Bill Crooks, former executive officer of the regional water 
     board, said the agency has appealed regularly to its parent 
     agency, the State Water Resources Control Board, for more 
     money to monitor dairies.
       ``We've continually raised the issue on a number of 
     fronts,'' Crooks said. ``But at the same time, we could see 
     the handwriting on the wall. We could see it wasn't very 
     popular, so we didn't push it very hard.''
       A bill before the Legislature would authorize 18 new 
     enforcement positions statewide, and the three or four going 
     to the Central Valley could be assigned to dairies, said 
     Craig Wilson, assistant chief counsel at the state board. 
     But, he said, there are many other pressing needs.
       ``The dairy industry prevailed upon the Legislature to give 
     them an exemption where they pay this one-shot deal,'' Wilson 
     said. ``I don't think it's equitable. But we're stuck with 
     the hand we're dealt.''
       Day in and day out, the man trying to play that hand is 
     Louis Pratt. All too often, he says, it's a loser.
       Since Glandon's retirement, Pratt has been the one man in 
     the field.
       He is a pollution detective, tracking dairy wastes, in some 
     cases many miles, to their source. Sometimes, particularly 
     when winter rains overfill lagoons, he finds huge quantities 
     have been deliberately released. Usually, it's just a small, 
     steady overflow from a dairy that doesn't seem to care.
       Pratt's is an exasperating routine. The violation notices 
     he writes up are frequently ignored. Even in cases where he 
     manages to win stiff fines, some dairies go on polluting.
       One dairy he has hounded for 10 years was finally hauled 
     into court by the San Joaquin County district attorney's 
     office--the only one in the valley that seems inclined to 
     prosecute dairies. The owners admitted illegal releases, paid 
     nearly $10,000 in penalties and costs, and were ordered by 
     the court to clean up.
       Last winter, their waste ponds were overflowing again. 
     Deputy District Attorney David Irey said that this time he 
     will insist on tougher measures. ``But this case is the tip 
     of the iceberg,'' said Irey. ``We think there could be 
     hundreds of violations each winter.''
       Cruising two-lane roads on the valley's east side one 
     spring day, Pratt pointed to one dairy after another, 
     casually noting violations and reciting his history of run-
     ins.
       At one dairy near Elk Grove, a few dozen Holstein lazed in 
     puddles of watery waste, which seeped from the muddy corral. 
     ``They just arrogantly let it go, flood the neighbors, and 
     tell the neighbors to go to hell,'' said Pratt.
       At the next, the waste lagoon was too small for the number 
     of cows. To keep it from spilling, the dairy had over-applied 
     wastewater to a field, which in turn drained to a roadside 
     ditch. ``Eventually, it ends up in the Cosumnes River,'' he 
     said. ``I've talked to them, and they've done nothing.''
       Farther south, near Escalon, Pratt pulled to the side of 
     the road. With a long-handled scoop, he plucked a sample of a 
     brownish liquid from a shallow canal, part of the vast grid 
     of drainage ditches dug all across the valley floor to carry 
     off used irrigation water.
       Pratt poured the solution into a small meter that measures 
     electrical conductivity, a crude indication of salts and 
     solids. The needle jumped to 520, twice what it should be.
       ``I can come out here just about any day of the year and 
     find dairy wastes going into that drain,'' he said 
     dejectedly. ``All these little creeks and drains would 
     support fish if there was no dairy waste going into them. But 
     there's no fish, because they can't survive.''
       Pratt used to get more help from the state Department of 
     Fish and Game, which has suffered cuts of its own. Dennis 
     DeAnda, a patrol lieutenant in Merced, said that as a field 
     warden, he investigated several big dairy spills that left 
     fish floating dead. But the subtler efforts of smaller, 
     chronic releases, he said, are harder to gauge.
       ``We're dealing with probably several hundred dairies on 
     the San Joaquin River alone,'' DeAnda said. ``Those impacts 
     certainly are going to affect fish farther downstream.''
       In the long run, the bigger worry may be what is happening 
     underground, where no one can see.
       When stored in a leaky lagoon, over-applied to crops or 
     simply piled too deep in a corral, dairy wastes stand a good 
     chance of seeping down into the ground. Eventually, the 
     groundwater below can load up with nitrates, a form of 
     nitrogen that in sufficient quantities can sicken or kill an 
     infant.
       Wells used by public water systems are periodically 
     checked, and from 1984 to 1996, the number in the Central 
     Valley with nitrates above the drinking water standard jumped 
     fourfold. Private wells serving individual homes tend to be 
     shallower--and more vulnerable to contamination--but there is 
     no requirement they be routinely tested.
       There are other obvious sources of nitrates--leaking septic 
     systems and overuse of chemical fertilizers. Without 
     sophisticated testing, it is usually impossible to trace 
     contamination to any single source.
       ``Is it dairy X or is it dairy Y? Or is it the farmer who's 
     using ammonia fertilizer between the two?'' said Cindy 
     Forbes, Central Valley drinking water chief for the state 
     Department of Health Services. ``That's the problem. There's 
     no smoking gun.''
       There is evidence suggesting that collectively, dairies 
     pose a long-term threat to Central Valley groundwater--but 
     the regional board has yet to release it.
       In 1993, the agency dug 44 shallow monitoring wells at five 
     dairies thought to be doing a reasonable job controlling 
     their wastes. Groundwater samples taken over the next two 
     years showed average nitrate levels five times the drinking 
     water limit.
       ``The five dairies . . . share site characteristics and 
     follow management practices common to hundreds of Central 
     Valley dairies,'' notes a draft of the study, still under 
     review three years later.
       The ``standard approach,'' the report says, would be to 
     stop the pollution and order cleanups. ``Despite the fact 
     that significant pollution is apparently occurring, the 
     standard response is not feasible . . . Current staffing 
     levels are not adequate.''
       No one can predict when the contaminants might reach the 
     deeper aquifers that supply much of the valley with its tap 
     water.
       But with farmers perennially crying for more water, and 
     some underground supplies already lost to pesticides, any 
     drinkable reserves are certain to become more precious if the 
     Central Valley keeps growing as projected.
       ``I expect there are plumes of high-salt, high-nitrate 
     water under dozens, if not hundreds, of these sites . . . The 
     nitrate is eventually going to get into the deeper stuff. It 
     is just a matter of time,'' said Rudy Schnagl, who oversaw 
     dairy regulation for 10 years as chief of the regional 
     board's agricultural unit.
       ``What concerns me is there are a lot of rural residences 
     that still have old wells that don't go down so deep.'' 
     Schnagl said, ``I suspect a lot of those people are drinking 
     water exceeding the nitrate standard.''
       Some experts say the Central Valley need only look south, 
     to the Chino basin east of Los Angeles, to see what it 
     ultimately risks. With the highest concentration of dairies 
     in the world, the Chino basin years ago was forced to write 
     off vast quantities of tainted groundwater. But with 
     subdivisions now displacing the dairies, water is in high 
     demand. There is talk of building exorbitant desalination 
     plants so cities can tap the dirty underground cache.
       ``It's so heavily loaded now with nitrates from dairy cows, 
     it's just useless,'' said Bill Fairbank, an agricultural 
     waste engineer who spent 30 years at the University of 
     California. ``The Central Valley's headed in that direction, 
     too, if they don't get their act together.''

     

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