EPA Widens Rules for U.S. Farms

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued what it described as important new rules preventing manure from livestock operations from polluting waterways. But a top California regulator dismissed the federal effort as a weak attempt to address the growing problem of farm animal waste.

Under the new EPA plan -- which is less stringent than one proposed earlier by the Clinton administration -- the number of U.S. farms that will be required to get special permits for disposing of waste from cows, pigs and chickens will triple. But most states, including California, are likely to find themselves struggling with the red tape generated by the rules.

In California, the rules will be overseen by a network of regional water quality control boards, which are understaffed as is.

For example, in the Central Valley, where 1,700 of the state’s 2,200 dairy farms are located, there are only a few inspectors checking farms, in part because of state budget cuts. Under Monday’s rules, these inspectors now will have to prepare permits and review paperwork for an additional 1,000 dairies.

John Menke, an environmental specialist with the state Water Resources Control Board, said the new rules may hurt efforts to crack down on polluters in California’s $4.6-billion dairy industry, the biggest agricultural business in the state. California waste regulations already prohibit discharge from large animal operations.

“All this means is that instead of staff out looking for violators they will be in the office drafting permits,” he said. “It doesn’t help us.... We don’t need permits to take enforcement action.”

Agriculture has become the biggest polluter of U.S. waterways, and these new rules, when in full force, are expected to reduce by 25% the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus -- two of the major pollutants released by the 15,500 largest livestock operations, EPA officials said.

Too much of these elements can cause excessive plant growth that kills fish and ruins waterways for swimmers.

“Animal waste generated by concentrated feeding operations poses a real threat to the health of American waters,” said EPA Administrator Christie Whitman.

“We took a major step toward making America’s waters cleaner and purer by placing new controls on manure and animal waste water generated by large livestock operations.”

The EPA announcement was the latest of several environmental actions by the Bush administration in recent weeks that were welcomed by industry and disparaged by environmentalists.

The agency was forced to produce the initiative in response to a lawsuit by consumer watchdog group Public Citizen and the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental organization that was alarmed by the government’s failure to crack down on the escalating pollutants flowing from massive factory-type livestock operations.

Although tougher than current law, the new rules are significantly scaled back from a Clinton administration proposal to tackle the same problem. The Clinton rules would have forced big corporate food producers to share responsibility for the cleanup with the farmers who supply them.

“States can go further if they choose,” Whitman said. “But our objective is not to put the family farmer out of business.”

In California last year, a state Assembly bill sought to raise fees to pay for more staff for state water agencies. But opposition from dairy and other farm interests helped defeat the measure.

With many dairies in California expanding the number of cows they milk, water quality officials worry that “lagoons” created to collect farm waste will overflow and dairies won’t have enough crop land to spread their manure, which could lead to ground-water contamination.

Dairy industry officials had hoped to convince the EPA that they could regulate themselves using a self-certification process. But the EPA decided to require the largest U.S. farms to get disposal permits.

EPA officials and state regulators acknowledge that catching violators still will be difficult because they would have to be caught in the act of pumping manure into public waterways or ignoring overflowing “lagoons” on their farms.

On Monday, most California farm groups said they still were analyzing the 400 pages of rules to see how difficult it would be to comply. But Paul Martin, of Western United Dairymen, said he was confident most dairy operations were behaving responsibly and complying with the even more rigorous state laws.

“I really believe our modern dairy operations will have no problem complying with this law,” Martin said. “Most dairies will have to get a permit.” But, he said, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board was going to impose permitting for all dairy operations anyway. “No dairy is going to be exempt from environmental stewardship.”

Funds from the federal farm bill will be available to help producers pay for the cost of meeting the new regulations. Congress increased funding to help farmers reduce pollution from their operations.

“There is going to be a lot more investment on dairy farms in terms of time and monitoring and paperwork,” said Nathan DeBoom, chief of staff for the Milk Producers Council in San Bernardino County.

Environmentalists bridled at the notion of taxpayers covering the costs.

“Why should taxpayers have to pay for the mess” the producers make, said Ken Midkiff, director of the Sierra Club’s Factory Farm Campaign.

The administration estimated that the initiative would cost $335 million a year. It did not estimate how much would be covered by federal funds.

Environmentalists also complained that the administration did nothing to regulate air pollutants from livestock operations. A report by the National Academy of Sciences released last week pointed to agribusiness as a significant contributor to air pollution.

EPA spokesman Joseph Martyak said the administration would study the academy’s report and consider whether air emissions from concentrated feeding lots need to be regulated.