Martha Noble

1

CLEAN WATER NETWORK  "America's Water Crisis"
Factory Farms It's What's NOT For Dinner! The
hidden costs of getting food on your table
CAPITOL HILL BRIEFING  RECEPTION June 2, 2009

• Martha Noble
• Senior Policy Associate

2
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

• Founded 1988
• National coalition of over 40 grassroots family
  farm, conservation, rural development member
  groups
• Farm Bill Wins
• Sustainable Agriculture Research Education
  Program (SARE)
• Conservation Stewardship Program
• Value-Added Producers Grant Program
• Farmers Market Promotion
• Organic Cert. Cost Share,
• Wetlands Reserve Program
• Beginning Farmer Rancher Development Program
• and more
• www.sustainableagriculture.net
• Photo Credits Practical Farmers of Iowa (top)

3
Todays Briefing on CAFOs(Concentrated Animal
Feeding Operations)

• Recent developments
• Public health issues
• Federal regulation
• Litigation
• with focus on water
• pollution issues

4
EPA Regulatory Definition AFO

• EPA Animal Feeding Operation (AFO)
• Animal Feeding Operation (AFO) - A lot or
  facility (other than an aquatic animal production
  facility) where both of the following conditions
  are met
• 1) Animals have been, are, or will be stabled or
  confined and fed or maintained for a total of 45
  days or more in any 12 month period,
• and
• 2) Crops, vegetation, forage growth, or
  post-harvest residues are not sustained in the
  normal growing season over any portion of the lot
  or facility. 40 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR)
  Part 122.23(b)(1)

5
EPA Regulatory Thresholds Large CAFOs

• Animal Type Threshold
• Mature Dairy Cows 700
• Veal Calves 1,000
• Beef Cattle or Heifers 1,000
• Swine 2,500 (55 lbs or more)
• 10,000 (under 55 lbs)
• Horses 500
• Sheep or Lambs 10,000
• Turkeys 55,000
• Chickens, liquid manure 30,000
• Chickens, other than liquid manure 125,000 (not
  laying hens)
• 82, 000 (laying hens)
• Ducks 5,000 (liquid manure)
• 30,000 (other than liquid manure)

6
Comparison CAFO Wastestream with Human Equivalent

• Dairy Cows (20-40x human)
• 700 dairy cows 14,000 to 28,000 human
• Three Mile Canyon Dairy Complex (OR)
• 45,000 dairy cows 900,000 to 1.8 million people
• typical Midwest CAFO about 2,000 dairy cows
• 40,000 80,000 humans
• Hog Operations (3x Human)
• 2,500 hogs 7,500 human
• Duplin County NC 2.2 million hogs (of the 10
  million in NC) impacting 50,000 residents do
  the math! As well as 10 million turkeys and 32
  million chickens.

7
Bush Administration Free Passes for CAFO
Pollution

• Bush Administration 2008 midnight regulations
• Revised Clean Water Act CAFO Regulation (Fed.
  Reg. Nov. 20, 2008).
• Exemptions for CAFOs from the hazardous air
  emission reporting requirements under the
  Superfund Act and the Emergency Planning
  Community Right to Know Act (Fed. Reg. Dec. 18,
  2008).
• Voluntary Air Compliance Agreements between EPA
  and CAFOs continues under which EPA will not
  bring actions against CAFOs for air emissions in
  violation of the Clean Air Act, CERCLA or EPCRA
  (Consent Agreement 2005).

8
2008 Revised Clean Water Act CAFO
RegulationSelf-Certification

• Allows a CAFO operator or owner to avoid
  obtaining a NPDES permit with a
  self-certification that the CAFO is a
  no-discharge operation. Self-certification
  also requires that regulatory agency bears burden
  of prove that CAFO did not meet requirements for
  no discharge.
• Self-certification process does not require site
  visits by a regulatory agency or notification to
  the public.
• A CAFO which has a discharge may re-certify that
  it has solved the problem and avoid a NPDES
  permit.
• A CAFO which has had discharge from one source at
  the CAFO may discharge from another source and
  recertify that it as solved the 2d problem, or a
  3d problem or 4th problem . . . .

9
2008 Revised Clean Water Act CAFO Regulation
Inadequate Pathogen Measures

• EPA did not identify any economically achievable,
  technologically available, and cost reasonable
  technologies on which to establish national
  effluent limitations for fecal coliform.
• EPA affirmed the Best Conventional Technology
  limitations are the same as the 2003 rule BPT and
  Best Achievable Technology AT limitations
• No discharge from production area.
• Limited exemption for precipitation-based
  overflows under specified conditions.
• Land application rates that minimize transport of
  nutrients required setback or vegetated buffer.

10
Comments of Michigan Department of Environmental
Quality on Revised CAFO Clean Water Act
Regulation

• We strongly recommend that the USEPA withdraw
  the proposal for the voluntary option for CAFOs
  to certify that the CAFO does not discharge or
  propose to discharge. We believe that this
  option as proposed is seriously flawed. This
  provision appears to have been advanced by the
  lobbyists for the factory farms as a self-serving
  means of exempting factory farms from regulation,
  contrary to any other sector regulated under the
  Clean Water Act. Instead, we recommend that the
  USEPA refocus its efforts on clearly identifying
  the attributes that will constitute a discharge
  or proposal of discharge . . . .
• . . . we find no authority in the Clean Water
  Act that allows the USEPA to establish a
  self-certification process in lieu of a permit
  for dischargers, let alone to arbitrarily
  establish such a process for a select group of
  dischargers contrary to how all other discharges
  are regulated. This proposal, if enacted, would
  undoubtedly result in additional litigation and
  the resulting confusion that it would bring.
  This provision also attempts to negate the
  citizen rights to sue provisions of the Clean
  Water Act by eliminating a statutory provision by
  administrative regulations.

11
Industry Challenges to 2008 Clean Water Act CAFO
Rule

• The National Chicken Council and the US Poultry
  and Egg Association are challenging aspects of
  the 2008 revised regulation in the US Court of
  Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
• Lawsuit challenges EPA guidance letter documents
  that interpret the CAFO regulation. According to
  the two organizations, the letters essentially
  say a grower has a 'proposal to discharge' and
  therefore must apply for a NPDES permit, if
  poultry housing has a ventilation fan that may
  potentially exhaust dust or other substances on
  the ground where rain water might wash them into
  a ditch leading to surface waters.

12
Exemption from CERCLA EPCRA Reporting
Requirements

• Partial exemption for CAFOs from reporting
  hazardous air emissions under the Comprehensive
  Environmental Response, Compensation and
  Liability Act (CERCLA) and Emergency Planning
  Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) hazardous
  substance from animal waste at farms including
  ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.
• CERCLA exemption applies to all CAFOs based on
  EPA officials determination that the agency is
  unlikely to respond to a report of hazardous air
  emissions from a CAFO.
• EPCRA exemption applies to CAFOs with less than
  1000 animal units (the Clean Water Act NPDES
  permit threshold large CAFOs.)
• General Accountability Office Report GAO,
  Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations EPA Needs
  More Information and a Clearly Defined Strategy
  to Protect Air and Water Quality from Pollutants
  of Concern, GAO-08-944 (Washington, D.C. Sept.
  4, 2008) and congressional testimony.

13
2008 Farm Bill Subsidies

• No comprehensive reform of farm bill commodity
  payments to producers of corn, soybeans, rice,
  cotton, and other row crops.
• Why a CAFO issue?? Between 2000 and 2004, farm
  bill subsidies for corn and soybean provided the
  industrial animal factory sector with over 18
  billion of indirect public subsidies for their
  feed costs. See Dennis Olsen, Below Cost Feed
  Crops An Indirect Subsidy for Industrial Animal
  Factories Institute for Agriculture and Trade
  Policy June 2006)(on the web at
  http//www.agobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid881
  22).
• Environmental Quality Incentives Program and
  other measures in the federal Farm Bill also
  provide subsidies for capital infrastructure and
  other CAFO costs. Union of Concerned Scientists,
  CAFOs Uncovered The Untold Costs of Confined
  Animal Feeding Operations (2008)(on the web at
  http//www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/sustain
  able_food/cafos-uncovered.html).

14
Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA), S.787

• Why a CAFO Issue?
• Recent U.S. Supreme Court cases and Bush
  administration regulations have narrowed the
  scope of Clean Water Act jurisdiction, leaving
  many important waters unprotected.
• Even when EPA ultimately issues effective CAFO
  Clean Water Act regulations, CAFO pollution of
  waters not within the scope of the Clean Water
  Act will not be protected.
• The Clean Water Network members urge members of
  Congress to support the CWARA and restore Clean
  Water Act protection to the waters of the United
  States. See www.cleanwaternetwork.org Scope of
  the Clean Water Act.

15
Need for Continuing Congressional Oversight of
CAFO Animal Production

• The Clean Water Network appreciates previous
  congressional hearings on CAFOs impacts on the
  nations water and its rural communities. We urge
  Congress to continue its oversight of EPA to
• Ensure that CAFO regulations meet the
  requirements of the Clean Water Act.
• Ensure that CAFOs fully comply with the Clean Air
  Act, CERCLA and EPCRA.
• Ensure that antibiotics needed for protection of
  human health are not used non-therapeutically in
  animal agriculture support the Preservation of
  Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (HR1549 and
  S619).

16
Stay Informed!

• www.sustainableagriculture.net
• Farm Bill Implementation Center
• Weekly Updates Timely Action Alerts
• Background information
• Contact Aimee Witteman // awitteman_at_sustainableag
  riculture.net