Environmental Hogwash

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http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1124/

 

News > October 6, 2004

 

 

Environmental Hogwash

The EPA works with factory farms to delay regulation of `Extremely

Hazardous Substances.'

 

By Christopher D. Cook

 

Chicken has taken on a whole new meaning for Faye Lear, of White

Plains, in western Kentucky, who lives 300 feet from two giant barns

containing thousands of birds laying eggs for Tyson Foods.

 

There are the sickening wafts of ammonia and bird feather dust that

chase her inside from her front porch. Clouds of well-fed flies swarm

her car windows. Once a year, when the barns are emptied for cleaning,

mass infestations of mice overrun the neighborhood.

 

" It's like an open sewer for a big city, " says Lear, who works as a

nurse. " It's nauseating, it burns your eyes. I wouldn't call them a

farm—they're like an industry. "

 

Across the country, thousands of these " factory farms " —each

warehousing thousands of tightly confined hogs, chickens or

cows—produce potentially toxic air emissions. These fumes are the

byproduct of 1.3 billion tons of waste created annually by the

sprawling compounds, which are the top polluters of America's

waterways according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

 

Despite this torrent of manure, and a growing number of lawsuits by

sickened neighbors, " there are essentially no pollution controls on

these operations whatsoever, " says Sierra Club attorney Barclay

Rogers. " The environment is being wrecked by these operations. "

 

But the EPA isn't ready to stanch this stench anytime soon. According

to documents obtained by the Sierra Club through a Freedom of

Information Act request, the EPA has developed a voluntary air

monitoring program in close collaboration with animal-industry groups

such as the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and the US Poultry

and Egg Association. (The cattle industry chose not to participate.)

 

The plan, still being hashed out internally at the agency " resolves

[participating companies'] civil liability for potential violations "

of federal clean air laws. In effect, this would mean a two-year

amnesty from enforcement of the Clean Air Act—as well as immunity from

federal Superfund and environmental right-to-know laws. During this

time, some of the nation's largest pig and chicken facilities would

gather air emissions data. Only later could they be penalized for

exceeding the emmissions limits for ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.

 

Environmentalists are up in arms. " The exchange of data for

prosecutorial immunity is antithetical to the notion of aggressive

environmental enforcement, " says Rogers.

 

" These [poultry] operations are generating extraordinary quantities of

ammonia gas, " says Rogers. Ammonia gas is listed as an " Extremely

Hazardous Substance " in the Superfund law and is a key contributor to

particulate matter pollutants. Indeed, EPA researchers have found that

" animal husbandry operations " are responsible for 73 percent of all

ammonia released into the air nationwide.

 

In 2001, EPA inspectors detected disturbingly high releases of ammonia

from Buckeye Egg Farm in Ohio, then the nation's fourth-largest egg

producer. Some Buckeye facilities were churning out 700-800 tons of

particulate matter per year—far in excess of the federal air-quality

reporting standard of 250 tons. After years of enforcement battles

begun under the Clinton administration, the EPA this past February

secured a Clean Air Act settlement and a $880,598 civil penalty

against the now-defunct Buckeye.

 

A 1999 analysis of air data by the Environmental Defense Fund found

that hog operations spew 167 million pounds of ammonia nitrogen into

the atmosphere each year in North Carolina alone. " Studies in the

North Carolina region where hog facilities are clustered show that the

level of ammonia in rain has doubled in the past decade, " the report

stated.

 

Epidemiological studies, meanwhile, suggest the fumes may cause

increased rates of asthma, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory

disorders. A 1999 report prepared by epidemiologist Steve Wing for the

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services found that

people residing near a large hog facility suffered increased levels of

nausea, diarrhea and respiratory problems.

 

The livestock industry dismisses such information. " There has not been

anything scientifically proven that these hog barns would cause any

ill to human beings, " says Kara Flynn, director of communications for

the NPPC. " I travel routinely to hog farms and I've never smelled

anything that caused me any grief … it's actually very pleasant,

surprisingly, fairly normal. " Flynn says, " We are paying for that

study to take place so that they [EPA] can … come up with regulations

that impact us. I think that's more than fair. "

 

The EPA—citing a 2002 National Academy of Sciences report calling for

further study—insists that it needs more information before it can

enforce the law. " A lot of people assume we know the quantity and type

of emissions coming from these [animal feeding operations] and we

don't, " says EPA Press Secretary Cynthia Bergman. Rather than going

after companies one by one, says Bergman, " a better way is to figure

out what their emissions are industrywide. "

 

But critics say the Bush administration's EPA has dragged its feet and

stifled the momentum of factory-farm enforcement begun under President

Clinton. Michele Merkel, a former EPA staff attorney now working with

the Washington DC-based Environmental Integrity Project, says the

agency " hasn't initiated one investigation in four years. They're not

doing anything. "

 

Most distressing, says Merkel, is that the EPA has spent years

negotiating a voluntary " safe harbor " approach when the agency has

long had the " authority to gather the kind of data it needs to

determine emissions levels at these industrial farming operations. It

doesn't need industry's permission. It doesn't need to sign up to this

voluntary agreement. They're privatizing a rulemaking process. "

 

Environmentalists call the EPA plan a " sweetheart " deal between the

Bush administration and the livestock sector, which contributed $3.46

million to candidates for federal office in 2004, 79 percent of it to

Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

 

Indeed, on September 16 the NPPC presented its " Friend of the Pork

Producer " award to President Bush, citing his " tireless efforts to use

reason and science in shaping environmental policies impacting

agriculture. "

 

Now Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is preparing legislation to exempt

industrial farms from federal Superfund and right-to-know laws

altogether, potentially rendering the EPA plan moot. A coalition of 33

family farm and environmental groups is lobbying hard to block the rider.