NYTimes.com Article: An Ill Wind From Factory Farms

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An Ill Wind From Factory Farms

 

September 20, 2003

By ROBERT F. KENNEDY Jr. and ERIC SCHAEFFER

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congress will hold hearings soon on the nomination of Gov.

Michael Leavitt of Utah to lead the Environmental

Protection Agency. He's bound to be asked about his efforts

to eliminate protections for wilderness areas in his state

and his close ties to the mining and timber industries. But

he should also be asked about another issue that has

received far less attention: the threat to the environment

posed by the huge factory farms that dominate meat

production in the United States today.

 

These farms emit an enormous amount of pollutants that

taint air, land and water. Their noxious gases, studies

suggest, contribute to respiratory problems,

gastrointestinal diseases, eye infections, depression and

other ailments. Department of Agriculture research has

shown that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are carried daily

across property lines from corporate hog farms into homes

and small farms. The thousands of animals crowded together

on each giant feedlot produce waste that pollutes waterways

and contaminates drinking water.

 

For decades, the agribusiness lobby in Washington has

invoked the small family farmer in its campaign to expand

subsidies and fend off regulation, but it's mainly big

producers that benefit. In 1998, the top four producers

marketed 57 percent of all hogs in the country, and large

corporations have cornered the market for chickens, cattle

and dairy products as well. Much of this production is

handled through contract farms whose corporate owners

dictate how animals will be raised, housed and fed while

disclaiming any environmental responsibility - and living

far away from the consequences.

 

These operations pollute the air with the gases released

from huge barns and waste lagoons and by processes that

" air out " manure before it is applied to fields. Under the

Clinton administration, the E.P.A. began ordering farms to

measure emissions and apply for Clean Air Act permits just

as factories do. Early results showed that Buckeye Egg

Farm, an egg-laying operation in Ohio, released hundreds of

tons of particulate matter every year.

 

But the Bush administration ordered such enforcement

investigations stopped two years ago. The Department of

Agriculture studies on bacteria were suppressed at

industry's request, prompting the resignation of the

study's author, James Zahn. Earlier proposals to make

corporate owners responsible for wastewater discharges at

contract farms were shelved.

 

Now the E.P.A. is considering a request from the pig and

poultry conglomerates to be shielded from Clean Air Act

enforcement for a few more years while industry begins to

measure its own emissions. The amnesty agreement would not

require a corporate farm to clean up air pollution even if

the agency found that pollution was at dangerously high

levels.

 

And no agreement should be signed that does not require

companies to clean up their operations when their emissions

are too high. A coalition of environmental groups and farm

families have petitioned the E.P.A. to end its moratorium

on enforcement, and exercise its authority to order air

monitoring at some of the most notorious factory farms.

 

We hope the E.P.A. will remember its mission to protect

public health and act on this simple request. Governor

Leavitt should know something about this problem. Nine

workers were hospitalized in 1998 after they were overcome

by fumes working at a giant hog operation in Utah, and a

more recent state study found high levels of respiratory

illness among nearby residents. But Utah has made it much

harder for people to sue such operations and for officials

to regulate them. Perhaps Congress should ask Governor

Leavitt how long the victims of pollution from factory

farming will have to wait before they can breathe clean air

again.

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is president of Waterkeeper Alliance.

Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Protection

Agency's office of regulatory enforcement from 1997 to

2002, is director of the Environmental Integrity Project.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/20/opinion/20KENN.html?ex=1065075507 & ei=1 & en=9955\

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