Suit Filed Over Factory Farm Rules
Environmentalists fear manure will contaminate water

The Associated Press, Norfolk Daily News - March 11, 2003

Worried that new federal rules for factory farms aren't strong enough to stop manure from fouling the nation's waters, three environmental groups announced Monday that they are suing the Bush administration.

The Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance filed the lawsuit last week in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. It challenges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review its regulations for confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

The groups are concerned that the new rules weaken protections in the Clean Water Act and endanger the public health.

"The Bush administration's rule doesn't make polluting factory farms clean up the waste that their animals produce," said Barclay Rogers, a Sierra Club attorney in San Francisco. "That contradicts our belief in cleaning up the messes that you make and violates the protections that are responsible for keeping our rivers and lakes clean."

The EPA rules require large confinements - defined as having at least 1,000 beef cattle and 2,500 swine - to obtain water-pollution permits every five years.

Any farm required to have a permit also must have a plan spelling out how the farm will manage manure. Farmers are required to file annual reports summarizing their operations. The agency plans to phase in the rules, approved in February, between now and 2006.

Regulators say factory-scale farms can pollute rivers and lakes with nutrient-rich manure when it is spread on crop land for fertilizer or not properly managed near barns or animal housing.

Under the EPA rules, confined animal operations are divided into two categories - large and medium.

All large farms must obtain a permit and some medium ones - with 300 beef cattle and 3,000 swine undeer 55 pounds - may be required to get one. Different head-count thresholds are set for livestock operations including sheep, chicken and turkeys.

Forty-five states will manage the program themselves while activities in the other five states - Alaska, Idaho, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Mexico and the District of Columbia - will be managed by the EPA. The rules are not as strict as those initially proposed by the Clinton administration.

"Instead of raising the bar. . .the Bush administration lowered the bar and lowered the floor. That will lead to less stringent regulation across the country," Rogers said.

The new rules contain privacy provisions that will make it difficult for the public to independently review how farms manage animal waste, said Erin Jordahl with the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club.

"It's another dangerous example of cutting the public out," she said. "There's concerns for someone living near a CAFO. I would want to know my ground water was safe for my kids to drink."

Jordahl said the lawsuit was filed in San Francisco because the courts there may be more favorable to environmental causes than those in the Midwest, as shown by recent cases. "San Francisco's 9th Circuit is likely to be more responsive to this type of appeal," she said.