Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022502
472.html

Farms May Be Exempted From Emission Rules
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A03

Under pressure from agriculture industry lobbyists and lawmakers from
agricultural states, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to drop
requirements that factory farms report their emissions of toxic gases,
despite findings by the agency's scientists that the gases pose a health
threat.

The EPA acknowledges that the emissions can pose a threat to people living
and working nearby, but it says local emergency responders don't use the
reports, making them unnecessary. But local air-quality agencies,
environmental groups and lawmakers who oppose the rule change say the
reports are one of the few tools rural communities have for holding large
livestock operations accountable for the pollution they produce.

Opponents of the rule change say agriculture lobbyists orchestrated a
campaign to convince the EPA that the reports are not useful and
misrepresented the effort as reflecting the views of local officials. They
say the plan to drop the reporting requirement is emblematic of a broader
effort by the Bush-era EPA to roll back federal pollution rules.

"One of the running themes we have seen is they have taken numerous
industry-friendly actions that are shot down in the courts, but they buy
time for industry" in appeals and reviews that could extend years into the
next administration, said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a
nonprofit environmental group based in Washington.

The EPA requirement that farms report large emissions of ammonia and
hydrogen sulfide from animal manure has been on the books since the 1980s.
The EPA does not set limits for the releases; it merely requires that farms
disclose emissions over certain levels. Local public health officials say
that if people in an area started getting sick with symptoms pointing to
emissions, knowing who was reporting big releases of the gases would be
most helpful.

The EPA proposed dropping the farm emissions reporting requirement in the
aftermath of lawsuits brought by communities against several big farms
sought damages and stricter controls of emissions.

The livestock industry has lobbied for years for the rule change. The EPA
posted the proposal in the Federal Register while Congress -- which is
deeply divided on the issue -- was on its December holiday recess. The
change would take effect in October.

"Every major air pollution regulation that affects the agriculture industry
has been weakened or delayed by this administration," said S. William
Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air
Agencies, which represents local and state air-quality agencies. "These are
not inconsequential pollutants. In large concentrations, they kill people."

Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Md.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee's subcommittee on environment and hazardous materials, called the
proposal a "gift from the Bush administration to big corporate
animal-feeding operations that denies the public of knowledge that serious
contaminants are in the air."

The rule change would eliminate ammonia emissions reporting for big
animal-feeding operations such as Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman, Ore.,
where waste from tens of thousands of dairy cows releases more than 15,000
pounds of ammonia into the atmosphere each day, according to the EPA.

The agency estimates that livestock operations generate two-thirds of the
ammonia emissions reported in the nation. The National Association of Clean
Air Agencies blames manure-pit emissions containing hydrogen sulfide and
ammonia for the deaths of at least two dozen people working or living near
the operations in the Midwest over the past three decades.

In a February 2004 memo to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson obtained by
congressional investigators, agency scientist Roy L. Smith called the
ammonia reporting requirements "appropriately protective, though not
overprotective," of public health. In tests of the air downwind of factory
farms, he found that ammonia concentrations slightly over the reportable
levels caused respiratory irritation and that the minimum reportable
emissions of hydrogen sulfide "could cause acute respiratory irritation and
effects to the central nervous system."

In a petition hand-delivered to Johnson in 2005, however, the National
Chicken Council, the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association and the National Turkey
Federation called the ammonia reporting rule "inappropriate, unwise public
policy, which does not reflect the nature of poultry management practices,
and does not improve environmental or public health outcomes in any way."
The groups also said the reports put farms at risk for lawsuits.

Lawmakers from farm states have repeatedly tried to attach provisions
exempting farms from emissions reporting. Last March, House Agriculture
Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.) and more than 130 lawmakers
from agricultural states sponsored a bill that would delist manure as an
environmental pollutant under the Superfund law.

The measure came after the cities of Waco, Tex., and Tulsa, Okla., and the
state of Oklahoma filed lawsuits charging factory farms nearby with
polluting water sources.

Lawmakers who oppose the bill, led by Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.),
chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and House
Transportation Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), wrote in a
May letter to colleagues that the bill "would protect bad actors" and
"eliminate all existing authorities from the Superfund statute that have
been used by [cities and states] to protect local watersheds and drinking
water supplies."

Peterson responded that "Congress never intended for Superfund to apply to
farms, but the judicial system has done just that, threatening the
livelihood of farmers and ranchers everywhere."

One point of contention in the dispute involves a conference call with
state and local air pollution control agencies, organized by the EPA in the
fall of 2006, that discussed lifting the reporting requirements. Becker of
the National Association of Clean Air Agencies said that in the call, the
association's members told the EPA that the health risks posed by the
emissions argued against a blanket exemption.

But when Johnson testified before Congress last year on the proposed
exemption, the association said, he did not tell lawmakers of the local
officials' opposition. Asked why by the House Energy and Commerce
Committee, the EPA responded in writing, saying that the agency "did not
interpret the discussion as representing an opposition of state and local
air pollution control agencies to our proposed plan."

The EPA said support for the rule change was expressed in 26 "very similar"
letters it received from local governments whose emergency responders said
they "do not believe such notifications would be of value."

The leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, believing that
the letters were part of an industry-orchestrated campaign, asked the
Congressional Research Service to review them. In a Jan. 28 report, the
service said that most of the letters were identically worded and that they
"represent only a small fraction of the 4,491 [local emergency responders]
that are included in EPA's database."

On Dec. 28, with Congress away for the holidays, the EPA published a notice
in the Federal Register of its plan to proceed with the rule change. The
public comment period ends March 28.