Pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has become an issue of considerable concern to TU members throughout the country.  Of particular concern to many members is the lack of legal controls and public input associated with the construction and management of these facilities.  For example, many TU members in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia have seen a sudden but quiet proliferation of chicken feeding operations in many watersheds, with no notice to or input from the public.

At our regional level, data from the Iowa DNR indicates that in 1998 alone, there were 39 reported fish kills in that state.  Of those 39 reported fish kills, 31 of those were manure related.  In Wisconsin in 1998, reported manure related fish kills have happened in Weedens Creek (Sheboygan County), Fischer Creek (Manitowoc County), and in Parker Creek / Kinnickinnic River (St. Croix County).  In the Parker Creek case, the guidelines and practices that were acceptable in Wisconsin were not broken.  This essentially "legal" application of manure resulted in a fish kill of 10,000 trout. How can a "legal" application in Wisconsin result in such a serious fish and invertebrate kill?

Clearly a more focused and national approach to CAFOs is in order. Region 5 respectfully requests that Trout Unlimited adopt CAFO’s as part of their agenda national agenda.  Specifically the Region would like National to work towards the following changes to the recently adopted Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations.
 

Need For Minimum Mandatory Standards
It is essential that clear guidelines setting out national, uniform minimum standards for CAFO regulation and for all comprehensive nutrient management plans (CNMPs) should be adopted and implemented.  Without such guidelines, the benefits to water quality promised by the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations, will prove illusory.  The following are examples of guidelines that must be mandated nationally for all CNMPs and all permits to ensure that the strategy accomplishes its goal of controlling water pollution from CAFOs.

1. Safety features for large animal waste containment facilities: The strategy should set out CNMP requirements that limit the size of animal waste storage units or provide compartmentalization of cells within large facilities to prevent catastrophic failures. Secondary containment should also be required for large containment facilities.  The strategy should also prohibit the use of anaerobic lagoons and underground earthen storage systems for new and expanding CAFOs, and require existing lagoons and underground storage systems be lined immediately and covered as a permit requirement.

2. Require measures to manage run-off from stockyards and CAFOs: The strategy should require CNMPs to include measures for managing and, if necessary, treating stormwater run-off.

3. Immediate incorporation of fertilizers: The NRCS nutrient management standard should be changed so, and the strategy should require, that nutrients should be incorporated within the same day and before significant precipitation falls.

4. Buffers around sensitive resources: All CNMPs should require that CAFOs and areas where manure is spread include vegetated buffers around all sensitive areas to slow run-off and absorb nutrients. Such areas should include all open waters and all areas of concentrated flow, whether natural or manmade, such as irrigation ditches, draws, intermittent streams, and diversions. In addition, CNMPs should require that animals and waste storage facilities associated with CAFOs be kept a certain distance from rivers and streams, and that livestock be excluded from vegetated buffers.

Relationship of Voluntary and Regulatory Programs.

Region 5 is concerned that the limited scope of the regulatory program and inadequate incentives for the voluntary program will severely limit the effectiveness of the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations.  The strategy itself points out several factors that will make its implementation difficult, including the large number of unregulated CAFOs, the increasing number of very large operations, and resistance within the industry to increased government involvement.  For the strategy to achieve its goals, several aspects of the regulatory program need to be strengthened, and incentives in the voluntary program need to be strengthened.
 

1. Individual site permits are necessary: The strategy currently proposes using general NPDES permits for CAFOs that require such permits.  Individual site permits are necessary to ensure that pollution protection is maximized and to allow for public input. General permits do not allow the permit conditions to be tailored to individual CAFOs, or for the on the ground follow-up necessary to assure that the terms of the permit, including national minimum standards, are being implemented and having their intended effects.  Just as significantly, general permits will not allow for public scrutiny and input of permitting of large individual operations. The public living in a watershed should be given similar notice of an opportunity to comment on large CAFOs that they get when other significant NPDES permits are issued.  The terms of the proposed permit, the proposed CNMP, monitoring results, and other documents required by the NPDES permit program should be publicly filed and available for review by interested members of the public.

2. Moratorium on permits for new CAFOs: EPA and the states are currently facing a backlog in permits for large (greater than one thousand Animal Units) CAFOs.  EPA should put a moratorium on permits for new large CAFOs until that backlog is dealt with.

3. Vertical Integration: In many instances, processing companies own animals raised on farms operated by independent contractors.  These companies typically have much greater financial resources than the farmers who actual raise their animals, and also exercise a great deal of control over operating conditions at the feeding operations.  The strategy does nothing to deal with this aspect of the industry or to attempt to ensure that the processing companies rather than the individual farmers bear the primary cost of controlling pollution from factory farms. The strategy should take two steps.

First, it should require that processing companies that own the animals and exercise control over how they are raised bear the primary financial responsibility for making sure that the farms where they are raised implement the pollution control measures recommended or required by the strategy.

Second, the strategy should implement steps to insure that processors that own large numbers of animals in a given watershed cannot dodge the permitting requirement by spreading those animals out among different independent farmers.  If a processor within in a given watershed contracts with independent facilities that do not individually meet the threshold for an NPDES permit, but would require such a permit if considered in the aggregate, the processor should be required to obtain an NPDES permit and bear full financial responsibility for making sure the facilities where its animals are raised comply with the permit.

4. Permit Requirements in Impaired Watersheds: The strategy encourages states to impose permit requirements for CAFOs that do not meet the regulatory threshold for a mandatory permit in watersheds where those CAFOs are collectively contributing to the impairment of a watershed.  The strategy should attempt to strengthen this require increased permitting in impaired watersheds where CAFOs are contributing the impairment.  EPA should examine how to revise not only its CAFO regulations, but also its TMDL and anti-degradation regulation to ensure that, particularly in the case of 303(d) listed streams, all CAFOs contributing to the impairment have a permit and a CNMP that meets basic minimum requirements.

5. Voluntary Programs: Although the strategy rightfully places emphasis on education, technical assistance, and financial grants as the primary means of promoting voluntary CNMPs, several key changes should be made to ensure that this aspect of the strategy achieves meaningful water quality benefits.

Second, also as discussed above, even under voluntary programs the strategy should explore means of placing the financial burden for CNMPs on the large processors that own most of the animals, rather than on the independent farmers that operate the facilities.

Finally, the strategy should make clear that any producer receiving financial or technical assistance must implement a CNMP.  The strategy does not make clear whether the various forms of assistance in fact require the producer to implement a CNMP.  Financial, technical, and other assistance should only be provided to landowners willing to implement CMNPs that will in fact benefit water quality .
 

The proliferation of factory farms poses a potentially catastrophic threat to water quality in many watersheds, and federal action to reduce this threat is needed.  Region 5 urges National to incorporate this issue into their national agenda and seek improvements to the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations to ensure that it results in concrete benefits to water quality and the protection of our nations coldwater resources.