EPA Plan Won't End Pollution From Factory Farms, Says EDF

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today criticized the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Department of Agriculture’s new plan to control pollution from industrial-sized hog, poultry and other livestock feeding operations, and called upon the Clinton Administration to impose a moratorium on new factory farms.

“This plan acknowledges that factory feedlots are serious polluters, but offers no serious solutions,” said Daniel Whittle, attorney for the North Carolina EDF. “Today’s plan is bad for the taxpayer and the environment. It fails to address the public health and environmental threats associated with current factory farm waste management. In addition, the plan sticks taxpayers and small growers with the full cost of implementation, while letting factory farms off the hook. A national strategy is needed to support and complement efforts by states to regulate this industry. Unfortunately, what has been proposed falls far short of the mark.”

Instead of cleaning up, the plan will have many of the largest factory farms simply writing up strategies for storing and disposing of large volumes of manure, based on exisiting federal waste management standards and practices. EDF and other environmental groups have been calling for the replacement of current waste practices with new systems that do a better job of eliminating or reducing the impact of factory farms to water and air quality and to rural communites.

“Production at factory farms has rapidly increased in the past few years and spread into many states lacking even minimal environmental controls on these industries. Today’s plan does nothing in the near- term to address the serious shortcomings of current animal waste practices,” said Joe Rudek, North Carolina EDF senior scientist. “The continued management of massive volumes of manure in primitive open-air lagoons and sprayfields that contaminate groundwater and streams, while releasing sickening odors and pollutants into the air, is utterly unacceptable.”

“In North Carolina, which up until last year was the country’s fastest growing pork producing state, lawmakers imposed a moratorium on new and expanded factory hog farms until ongoing scientific research is completed. The state is also developing a plan to phase-out the use of open-air lagoons and sprayfields in favor of more effective waste technologies and practices. It’s time for the EPA to adopt a temporary national moratorium on new or expanding factory farms until real pollution conrol plans are put in place, said Whittle.