USA - EPA air quality program will monitor only about 30 factory farms
Published:March 7, 2005
Source :Aberdeen News
Thousands of factory farms nationwide are expected to sign up for a new Environmental Protection Agency compliance program, but the agency will pick only about 30 to monitor levels of gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.
The EPA program allows owners of farms that house thousands of hogs, chickens or dairy cattle to avoid fines for violating the Clean Air Act by paying a civil penalty up front and volunteering to collect air quality data over a two-year period. They also agree to correct any problems that federal officials uncover.
While all those who sign up would be exempt from fines during that period, it could take another two years to analyze the data. Until then, there isn't enough data to determine whether violations of air standards have occurred, said Thomas V. Skinner, EPA's chief of enforcement.
Through the agreement, officials are trying to scientifically gauge the level of emissions given off from factory farms, where thousands of cows, chickens or pigs - collectively producing tons of manure each year - are housed in small pens or cages under one roof.
Opponents of the confinements say the gases given off from the manure, which typically is stored in holding ponds or lagoons near the buildings, contribute to health problems, including respiratory ailments such as asthma. Such gases can include ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and methane.
Environmentalists call the EPA's compliance agreement an amnesty program. They say it exempts too many farms for too long and is the result of industry pressure on the Bush administration.
"This whole agreement was formed by polluters," said Tarah Heinzen, a Sierra Club organizer in Des Moines. "Pork producers approached the EPA initially with this plan, and the EPA went along."
Max Schmidt, environmental chairman for the Pork Checkoff's Environmental Committee, acknowledged that pork producers worked with the EPA to devise the program and contributed $6 million to the effort.
However, Schmidt, who raises 20,000 hogs on a farm near Elma, said the EPA didn't simply fulfill an industry wish list.
He said the agency listened to pork producers and agreed that more testing was needed before blanketing farmers with fines.
The sign-up period for farmers ends at the beginning of May.
Skinner offered no timetable on picking the farms to be monitored, but said the farms picked will include hog, egg and dairy farms and will be geographically diverse.
"We don't know where they are going to be, exactly. The initial indication is that the pork producers are very interested, poultry may be interested and dairy is still learning about the agreement," Skinner said.
Most troublesome to environmentalists is that the EPA is seeking volunteers when it already has the authority to require monitoring, Heinzen said.
"Whichever site the EPA chooses, this plan ignores the fact that they have the authority to implement the Clean Air Act now," she said.
The EPA in the past has been able to gather information only on a case-by-case basis, Skinner said, while the new data will allow the agency to come up with a uniform method for measuring emissions.
"There are thousands and thousands of these facilities across the country. If we have to go after them one by one, it will take forever ..." he said.
Skinner said state and local air quality programs will be unaffected by the EPA effort, but state officials remain uncertain about the impact on their own air standards.
North Carolina, for example, has an agreement that requires new manure handling technology at factory farms owned by Smithfield Foods, the nation's largest hog producer, and Premium Standard Farms.
"We don't want the EPA consent agreement to kind of walk all over the agreement we have already," said Gary Saunders, an environmental engineer with the North Carolina Division of Air Quality.
In Iowa, officials are conducting a two-year study, monitoring emissions at 10 farms across the state. The Legislature plans to look at the information once the study is finished, and then move forward with new air standards, said Bryan Bunton, an air quality expert with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Although he doesn't anticipate that the EPA's compliance agreement will affect the state's program, he did have concerns that the state may not have a say about what sites are chosen for the EPA program.
In Iowa, home to some of the largest hog and egg operations in the nation, there may be no monitoring under the agreement, Bunton said.
"That is one thing that we are concerned about. We feel like as the No. 1 swine producer in the country, and the No. 1 producer of eggs, that we should have facilities monitored here in the state of Iowa," he said.
Schmidt said that he, too, wishes that more farms could be tested, but at a cost of about $500,000 per site, it would be difficult to fund.
"As far as having enough of the facilities tested, you've got geographic regions ... but even from northern Iowa to southern Iowa is profoundly different," he said.
Gloria Goll's home sits less than a mile from a factory hog farm in Hancock County, where hog farms, with their clusters of oblong buildings, and wind turbines dot the rural landscape.
She said the struggle between folks like her, who worry about their health and the environment, and neighbors who operate factory farms has turned rural areas into "war zones."
The 68-year-old woman said she hopes the government will learn to evaluate air quality free from industry influence.
"They keep saying they want sound science. Well, I would like to see independent studies," she said. "We have to be careful who's funding the studies."
