USA - Iowa Livestock Producers Without Manure Plans Fined
Published:November 10, 2004
Source :Iowa Ag Connection
Iowa livestock producers who failed to file manure management plans with the state have been fined $143,000 this year.
While 27 of the fines are $1,500 in nature, 34 range up to $3,000 if the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had to do on-farm inspections. Data were collected from DNR news media releases.
The higher fines were part of a get-tough approach by the DNR against producers with 500 or more animal units who failed to voluntarily file manure management plans (MMPs). The fines were levied between June and October.
"Some were well over 1,000 animal units," says Gene Tinker, animal feeding operations coordinator with the DNR, of operations uncovered by DNR field staff. These will also need a federal permit called a national pollution discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit.
Under an Iowa 2002 bill, livestock producers raising more than 500 animal units (500 cattle, 1,250 finishing swine or 357 head of mature dairy cattle) in confinement are required to file MMPs with the DNR.
The purpose is to ensure that adequate land is available for manure application and that manure is not over-applied threatening water quality.
About 3,800 producers had filed MMPs. But the DNR knew, from driving the countryside, that there were other producers who had not filed MMPs. "I guessed there'd be as many as 600. It's not going to be that many," says Tinker, "maybe closer to 300."
Money from the fines goes, under revised Iowa law, into the DNR's animal agriculture compliance fund for use by the agency.
