The Environmental Protection Agency has rejected a petition calling for stricter regulation of concentrated animal feeding operations, deciding instead to establish a federal advisory committee to examine the matter.
In an Aug. 15 letter to the groups that filed the 2017 petition, the agency said it shares the concern the CAFOs “can be a significant source of pollutants into waters of the United States.”
EPA set it would set up a subcommittee under its existing Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee “to hear from farmers, community groups, researchers, state agencies, and others about the most effective and efficient ways to reduce pollutants generated from CAFOs.”
At the same time, EPA will start “a comprehensive evaluation of potential areas for improvement” of the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program for CAFOs. That review will include an examination of the effluent limitations and guidelines (ELGs) for CAFOs.
In a release, Food & Water Watch, one of the nearly three dozen petitioners, criticized EPA’s decision, which only came after it was sued for unreasonable delay in responding to the six-year-old petition.
“EPA’s deeply flawed response amounts to yet more delay, and completely misses the moment,” FWW Legal Director Tarah Heinzen said.
FWW argued factory farm pollution “threatens or impairs” more than 14,000 miles of rivers and streams and 90,000 acres of lakes and pounds across the country, but fewer than one-third of the largest 21,000 operations have National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
The Center for Food Safety and other petitioners also blasted the EPA’s response.
“President Biden's voiced commitment to environmental justice must extend to the agricultural industry — EPA has a responsibility to protect clean water in all communities,” said Rania Masri of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network.
Petitioners included six national advocacy groups and 27 state and community-based groups, FWW said.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents members operating CAFOs across the country, welcomed EPA’s decision. Mary-Thomas Hart, the group’s chief counsel, said NCBA “appreciates the EPA recognizing that America’s farmers and ranchers are committed to ensuring clean water.”
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“EPA is protecting cattle producers from frivolous distractions and allowing them to return to the important job of stewarding our natural resources and feeding the nation,” she said in a statement.
EPA told the petitioners it did not want to establish a “rebuttable presumption” that certain CAFOs discharge, pointing to what it said were similar, previously adopted regulatory requirements that were vacated in court.
CAFOs are classified by size — large, medium and small. Large CAFOs are those with 1,000 or more cattle or cow/calf pairs or 2,500 or more swine (over 55 pounds), for example.
The agency said it “recognizes that many Large CAFOs are unpermitted. To the extent these unpermitted Large CAFOs may have dry weather discharges from their land application areas or discharges that do not otherwise qualify as agricultural stormwater, such discharges violate the CWA and EPA’s NPDES regulations. Addressing any such discharges is foremost a question of implementation and enforcement of the current regulatory scheme.”
In its study of the effluent guidelines, EPA said it “will evaluate the extent to which CAFOs discharge into waters of the United States, and whether such discharges are concentrated in particular regions or states, or widespread nationally.”
It also said it would “gather information about new technologies and practices for reducing discharges from the production areas and land application areas associated with CAFOs and consider whether these technologies may be technologically available and economically achievable.”
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Correction: This article has been corrected to describe CAFOs as concentrated animal feeding operations.
