Environmental Defense Fund Praises Miller Bill On Factory Feedlots

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), together with a range of other environmental, family farm and sustainable agriculture groups, today praised Congressman George Miller (CA) for introducing legislation aimed at strengthening the regulation of industrial-sized hog, poultry and other livestock feeding operations. The bill, known as the “Farm Sustainability and Animal Feedlot Enforcement Act,” would amend the federal Clean Water Act by placing tough new permitting, planning and technical standards for thousands of factory farms throughout the United States.

“Pollution from large factory feedlots throughout the United States is one of the most serious environmental issues today. This bill comes at a critical time as pork, poultry and other livestock production at factory feedlots has rapidly increased in the past few years and has spread into many states that lack even minimal environmental controls on these industries,” said North Carolina EDF attorney Daniel Whittle. Miller’s bill comes as US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of developing its own strategy for enhancing its existing regulatory program for factory feedlots. This strategy will likely be included in President Clinton’s Clean Water Action Plan, expected to be released soon.

Miller’s bill would direct the EPA to adopt a set of stringent federal guidelines on animal waste management and disposal at factory-sized farms, aimed primarily at reducing threats these operations pose to the nation’s rivers, streams and aquifers. The bill would preserve states’ current authority to do more if necessary to address particular environmental concerns, including imposing a moratorium on new and expanded facilities.

Significantly, the bill would result in a phasing out of the use of open air lagoons or ponds as the principal method of storing large volumes of animal waste, and require feedlots to develop and use more environmentally sound waste management technologies in the future. The bill also begins to tackle the problem of atmospheric pollution from feedlots.

“This bill recognizes the serious shortcomings of current animal waste practices. These open-air lagoons and sprayfields release vast quantities of nitrogen, methane, hydrogen sulfide and unacceptable levels of odor into the atmosphere. These pollutants pose significant threats to the environment and public health,” said Joe Rudek, North Carolina EDF senior scientist.