During the past decade a new form of pollution has grown into a serious problem--one the framers of the Clean Air Act could never have anticipated. It is caused by the consolidation over the past decade of countless small farms into huge, factory farms that raise thousands of hogs, heifers and chickens in impossibly cramped quarters.
Euphemistically called "concentrated animal feeding operations," or CAFOs, the giant facilities also raise an enormous stench, as giant piles of rotting waste produce clouds of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds, and particulates. Their emissions have become so obnoxious that news reports regularly pop up when area residents demand that these corporate farms clean up their mess.
There was little coverage, however, when on the day after last month's presidential inauguration, one of the first acts of the second Bush Administration was to hand these polluters a generous free pass. Judiciously timed for release after the election--and on a day when the story was certain to be lost amidst inaugural euphoria--the EPA offered CAFOs more than two years' immunity from the Clean Air Act--as well as from certain toxic discharge standards--in exchange for participation in a program that would measure their air emissions.
The problem, according to Michele Merkel of the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), is that EPA's two-year pass is superfluous: the Clean Air Act already requires polluting facilities to provide this kind of data. As Merkel pointed out in an interview with Grist Magazine, there is no need to paralyze law enforcement for two years in order to collect it.
A former EPA attorney who brought the first CAFO lawsuit five years ago, Merkel says the enforcement hiatus can mean increased health risks for farm workers and nearby residents from emissions such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. A 2002 study by Iowa State University found widespread bronchitis in workers exposed to these pollutants.
In the same Grist report, Ed Hopkins, environmental quality director at the Sierra Club, described one egg farm in Iowa that was found to have ammonia emissions on a par with a fertilizer plant ranked as the ninth largest producer of hazardous gas in the country.
Under the Clean Air Act, said EIP's Merkel, farms violating the law can be fined $27,500 per day. CAFOs signing up for the new EPA plan need only pay a "membership fee" of $2,500, plus a one-time penalty of from $200 to $100,000 (depending on size) for "presumed" past violations. That, says Merkel, is "chump change."
Indeed, one of the biggest factory farmers, Tyson Foods, had ante'd up $100,000 just the week before to enjoy an inaugural candlelight dinner with President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Environmentalists still have one hope for reversing EPA's amnesty. Thanks to a tip obtained by EIP, an EPA plan to omit the usual 30-day public-comment period was reversed when EIP prepared to reveal it publicly. Knowing this would provoke unwanted headlines, EPA reversed itself. A 30-day public-comment period is now underway.
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This story was jointly produced by BushGreenwatch and Grist Magazine. For more on this story, visit Grist Magazine.
