Coalition urges stronger rules for large livestock facilities

 

Bill Knight column for 9-3, 4 or 5, 2020

 Amid social-media nonsense and news about the pandemic, protests over police brutality, wildfires, hurricanes, and (oh, yes) an election campaign, stories about dangers and bureaucracies closer to home can get lost like whispers in a windstorm.

On the last day of a month-long period when the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s Bureau of Water accepted public comments about renewing the General National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to discharge into Illinois waters, a statewide coalition stressed that permit changes are immediately required.

The Illinois Coalition for Clean Air and Water and other public-interest groups submitted comments stating that the IEPA must assert its regulatory power over the industrial livestock industry in Illinois. Otherwise, the groups claimed, if the state fails to address flaws in its oversight obligations, Illinois could lose its federally delegated authority to administer the Clean Water Act – not only for CAFOs, but all regulated industries.

The permit-renewal process lets the public submit comments and address shortcomings of such regulations. This permit is supposed to regulate all livestock facilities that meet the definition of a CAFO that have caused or will cause a pollution discharge into waters of the United States.

CAFOs are a leading cause of water pollution in Illinois due to weak enforcement of the growing livestock industry, the conservation and environmental groups said, adding that stronger rules are needed to protect waters. Almost 120,000 stream miles, more than 300,000 lake acres, public and private water supplies, as well as quality of life all are impacted.

Almost all livestock operators still land-apply waste in areas with sloping, frozen, snow-covered, or saturated ground during several months of the year. Because of Illinois’ topographic physical features and water issues – from streams to aquifers –that can cause runoff pollution to ground and surface water. Also, Illinois has extensive acreage that’s been thoroughly tile-drained, which allows manure easy access to waters.

A key problem is that only a dozen or so of the thousands of livestock facilities in the state have applied to operate under this water-pollution-control permit, which “may cover existing and proposed livestock management facilities or livestock waste-handling facilities which currently have an existing NPDES permit or are required to have an NPDES permit,” the state concedes.

Currently, these facilities are not even required to register their operations and locations with the IEPA. This lack of oversight and regulation through permitting controls leave the IEPA and the public in the dark regarding massive amounts of manure application, locations, facility ownership and more, the groups contend.

“Unlike other states, IEPA does not employ its regulatory authority needed to properly regulate CAFOs,” said ICCAW attorney Danielle Diamond. “All livestock facilities should be required to register with the agency and all CAFOs should have to apply for NPDES or equivalent state pollution-control operating permits.

“ICCAW and partner groups have worked long and hard for change,” she continued. “Illinois has won the race to the bottom in terms of regulating pollution from CAFOs. We must change this scenario.”

In addition, the coalition – also including the Illinois Environmental Council, Socially Responsible Agricultural Project, and Trout Unlimited, plus citizens groups from Adams, Jo Daviess, Marshall, Peoria and Winnebago Counties – requested a public hearing on the draft CAFO General Permit. Some of the revisions they seek include greater manure application setbacks from residences and water sources, prohibition of manure spreading on snow and frozen ground, periodic ground- and surface-water quality monitoring around CAFOs, submission of manure management plans that are transparent to the public, and a provision making permit violations of livestock waste runoff onto others’ land or nuisance odors impacting neighboring properties.

“Illinois has some of the weakest CAFO regulations in the [Midwest] region,” Diamond has written, “and the state has failed to fulfill its responsibilities under federal law to administer the Clean Water Act.”

In the chaos and cacophony, listen for public-interest voices. Some may be in your backyard.