http://www.boston.com/dailynews/197/nation/FARM_SCENE_When_manure_isn_t_m:.shtml

FARM SCENE: When manure isn't manure An unprecedented EPA action alarms hog industry

By Kelly Kurt, Associated Press, 7/16/2001 03:05

HENNESSEY, Okla. (AP) In the red dirt of central Oklahoma, where tractors lumber until dark and the stench of 8,800 sows clings to the breeze, manure has a new name: solid waste.

In an unprecedented move, the Environmental Protection Agency last month ordered a major hog producer to obey the same law that governs industrial and municipal pollution.

The consequences may be more than just a label change. The hog industry fears the order could touch every hog pen, chicken coop and cow pasture in rural America.

''It's a suggestion that manure is a toxic waste,'' said Al Tank, head of the National Pork Producers Council, which opposes using laws regulating hazardous and solid waste against hog farmers.

The EPA took action after discovering excessive nitrates in the private water well of Ana Rangel, who was 8½ months pregnant at the time. High levels of nitrates can cause illness or death, particularly in infants.

Monitoring wells at hog waste lagoons in the area were found to have nitrate levels that were 10 times the acceptable level. The EPA feared waste had leaked from lagoons into the groundwater flow.

Using the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the EPA declared that the leaking effluent was, in essence, solid waste. The act typically applies to hazardous and solid wastes from industry or municipal water treatment plants.

The agency ordered Seaboard Farms Inc. and former owner PIC International to investigate and clean up any contamination acknowledging it doesn't know for sure if the lagoons are to blame.

''The whole idea is to protect public health,'' said Tim Jones, an EPA lawyer. ''Whether we know conclusively if it's coming from a lagoon is not as important as protecting health.''

Seaboard's supporters say that's unfair.

Wells in this farming region have tested high for nitrates before, and the pork industry points to fertilizer used by wheat farmers as a source. The town of Hennessey's water supply has been cited for nitrate violations in excess of 15 parts per million three times since 1995; 10 parts or higher is considered a health threat.

''There's a nitrate problem in this area. Is it related to hogs? We don't see the proof,'' said Shawn Lepard, executive director of ProAg, an Oklahoma lobby group that supports corporate farming.

Lepard arranged a visit with Luis and Ana Rangel, whose son was born healthy soon after the EPA order. The couple lived a quarter-mile from a manure pit big enough to hold two football fields. They've since moved but aren't sure whom to blame for their contaminated well.

''We talked to our doctor who said the wheat farmers aren't very innocent either,'' said Luis Rangel, a local ranch hand.

Seaboard, the nation's third-largest pork producer, is cooperating with the EPA. The Merriam, Kan.-based company will pay for an investigation to ''prove ourselves innocent,'' said spokesman Gary Reckrodt.

''We are as concerned about our neighbors as anybody. We have employees, our own families, living near sites,'' he said. ''If it's proven that it does have something to do with our operations, we'll address it.''

In December, the EPA declared concentrated animal feeding operations like Seaboard's one of the nation's chief causes of water pollution. But enforcement action has been taken only once before against a hog farm over groundwater pollution. In that case, a North Carolina producer dug deeper wells for nearby residents after land application of manure was suspected of contaminating water.

The hog industry is suspicious of the EPA's timing in the Oklahoma case. The agency has monitored the farms for years because of their risky location above an aquifer topped by a thin shelf of sandy soil.

Roy Lee Lindsay, head of the Oklahoma Pork Council, believes the agency is trying to bolster its case for a proposal to expand the number of cattle feedlots and hog farms that have to get pollution permits.

''We're raising food to feed the world. To us, that's agriculture,'' Lindsay said. ''Opponents tell you that we're an industry. They're trying to treat us not as agriculture producers but as an industry.''

Tank warns that if the EPA is successful against Seaboard, it could use the Resource Conservation law against manure produced by cattle and poultry operations, or even farmers applying fertilizer to row crops.

''This is a very serious legal precedent that has implications for not only Seaboard but for every pork producer, every livestock producer, every poultry producer regardless of size in the United States,'' he said.

Tom Buis of the National Farmers Union doubts the case will have any effect on family farmers and said different rules should apply to corporate farms. And EPA spokesman David Bary said it's a leap to assume the agency will use the law across the board.

''This case is unique,'' he said. ''It's unique because of the demonstrated effect on groundwater and public health.''

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Answers

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/197/nation/Key_terms_in_the_dispute_be twe:.shtml

Key terms in the dispute between hog farmers and the government over pollution laws

By Associated Press, 7/16/2001 03:19

HOG LAGOONS: Hog waste is flushed from barns into vast uncovered outdoor pits or lagoons. They may be clay or synthetically lined or both. Microbes help break down the waste in the lagoon. The effluent from the lagoons also may be applied to fields.

NITRATES: A plant nutrient found in considerable concentrations in swine waste. The Environmental Protection Agency labels nitrate levels of 10 parts per million or higher a health threat. High levels of nitrates in the water can cause a blood disorder in infants known as ''blue baby syndrome,'' which can be fatal if left untreated.

GROUNDWATER: Water that saturates subsurface formations or aquifers. Groundwater constitutes about 40 percent of the water used for public water supplies and provides drinking water for more than 97 percent of the rural population in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT: Governs solid and hazardous wastes from municipal and industrial sources nationwide. The EPA can issue administrative orders under the act when the handling or disposal of solid or hazardous waste poses imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

While I agree that hog and chicken factories and large feedlots should be held to different rules because they are ruining the environment, I can't help but feel there is something else going on here. They have ignored the problems of the hog factories for a lot of years, why now? They could have stopped this before it became a problem.

The EPA is all of a sudden interested in farmers. There are new feedlot rules going into place as well. We have been sent information (that I can't lay my hands on right now) that we should register as a feedlot so the EPA won't go after us (figure that one out). We pasture all of our animals and only bring them up to the smaller lots at the house for the winter. Well, one of the EPA rules says you can do that for only 45 days a year. Considering that our winters are about 150 days they will consider us a feedlot even though we use much larger lots than a normal feedlot - the animals have plenty of room and shelter.

Also farms are not allowed any leakage but cities are allowed a percentage from their treatment plants. In an interview I read, a farmer was told that cities can't afford to get down to zero leakage - --but farmers can?????

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

In most states, the federal "NPDES" industrial discharge program under the Clean Water Act has been delegated to the state. North Carolina and Ohio are delegated states. According to my outdated notes, Oklahoma is not. I have thought that might be why EPA has ignored hog factories for so long.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Brooks,

I don't know about Iowa being designated, but here it has the locals royally pissed about the groundwater being contaminated.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Beckie, I have Iowa listed as a delegated state, but that doesn't necessarily mean the state manages all possible programs under the Clean Water Act.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001