By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An environmental group lashed out at the federal government late last month over a proposed rule change that would exempt large farms from reporting emissions of toxic gases from animal waste.

Earthjustice, a public interest legal group, submitted formal comments on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule change on March 27, the last day the public could comment. Under the proposed change, large chicken production facilities, hog confinements and cattle feeding operations would no longer have to report hazardous releases of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases.

“EPA doesn’t even assess what the health impacts of toxic gases from manure are,” said Keri Powell, an attorney for Earthjustice. “With air pollution, testing is a lot harder than it is for water pollution.”

Powell said the EPA thinks neither first responders nor anyone else will use the reports on toxic gas emissions from large farms, but she said it’s important for the public to be able to access these data. The reports allow the public to assess what it wants to do about air pollutants from large agricultural facilities, she said.
“It’s really the key source for getting information from large facilities about toxic gas emissions,” she said.

Lynn Henning knows something about large farms. She and her husband, Dean, live in Clayton, Mich., on the Ohio border in Lenawee County. They grow corn and soybeans on 300 acres. For the past two years she’s been a CAFO Water Sentinel for the Michigan Sierra Club, which means she collects water samples from nearby waterways so they can be tested for the presence of chemicals from agricultural runoff.

Henning is also concerned about air emissions from large farms, such as carbon dioxide gases, ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. She said her parents, who live in the area, suffer from hydrogen sulfide poisoning. Henning added she gets frequent headaches and sometimes loses her voice. Her family doctor has told her that over the past seven years she has lost one-third of her lung capacity because of her exposure to hydrogen sulfide.
“I’m very concerned about the emissions,” she said. “We have 12 large farms within a 10-mile radius. We had 284 violations from these 12 facilities documented by the DEQ.”

According to Earthjustice, the data generated by the reporting requirement is crucial for communities struggling with pollution from large farms. In one instance, the EPA relied on information reported by Ohio’s largest egg producer to address high concentrations of air pollutants released into a neighboring community, which resulted in a $1.6 million payout for local air pollution control.

Buckeye Egg Farm, the operation in question, agreed in 2004 to dramatically cut air emissions of particulate matter and ammonia from its three giant egg-laying facilities at Croton, Marseilles and Mt. Victory.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, Buckeye’s egg-laying operations have the capacity to house more than 12 million chickens in over 100 barns. It also stated preliminary air emissions testing at the three facilities revealed that the operation emitted 1,850 tons per year of particulate matter and 1,450 tons of ammonia.

“Many scientific studies have linked particulate matter to aggravated asthma, coughing, difficult or painful breathing, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function,” the statement said.

The problem, according to Powell, is that regulation has not caught up with the truly large farm phenomenon. Earthjustice claims animal density at poultry, swine, dairy and cattle operations have increased in recent years, between 50-176 percent nationwide.

Powell believes there needs to be more regulation of air pollutants from these farms, especially at mega-farms where thousands and even tens of thousands of large animals are raised in close quarters.