WASHINGTON D.C. — The push to place large animal farm operations into the same category as industrial air polluters has landed the U.S. EPA in federal court for failing to act on the longstanding issue.
The EPA is the target of lawsuits by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Sierra Club, Center for Food Safety, Environmental Integrity Project, Friends of the Earth, Clean Wisconsin, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Assoc. of Irritated Residents.
The lawsuits want the EPA compelled to use its authority to control emissions from so-called "factory farms," to list operations with large numbers of animals such as hogs and chickens as a source of pollution under the Clean Air Act and to set performance standards for new and existing facilities.
The organizations filed petitions with EPA in 2009 and 2011 asking that "factory farm" pollution be addressed, but no action has been taken, and in the lawsuit it’s alleged the amount of time elapsed without acting is "unreasonable under federal law." One of the petitions also seeks to have EPA set health-based standards for ammonia.
In announcing the lawsuit, HSUS officials claim emissions from an estimated 20,000 large farms in the nation contain toxins like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, along with particulates that contribute to health problems such as asthma and heart attacks. HSUS also cites mounting evidence that air from large-scale animal operations can make not only workers, but nearby residents sick.
"EPA’s failure to address these impacts should be alarming to anyone that cares about animal welfare, worker safety, human health, environmental protection or the preservation of rural communities," said Jonathan Lovvorn, chief counsel for animal protection litigation for HSUS.
The lawsuits ask the court to order the EPA to make a final decision on the 2009 and 2011 petitions within 90 days.
The National Pork Producers Council based in Washington, D.C., is among the agricultural groups that argue there’s no scientific evidence to substantiate claims of any medical risk in the emissions from large animal farms. There’s also been no threshold set in terms of what level a pollutant from a large animal farm has to reach before deemed a health risk.
Dave Warner, director of communications for the group, said agriculture is exempt from regulation under the Clean Air Act and sees no reason to make any changes unless there’s scientific proof. He said representatives from the ag community took part with the EPA in a study of air emissions from animal farms several years ago.
The EPA was supposed to use those figures and the results of a prior study by Purdue University to set standards for air emissions for animal farms but nothing has yet materialized, said Warner.
He also takes strong exception to the term "factory farms," calling it a label used by opponents of agriculture to scare the public and gain a public relations advantage in trying to shape policy.
"There may be big ones, which could be co-ops of family farms or it could be several families or several brothers and one family running one, but there is no such thing as a factory farm," said Warner.
He acknowledged there are gases in the air and potential water issues from manure, but farm owners also usually live on the property and try to address those matters effectively not only for the public’s sake but for their own. "They’re not going to be polluting their water and they’re certainly not going to want to pollute the air they’re going to breathe."
Warner said any regulations that might come about are fine as long as they’re based on science and aren’t so extreme they force farmers out of business.
"The regulation needs to be practical. It needs to be economically sustainable. It could be based on facts, but in opposing a certain regulation you might (run) the pork industry or all of the livestock industry out of business. All of these things have to be looked at," he said.
Chris Hurt, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, said any regulations should not be so extreme they put farmers out of business – and not so lenient that the air is a detriment to the people who have contact with it. He said air quality from large farm operations has been an issue for 20 years or more and lawsuits against government agencies to force regulations on any industry is nothing new.
Once a lawsuit is filed, it often takes years for a decision or resolution because of the many interpretations of the evidence from all of the parties involved. "Not likely this is a quick process," said Hurt.
He said one of the benefits of a lawsuit regardless of how it turns out is the attention it brings to a particular issue. "About all groups in a policy framework want acknowledgement, and they want attention for their causes. I don’t think that’s good or bad. That’s just the nature of the political process."
