The EPA's Proposed CAFO Regulations Fall Short of Ensuring the Integrity of Our Nation's Waters
![handle is hein.journals/lrel22 and id is 371 raw text is: The EPA's Proposed CAFO Regulations Fall Short
of Ensuring the Integrity of Our Nation's Waters
Michael Steeves
I. INTRODUCTION
Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), have long been a significant
source of pollution in our nation's rivers, streams, and waters. This pollution
contributes to excess nutrients in water bodies, algae blooms, eutrophication,
massive fish kills, atmospheric deposition of nitrogen, and outbreaks of the toxic
Pfiesteria piscicida. In addition to these water quality issues, there are severe
environmental and public health impacts associated with the concentrated
production of livestock, including groundwater contamination, exposure to
pathogens, antibiotic resistance, odor, loss of habitat, and heavy metal contamina-
tion.
Over twenty years ago, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, or the Clean
Water Act (CWA), included feedlots as a point source in recognition of their
potential to pollute. This recognition is even more appropriate today, as feedlots
now stockpile and land-apply animal manure in quantities that could never have
been anticipated twenty years ago. Over the past several decades, CAFOs have
replaced smaller farming operations, concentrating animal waste on fields and in
lagoons. In 1997, there were about 40% fewer livestock and poultry farms than
in 1974, as smaller farms were being driven out of business by large-scale
operations.2 As the waste produced from these operations increases, its effects,
both on health and the environment, continue to compound.
Recognizing that a stronger regulatory program is needed to mitigate such
impacts, and acknowledging that CAFOs are a significant source of pollution in
our nation's rivers, streams, and waters, the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has proposed revisions to the National Pollutant Discharge Effluent System
Permit Regulations and Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for
Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO regulations).3 These CAFO
regulations are a direct result of a consent decree reached in a citizen suit filed
against the EPA in 1989 by the Natural Resources Defense Counsel and Public
Citizen alleging violations of section 304(m) of the CWA.4 Under the decree, the
EPA agreed to revise existing effluent limitations and establish new guidelines for
33 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1387 (2001).
2 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit Regulation and Effluent Limitations Guidelines
and Standards for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Proposed CAFO Regulations, 66 Fed. Reg. 2960,
2974 (Jan. 12, 2001) (to be codified at C.F.R. pt. 122, 412) [hereinafter Proposed CAFO Regulations].
3Id.
4 See Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Inc. v. Reilly, No. 89-2980, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5334
(D.D.C. 1992).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/lrel22&div=13&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The EPA's Proposed CAFO Regulations Fall Short of Ensuring the Integrity of Our Nation's Waters
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