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Sierra Club Minimal Criteria for Issuance of Permits to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. 1. Prior to issuance of a State Operating or NPDES permit, the public must be afforded the opportunity to comment on the proposed permit. A Public Notice or Notice of Intent should be issued, the proposed permit should be forwarded to entities that have requested to be on a mailing list, and copies of the proposed permit must be provided to adjacent and neighboring landowners (those within 2 miles of the site). The comment period must be for a period of at least 30 days. 2. No General Permit (one-size-fits-all) should be issued to large CAFOs (more than 5000 Animal Units*, for example), to any operation that has had a water quality violation within the past 5 years, nor to any operation under contact with an agribusiness "integrator". The large operations, violators, and contract operations must obtain a site-specific individual permit. 3. Any permit issued (whether GP or individual) must prohibit discharge of animal wastes to waters of the state. Any discharge of wastewater to waters of the state, including groundwater, shall constitute a violation of the no-discharge permit. This should apply to all components of a CAFO: growing or confinement buildings, cesspits, and land application areas. 4. a. Each CAFO must prepare and implement a Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (detailing how the operation will land apply animal feces and urine). This CNMP must be made available to the public during the Public Notice and Comment period, and should be considered an essential component of the Permit. The CNMP, in short, becomes a permit condition. b. There must be a prohibition against land application of wastes on frozen or snow-covered ground and during, prior to forecasted, or immediately after, rain events. (Also see #7 below). 5. The conditions of any permit issued must be sufficient to protect water quality and water resources. Since General Permits are a one-size-fits-all permit, the permit conditions must be scrutinized to ensure that ground and surface waters will not be negatively affected. 6. Cesspits (aka "lagoons") must be constructed or lined in such a fashion that leakage does not occur. NOTE: while this seems to be self-explanatory and reasonable, many states permit cesspits to leak at prescribed rates. The cesspit should not leak or spill over under ANY circumstances. 7. Animal wastes must be applied as fertilizer at optimal agronomic rates. This entails annual soil tests and the crop to be grown – the rate of application must be based on the needs of the soils for a specific crop. For example: legumes (alfalfa, soybeans, peanuts) don’t require nitrogen, so any plan to apply manures to these crops would not meet the "fertilizer test". NOTE: there is no agronomic rate for trace metals (such as lead or chromium), consequently these should NEVER be land applied. 8. Any stormwater runoff of manure components from a land application area shall be indisputable evidence that the no-discharge permit condition has been violated. To ascertain this, upstream and downstream monitoring is required (see #9 below). 9. Any GP or individual permit issued to a CAFO must require 1) upstream and downstream monitoring and 2) monitoring points where stormwater exits the land-application area. 10. Cesspits should be of sufficient volume to store feces and urine generated by the CAFO and to hold a rain event of ANY duration (ie 24 hour/25 year, 24 hour/100 year, or a rainfall event lasting several days). The cesspits should be constructed in such a fashion that no runoff waters enter the pits – only direct rainfall should enter the pits. Consequently, even if there is rainfall of 12 inches, the cesspit should only rise by 12 inches. 11. No CAFO should be issued a permit or allowed to be constructed in a watershed of an impaired waterbody, a state or national outstanding resource waters, or in a watershed where the stream or river is in danger of not meeting "fishable/swimmable" standards. 12. The permit must require posting of a financial assurance instrument sufficient to properly enact closure of all cesspits associated with the CAFO. 13. The issuing agency must conduct random, unannounced inspections of the CAFO. 14. The issuing agency will respond to complaints of permit violations within 24 hours. 15. The permit fee and the funds generated shall be sufficient to cover the costs of the issuing agency in administering the program, including #s 12 and 13 above. NOTE: These are generic MINIMAL CRITERIA. There are places in every state where no CAFO should be allowed, or where very stringent site-specific conditions must be imposed to protect water quality and water resources. Assistance is available for analyzing and commenting on proposed permits. Please contact: Contact Us For information about the Sierra Club and factory farms: For media inquiries: * One animal unit equals: 1 beef steer, 2.5 hogs, 30 laying hens, and 100 broilers
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