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By Ken Midkiff
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are springing up
like fetid mushrooms, from the DelMarVa Peninsula to Missouri to
Utah to California’s Central Valley. Bearing no resemblance
to the traditional farm, these operations use industrial processes
and contain thousands, even millions of animals.
Factory farms produce staggering amounts of waste, fouling air
and water and kicking up a tremendous stink. But the Bush administration
has given the meat industry control over a proposed deal to let
factory farms off the hook for pollution violations. Starting in
2002, meat industry lobbyists approached the administration, proposing
a deal where industry would be freed of responsibility for violations
of basic environmental protections such as the Clean Air Act and
toxics laws.
The chickens and hogs in these behemoth operations are owned by
multinational corporations with headquarters in New York, Chicago,
or Tokyo. This “modern agriculture” has nothing to do
with “feeding a hungry planet” and everything to do
with market control. Small-scale sustainable farming operations
are quite capable of feeding this nation and the world. Prior to
the advent of industrial-strength livestock production, there was
no shortage of milk, meat or eggs. Unfortunately, Tyson, Smithfield,
Seaboard, Perdue, ConAgra, Cargill, Fosters and their ilk own the
slaughterhouses and processing plants and won’t buy from independent
producers, putting family farmers out of business.
Long-time rural residents and local farmers have complained bitterly
about the overwhelming stench from these operations. A few hogs,
cows or chickens don’t smell like roses; a few thousand or
a few million of these animals, confined in small enclosed spaces,
emit a gut-wrenching stink. This odor is composed of hydrogen sulfide,
ammonia, methane, and manure dust.
A few months ago, a number of folks whose properties are unfortunately
located near some of these facilities wrote a letter to the U.S.
EPA, urging enforcement of the Clean Air Act. Their plea was for
relief from the stifling stench and the dangerous pollutants spewing
out of these factory farms. The Clean Air Act is quite specific.
It doesn’t matter if the offender is an oil-and-gas refinery
or an animal confinement operation, there are limits established
for emissions of harmful compounds that apply to all sources. The
EPA is authorized, indeed required, to administer and enforce the
law.
Instead, the EPA has been working behind closed doors with the
very agribusinesses that have been fouling the rural landscape.
New documents released this May revealed the extent of meat industry
control over the Bush administration’s proposed amnesty deal
for animal factory polluters. Ever since industry groups first approached
the EPA two years ago asking the agency to shield them from Clean
Air Act violations, Bush administration officials have been corresponding
in secret with industry lobbyists to craft a deal that would exempt
factory farms from air pollution requirements. Internal e-mails
show that industry lobbyists prepared power-point presentations
on the proposed deal for Bush administration officials to deliver.
The newly released documents reveal the extent of contact between
industry groups and the administration, with monthly meetings taking
place over a year-long period. One e-mail exchange documents an
EPA official admitting that it was a “no-no” for them
to request that the National Pork Producers Council pay for EPA’s
travel to a confidential meeting. “This is another example
of the Bush administration striking deals behind closed doors,”
says Barclay Rogers of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law
Program.
Lobbyists for large agribusiness corporations drafted the initial
versions of the deal, and later versions include all the points
considered important to the polluters. EPA staffers’ immediate
response was to deny that such meetings had taken place. When environmental
groups obtained leaked documents that clearly demonstrated that
the meetings had occurred, the EPA’s response was that “we
had kept the environmental groups informed.”
This amounts to the same pile of manure that the CAFOs produce.
No one in the EPA kept anyone other than agribusiness lobbyists
informed; to the contrary: the only way environmental groups learned
that this was going on was through “informed sources”
and leaked or requested documents. And when environmental, conservation,
and sustainable agriculture groups and state air pollution control
administrators objected vociferously to this backroom deal, EPA
staffers labeled these objections as “working with affected
groups.”
The EPA needs to be reminded of its mission—to protect the
human and natural environment. Environmental protection, not polluter
protection. Either that or just change the name to “Polluter
Protection Agency.”
Take Action:
Call or write Robert Kaplan,
the lead attorney at EPA in the Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance (OECA), who has been the agency’s principal spokesperson
and negotiator. Contact: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1200
Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20460. Tel: (202) 564-1110.
E-mail: kaplan.robert@epa.gov.
Ken Midkiff, Ozark Chapter Conservation Chair, served as the
Club’s longtime lead national organizer on CAFO issues.
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