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Have Your Say Before EPA Makes a Gift to Factory Farms
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2008

Pick an area of environmental concern—global warming, say, or air quality, water quality, land use, sustainable agriculture, food safety—and you’ll find factory farms at the heart of it.

Pick an area of environmental concern—global warming, say, or air quality, water quality, land use, sustainable agriculture, food safety—and you’ll find factory farms at the heart of it. Confined animal feeding operations, CAFOs, sequester thousands of animals in crowded feed lots or sheds, and pool their resultant wastes in manure pits or lagoons. The pits emit toxic gases, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, into the air. Though the EPA does not impose a limit on these emissions, it does require that CAFOs report the emissions when they exceed a certain level. The reports help local officials hold the feeding operations accountable for the pollutants they produce.

The EPA has proposed exempting CAFOs from this reporting requirements. The rule change would be a gift to CAFO owners and their trade associations, which have long complained that the reporting puts their businesses at risk for lawsuits when their identified emissions threaten public health.

The public which is being told we must accept that risk has an opportunity to comment on the proposed rule change .Tell the EPA “NO!” on or before March 27. Here’s how:

Prepare your comments, referring to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-SFUND-2007-0469.

E-mail: superfund.docket@epa.gov. Refer to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-SFUND-2007-0469 in subject line

U.S. mail: Mail code: [2822T], 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460.

Fax: Transmit to 202-566-9744

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